HIDDEN FIGURES

(2016) Hidden Figures, one of my favorite films of the year already, tells the real-life story of three female African-American mathematicians who, in the early days of NASA and the space program, were instrumental in helping to send the first man into space.  Katherine (Taraji P. Henson, who was absolutely ROBBED of an Oscar nomination), a math genius on a savant level from childhood, ends up the one working most closely on the front lines of literally getting the capsule up - while her best friends Dorothy (Oscar-nominated Octavia Spencer) and Mary (Janelle Monae) contribute equally in the areas of bringing NASA into the computer age and breaking new ground in engineering, respectively.  Further hitting home just how much these women did is in the context of their personal lives and the segregation that still existed in this country in the early 1960's; Mary has to push twice as hard to attend classes at a whites-only night school so she can qualify for an engineering position no Black woman has ever held in the first place, and Dorothy is refused a promotion to supervisor, after years of doing the work, because there is no such thing as a Black supervisor, while Katherine - having moved out of the "colored" building to work with the big boys - still has to run more than half a mile back to that building every time she needs to use the "coloreds-only" bathroom, after drinking coffee from the coloreds-only coffeepot.  In these days of a changing tide in the government, during which America seems to be going back to a country of persecution and hate under the rule of a bigoted puppet, these scenes of oppression serve as stark reminders of how backward we were as a nation just a matter of decades ago.  That said, Hidden Figures still manages to be filled with a heart and humor that will leave you smiling - not only serving as a flag-waving period piece of one of this country's greatest achievements ... but also a clear reminder that what we do best as people, we do best when we're all working together.  (rated PG)  9/10 stars