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    Movie Review

    Matthew McConaughey’s beard is just one abomination in Free State of Jones

    Alex Bentley
    Jun 23, 2016 | 3:35 pm
    Matthew McConaughey’s beard is just one abomination in Free State of Jones
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    When it comes to movies about the Civil War, the side that usually gets short shrift is the Confederacy, because the winners, not the losers, tell the history. But this inadvertently lumps all Southerners into a monolithic racist group, with little, if any, nuance given to Confederate characters.

    Free State of Jones attempts to change that perception through the story of Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), a Confederate medical worker who deserts the army in order to bring his dead nephew home to be buried. Once he arrives home, he also witnesses a band of Confederate soldiers robbing the women and children left behind as a way to keep the front lines supplied with food and clothes.

    Already a conscientious objector to slavery, Knight uses resentment over the treatment of lower class citizens by the army, and the very idea of slavery, to grow his own group of rebels within Jones County, Mississippi and the surrounding area. That group proceeds to protect their land and their people at all costs, forcing the army to fight a war on two fronts.

    What at first appears to be another story about a white man being a savior for African-Americans ends up being nothing of the sort. An early look at Knight’s interactions with slaves, including a romantic one with Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), yields to a somewhat more conventional story of class warfare among white people.

    As more and more soldiers desert, the small group of slaves that initially helped Knight fades into the background, save for Rachel and Moses (Mahershala Ali), the most strong-willed of the bunch. More troubling in a storytelling sense, though, is the scattershot approach of writer/director Gary Ross. Instead of keeping a tight focus on one story, he gradually loosens the reins, and the movie runs wild.

    This is never more evident than with the haphazard insertion of scenes 85 years later, when Knight’s great-grandson is being denied his right to marry because he is determined to be 1/8 African-American. Ross appears to be making some larger point about the continued existence of racism well after the emancipation of slaves, but the side story is clunky and takes away greatly from the main story.

    McConaughey is fine as Knight, although it’s a far cry from his other recent award-winning roles. Whether it’s real or fake, his abomination of a beard distracts from his acting instead of enhancing his character. Mbatha-Raw lends a nice touch to a role that’s not usually as multifaceted as she ends up making it.

    Free State of Jones makes a few solid points about the prejudgment of others and racism in general, but as a pure moviegoing experience, it lacks depth and emotion.

    Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones.

    Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones
      
    Photo courtesy of STX Productions
    Matthew McConaughey in Free State of Jones.
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    Book News

    Barnes & Noble to open 2 new Dallas-area stores but will close Plano

    Teresa Gubbins
    Jun 12, 2025 | 6:56 pm
    Barnes & Noble
    Barnes & Noble
    Barnes & Noble, new look.

    There's good news and sad on the bookstore front: Two new locations of bookstore chain Barnes & Noble are opening in the Dallas area, one soon and one very soon, but a third is closing this week.

    Closing
    The store in Plano at 801 W. 15th St. is closing on Sunday, June 15. According to a company representative, the Plano store is an older, larger store model that the chain is turning away from, in favor of a new smaller model it's embracing for all new stores.

    This Plano store is also within close proximity to three other Barnes & Noble locations: West Plano, Richardson, and Allen which just opened in 2024.

    Other Barnes & Noble locations with that same older/larger floorplan include Preston & Park in Plano; Prestonwood Center in North Dallas, and Lincoln Park in Dallas across from Northpark Center.

    Opening
    On the bright side, there are two new Barnes & Noble stores opening in summer/fall:

    • Rockwall, at 1009 E I-30, will open in late summer in the space formerly occupied by Staples, which closed in January 2025.
    • Prosper, at 1191 Gates Pkwy., in the newly developed Gates of Prosper, will open in the fall.

    According to a spokesperson, both stores will follow the chain's new design seen in their most recent store openings, featuring "all the best books, toys, games, vinyl, and gifts our customers have come to expect." They will both span approximately 20,000 square feet, and will both house a B&N Café.

    In August 2019, Barnes & Noble was acquired by Elliott Advisors (UK) and taken private. Elliott’s acquisition of Barnes & Noble followed its June 2018 acquisition of Waterstones, the largest bookseller in the U.K.

    Barnes & Noble is experiencing a period of growth, the result of a strategy to hand over control of each bookstore to its manager. They're enjoying strong sales and have opened many new stores a comeback after 15 years of declining store numbers. In 2022, they opened more new bookstores in a single year than in the entire decade from 2009 to 2019.

    They've continued to open more locations, including three in the DFW area in 2024: the store in Allen, as well as stores in Flower Mound and Richardson.

    Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest retail bookseller in the United States. The company has more than 630 bookstores across the U.S., as well as its online bookstore at bn.com, the Nook Digital business which offers both e-books and an audio book subscriptions service, the SparkNotes educational service, stationery and gift retailer Paper Source, and the publisher Union Square & Co.

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