Debating Denzel

Denzel Washington’s second directorial effort tells the true story of Melvin Tolson, a professor at Wiley College in Texas who started the African-American school’s first debate team in the 1930s in The Great Debaters. The team came from nowhere to challenge Harvard for the national debate championship. Washington plays Tolson himself, and gets help from fellow Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker in this historical, coming-of-age drama. Shot and produced in Shreveport. PG-13. Out on DVD now.