Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

That noise you hear at the multiplex this holiday weekend is the gobbling of turkeys from *New Moon* to *Old Dogs*. To boost morale, mine and yours, I want to point to a genuinely inspiring movie event opening next month. It’s called *Invictus* (Latin for unconquered). Clint Eastwood directed it so you know the scaffolding of this tremendously exciting true story will be sturdy and artfully presented with humor, heart, rich characterization and a notable absence of bullshit. *Invictus* is about a newly elected black President struggling to unite citizens divided by racism. The name Obama never comes up — it couldn’t since the time is 1995 and the place is South Africa. The President is Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) who was voted into office the year before in the country’s first free election. The challenge facing Mandela is to find a way to make peace with the apartheid forces that put him in jail for three decades. Mandela figures that battle should take place on, of all things, the rugby field. A little background here:

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