New on video: Nate Parker's 'Birth of a Nation,' 'Mr. Robot Season_2.0'

It was almost one year ago that writer-director-producer-star Nate Parker premiered his Nat Turner biopic at Sundance to a rapturous reception and talk of Oscars. Then Parker's past legal troubles cast a shadow over the release, and the movie faded quickly at the box office. But festival audiences didn't get this one wrong. The movie bluntly depicts the horrors of slavery and uses the details of a famous 1831 slave rebellion to tell a stirring story of radical self-determination, pointing to the larger historical tragedy of American bigotry and human exploitation. Though the low budget and pulpy violence are a hindrance, this is ultimately the kind of bracingly personal project that indie cinema could use more of, with a complex perspective on how slaves experienced the Christian Gospels first as a chain forged by their masters and then as a weapon they could learn to wield.