IF YOU GO

What: A Time to Kill, tonight; Presumed Innocent, Nov. 4. When: 7 p.m. Where: Mariemont Theatre, 6906 Wooster Pike. Post-film discussion at the Mariemont Inn, 6880 Wooster Pike. Tonight, led by Federal Magistrate Timothy S. Black; Nov. 4, led by Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Steven Martin. Tickets: $6; $4 for members of the Young Lawyers Section of the Cincinnati Bar Association and Chase Law School students. Information: (513) 272-0222.

The film series is an example of a growing trend toward do-it-yourself movie exhibition by people interested in a particular slice of the cinematic world. Among them are the political series showing at Kaldi's Coffeehouse in Over-the-Rhine on Monday nights, Cincinnati World Cinema's upcoming "Documentaries for Democracy" series at Mount Lookout Cinema Grill and last year's CineLatino Spanish-language films.

Reel Justice was the brainchild of Judge J. Howard Sundermann, of the First District Court of Appeals, and several friends in the legal community, including Gary Goldman, a lawyer who heads the company that owns the Mariemont. Post-film discussions take place at nearby restaurants; Sundermann enlisted volunteers to lead the conversations. The first Reel Justice film, Otto Preminger's 1959 courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Murder, played in May 2003.

Sundermann, who also writes about movies for Picturing Justice: The Online Journal of Law and Popular Culture, recently shared some thoughts about the Reel Justice experience. Here are excerpts:

Question: What's your favorite film from the series?

Answer: Witness for the Prosecution. That's always been my favorite.

Q: Does it drive you crazy to see courtroom movies that get legal issues all wrong?

A: In order to enjoy these movies you have to put these aside a little bit. Directors ... have to present a long trial in a short space of time, so they have to ignore evidence rules.

Q: Is general understanding of the law distorted by movies and TV shows?

A: Movies tend to teach people what the system is like and to the extent they are wrong, people are being miseducated. I think a lot of people are disturbed by what they see as the slowness of a trial. They think, why does it take a week, when on L.A. Law they can do it in an hour?

Q: How have the post-movie discussions gone?

A: Very well. When you've got a group of lawyers in room, there usually isn't any trouble with people talking. ... One of my jobs is to cut it off at a certain point, or we'd be there all night sometimes.

Q: Who has been coming to the movies?

A: Chiefly lawyers, judges, their spouses, law students. ... We've always had higher attendance for the old films than for the new ones. ... We surmise that people have seen the more modern ones on cable and - particularly for the younger lawyers - they have never seen them before.

Q: What movies are on your wish list for future shows?

A: We were thinking about showing Inherit the Wind. The Larry Flynt film (The People vs. Larry Flynt) and perhaps asking (Cincinnati-based First Amendment lawyer) Lou Sirkin to come in for the discussion. The Verdict is one we talked about. Compulsion (and ) ... And Justice For All.

E-mail mmcgurk@enquirer.com