luckydogguy Reviews

The Hunt (II) (2020)

A cancelled movie about cancel culture

[10/10 · 27 September 2021]

The studios shelved this movie due to fears of potential effects on the 2020 election. It reflects the prejudice of people on the left and right and the damage caused by demonizing those who oppose your ideas.

The Hunt is a wonderful satire of people who prefer to live in their own bubble and conclude anyone on the outside is less than good. In this case, the left gets their turn to be the villain and the girl from Mississippi gets her chance to challenge the stereotype.

Reading Animal Farm ahead of time will add to the enjoyment and your understanding of why the left must cancel people. (The right does too, but the right isn't supposed to uphold liberal values). They cancelled Orwell when he left the bubble, fought in Spain, and returned with a narrative which challenged the notion the left held the moral high ground.

Our Leading Citizen (1939)

Hollywood's History of its lesser Known Blacklist

[5/10 · 16 January 2016]

Hearings for the HUAC, the first I believe, brought in the film critic for the Daily Worker, a Communist paper. Howard Rushmore worked for the Daily Worker from 1936 to 1939. He testified that the script for Our Leading Citizen was leaked to the US Communist Party leader, VJ Jerome. Jerome disliked the message and so Rushmore dutifully panned the film and called for a boycott. He said the Party convinced progressive columnists and front organizations to slam Paramount. You must wonder during that time how many scripts were shelved that did not pass the litmus test of being friendly or at least neutral in regards to Communism. We all know of the horrendous blacklisting in the late 1940s and 1950s. The blacklisting of writers unsympathetic to Communism in the 1930s is less known, but part of Hollywood history. It's ironic that Lawson and Trumbo were blocking non-party line writers in the 1930s. You wonder if they considered the 1950s their comeuppance for doing the same 15 years earlier to fellow struggling writers.