"THE HUNT" (2020)

THE HUNT (2020)
Written by Nick Cuse and Damon Lindeloff
Directed by Craig Zobel
Starring Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank, Ike Barinholtz 
Running time: 1 hour and 29 minutes
MPAA Rated R for strong bloody violence, and language throughout

A bit of a disclaimer: Famously, the band on the Titanic continued playing even as the ship was going down and there are moments where writing about movies at this point in time has that feeling. The world is a mess, people are anxious and things seem uncertain, but people need something to take their minds off of it all. Be prepared, stock up on canned goods and for Satan’s sake *wash your damned hands* but beyond that, worrying about COVID-19 isn’t going to help any. So that, to me, is why movies and all we who love talking about them, should keep on keeping on. Like any bad times, we’ll get through it together; us and you and the movies. So now onto my actual review of The Hunt.

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Genre film has dealt with social and political issues for basically as long as there has been genre film, right? Maybe not 100% of the time, but in general if you're looking for a message of some kind, you're likely able to find one. Last September, The Hunt was delayed for ostensibly political reasons: both the Dayton and El Paso mass shootings were extremely fresh wounds to our country's psyche and Universal Pictures didn't feel it was the best time to release a movie where one group of people is hunting another group with guns (among other weapons). Added to that was the rumor that the flick itself was inherently political and you can perhaps understand what all the hubbub was about. Depending on what you might want out of your entertainments, I have either good or bad news: The Hunt isn't a genre flick with political subtext, it's one that uses politics as set dressing; as an excuse to get to what it really is: a brisk, funny, action-forward head-trip revenge story on a large scale. It has laughs, great performances, good-natured gore and sizable body count, and these days, what more could you ask for that something to take your mind off things?

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN 14

Everything Old Is New Again, Vol.14 - March & April 2020

by Hunter Bush


Welcome, welcome, one and all to another installment of Everything Old Is New Again, the column where I talk about upcoming movies that are one of the following: Remakes - movies based on a previous movie; Adaptations - based on some other pre-existing work; or Long-Gap Sequels - a direct continuation from an earlier film, but after an unusual length of time (these are also called Legacy Sequels or sometimes Requels since they're usually intended to gently reboot a franchise without erasing the previous entries).

That all make sense? Good. Cuz that's all you get. I'm trying a slightly different approach to this column, with very little chit-chat up top so we can get right to the trailers I watched and what my overall impression of them is. Then, at the end, I write a little bit more in-depth about this latest crop and etc. So let's get to it, shall we?

NOTE: This is the article as it ran on Moviejawn. Since that time, several of these flicks have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing quarantines. Okay, on to the article!

"I'm Right on Top of That, Rose!"

"I'm Right on Top of That, Rose!" :

How a Bad Mom's Absence Creates a Better Mom in Her Stead

An alternative POV on 1991's Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.

When the co-titular Mom (Concetta Tomei) leaves her five kids in the care of the co-titular Babysitter (Ida Reiss Merin) while she's in Australia for a summer, events transpire on a spectrum somewhere between "wacky hijinks" and "unbridled chaos". Broken hearts and bones abound, the matriarchal per diem gets given away and the dishes get "done" only in the most gangland sense of the word. And while this is all presented to the audience as being the fault of unruly kids lacking in supervision, I posit here that it's all Mom's fault. Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) is definitely a Bad Moms Movie.

Thing is, it's presented as a different type of flick altogether: the Kids Minus Guidance Equals Chaos film. While this is a subgenre that has entries from probably all of film history, it really hit its peak in the late 80's early 90's during the rise of Nickelodeon and their "kid power" propaganda. Films like Adventures in Babysitting (1987), Camp Nowhere (1994) and The Goonies (1985) all showcase what happens to a group of kids without "proper supervision" and attempt to cross the aisle between kids and adults by showing all the fun & adventures the kids get into while usually having them get a firm talking-to and maybe a severe grounding in the final reel.