The Domesticated Primate

I checked Matewan out from the lib last summer. I first heard about it from Phil Hendrie talking about it, another obvious film fan. Phil really seems to enjoy a good movie, and who doesn't?

I heard it brought up on some conspiracy-minded podcast that made an off-handed mention of this movie. It did get me wondering about this movie. Here we have some rather subversive themes in here (people who are labeled "communists" are providing some good) and this movie was made in the eighties in the middle of Reagan years and the Cold War when we were fighting "communism". Pretty surprising a movie of this caliber about such subjects could be made. I guess similar ones were made, but this is really in your face stuff, and not a bunch of smarmy those-were-the-days American dream bullshit.

Anyway, outstanding performances all the way around and I think a very instructional movie about a slice of American history. Keep this in mind the next time someone tells you unions are a bunch of thieving, lazy no-goodniks...they are just mouthing what their corporate masters want them to.