Mooch begins with a nature documentary on television, as a female narrator describes what the title means in terms of animal behaviour. For after a mother bird has caught a worm to feed to her chick, another wagtail, “the mooch of the forest”, flies in and steals her prey, exercising its “inner desire for a…
The title of John Hillcoat’s searing feature debut Ghosts… of the Civil Dead (1988) involved a metaphor for the state’s incarcerated population, buried away in a privatised penal system and left to perpetuate decidedly uncivil behaviours. Clay Tatum’s buddy comedy The Civil Dead, which he wrote with co-star Whitmer Thomas, may seem to be far…