He was forced to resign from Sesame Street, and although The Jim Henson Company would rehire him for more grownup projects, you can't watch Being Elmo now without feeling a little icky. Clash himself came out the following year – after being accused of having had sexual relationships with teenage boys. This feel-good documentary about Kevin Clash, the man behind Sesame Street's beloved Muppet "Elmo", came out in 2011. Both were box office hits The North Star even received six Oscar nominations. America's two other notable pro-Soviet pictures were The North Star (also starring Huston) and Song of Russia. It's practically a love letter to Joseph Stalin, justifying his purge trials and other atrocities. 1943's Mission to Moscow, produced by Warner Bros., directed by Michael Curtiz (fresh off Casablanca), and starring Walter Huston as an American ambassador sent to the titular city, is the most notorious. And among the propaganda churned out by Hollywood during World War II were at least three features that glamorized our Soviet friends. Naturally, before the USSR was our enemy, they were our ally. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden formed Al Qaeda in 1988, enlisting many of the mujahideen fighters that he had been funding. So the enemy of our enemy is our friend, right? But after the real-life mujahideen drove out the Soviets in 1989, their infighting led to civil war and then to takeover by the Taliban – itself founded by a former mujahid named Mohammed Omar. This was 1988, and the Soviet Union was still America's enemy. I have complained elsewhere about the idiocy of this movie's title, but let's discuss the underdog rebels who come to Sylvester Stallone's rescue: Afghanistan's guerrilla fighters, the mujahideen.
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