Nor Chor (The Prisoners) tries to cram a lot into the one film. It attempts to provide a balanced view of prison issues, to draw attention to some inequities in the criminal justice system, to educate the masses about imprisonment… and to combine it with some high-action drama. They’re honourable goals to have. Well, maybe not the last when you try to blend it with the others. (more…)
Posted on November 20th, 2011 at 6:21 pm. Updated on November 20th, 2011 at 6:21 pm.
You would think that a film about a young prisoner fighting for the right to keep her child with her in custody would have no trouble in having you cheering her on from the sidelines. And no doubt many people have… but she’s so unsympathetically drawn, it’s possible to be quite indifferent to whether she wins or loses. (more…)
Posted on November 16th, 2011 at 9:55 pm. Updated on November 16th, 2011 at 9:55 pm.
OK. So it’s a tad unlikely (even if, in a case of life almost imitating art, a similar rehab program was introduced in a Canadian prison not so long after Chaindance was released). But perhaps its implausibility shouldn’t matter. Trouble is, it does. (more…)
Posted on October 27th, 2011 at 9:31 pm. Updated on August 4th, 2013 at 10:54 pm.
Dark Love gives us a compelling portrait of the intertwining lives of two young people in Naples; one from a working class family, the other from a privileged background. One a perpetrator of a repugnant crime, the other his victim. Both are stupefied by the event that links them. (more…)
Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 9:18 pm. Updated on October 10th, 2011 at 9:18 pm.
This is my sort of prison movie; the Real McCoy. A movie about prison as much as it is about the lives and stories of the characters who inhabit it. (more…)
Posted on October 10th, 2011 at 9:00 pm. Updated on July 2nd, 2012 at 8:31 pm.
If you think you could have seen this movie before, you’re probably right. Even if you haven’t. (more…)
Posted on September 28th, 2011 at 7:24 pm. Updated on September 28th, 2011 at 9:52 pm.
This is a remarkable film, partly because of when it was made (in the months immediately after the end of World War II), partly because of the story it tells – a tragedy at many levels – and in even greater part due to the quality of the storytelling. (more…)
Posted on September 27th, 2011 at 11:45 am. Updated on September 27th, 2011 at 11:48 am.
Skidoo has all the things that you’d expect to see in a psychedelic 60s comedy – hippies, acid trips, groovy outfits, body painting – and some you might not: a prison escape by a home-made hot air balloon, Harry Nilsson singing the credits, and a sadly unfunny Groucho Marx. (more…)
Posted on September 5th, 2011 at 10:58 pm. Updated on September 5th, 2011 at 11:04 pm.
I haven’t yet seen Screwed (2011) but The Escapist (2008) would seem to have set a bit of a trend for modern British prison movies; observing all the conventions of the genre, exploring very traditional prison themes… but with a twist. (more…)
Posted on July 27th, 2011 at 11:13 pm. Updated on March 8th, 2016 at 12:39 pm.
Let’s face it – for a movie supposedly about a riot in a juvenile prison there’s precious little rioting, far too few juveniles, and way too much sententious guff about prison reform. Not that that detracts from the film in any way… (more…)
Posted on July 11th, 2011 at 10:34 pm. Updated on July 11th, 2011 at 10:34 pm.