Yes, that’s right; ‘Nu zi jian yu’ becomes ‘Women Prison’… and that sets the standard for the sub-titling throughout. It’s an entertaining prison movie for traditionalists: a fight for top dog, a naïve first-timer, a brutal, corrupt officer, an escape, some sexual assaults, and even a disturbance that requires the use of tear gas. Not unlike the 1987 Hong Kong film about a male prison, Prison on Fire, in some ways. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:16 pm. Updated on February 23rd, 2013 at 10:14 pm.
23 year old Sean Penn plays a Chicago schoolboy Mick O’Brien, who has a long rap sheet and ultimately gets sent to a juvenile institution for driving his car into (and killing) the 8-year-old brother of his arch enemy in the schoolyard, Paco Moreno. At the time, he was being pursued by Police from the scene of a crime where he and a mate were all balaclava’d up, ready to rip off Paco’s gang’s drug stash, before another gang started shooting and people got killed. You get the picture; they’re young, but bad dudes. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:09 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Quaint and oddly acclaimed film which is not a prison-based Inferno as the title might lead one to expect. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
This purports to be the true story of Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four. The Belfast-born Conlon and three others, suspected by Police of being a crack IRA death squad, were convicted of the 1974 Guildford pub bombings, and his father, aunt and other members of her family were convicted of bomb-making. They were arrested just a couple of days after the British Police won new anti-terrorist laws that allowed them to hold terrorism suspects for seven days without charge, and Conlon claimed that Police used that time to beat confessions out of him and his co-accused, with whom he lived briefly in a London squat. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 1:53 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
From the very first scenes, where Randy (Michael Pitt) is silently preparing to go to court, you know things aren’t going to go well for him. His tie is all awry in a schoolboyish sort of way, he’s pasty, he has a constant pouty look, and his hair is tied back in a vain little ponytail. (more…)
Posted on May 14th, 2009 at 10:00 pm. Updated on March 6th, 2016 at 12:36 pm.
This purports to be a prison movie spoof, or rather, a gay spoof of prison movies. (more…)
Posted on May 14th, 2009 at 9:35 pm. Updated on August 11th, 2013 at 12:06 pm.
Consistently referred to as the daddy, the granddaddy, and even the great-granddaddy of all prison movies. You get the picture. And it’s reputation is deserved… many of the classic prison scenes that we now associate with the genre are packed into this one drama – a new fish, some hardened cons, a practical, fair-minded Warden trying to maintain discipline in his grossly overcrowded prison, a stool pigeon, a love story, a great mess hall scene, an exercise yard teeming with prisoners, escapes, smuggled guns.. You name it, it’s in there. (more…)
Posted on May 12th, 2009 at 9:33 pm. Updated on September 23rd, 2015 at 10:13 pm.
Yeah, yeah, great film but where would it be without Morgan Freeman’s narration? Well, still very good, even if one has to suspend disbelief a few times. But everyone has seen Shawshank and it’s a great yarn.
Posted on May 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 am. Updated on August 29th, 2019 at 8:38 pm.