Prison stuff. In prison movies.
Surely the chief joy in watching futuristic movies of any sort is examining the bits of contemporary culture that have survived in the filmmaker’s vision of what the future might look like. “Besides, the ship won’t fly without this,” says the spaceship pilot, Wilson, smugly holding aloft a 3½” floppy disk. It is supposed to be the year 2251. Wonderful. (more…)
Posted on December 26th, 2014 at 10:15 pm. Updated on December 26th, 2014 at 10:15 pm.
I don’t quite understand these extra-judicial prisons, juvenile or otherwise. They seem to be somewhere in between a strict boarding school for which parents pay exorbitant fees, and out-of-control prisons where the brutality comes for free. (more…)
Posted on December 7th, 2014 at 11:45 am. Updated on December 7th, 2014 at 11:45 am.
I’m still trying to work out myself whether this qualifies as a movie. It’s a three-part original video animation (OVA), apparently, following on from the TV series based on Yuichi Kumakuru’s manga. (more…)
Posted on November 30th, 2014 at 1:34 pm. Updated on November 30th, 2014 at 1:34 pm.
The Loners is a classic tragedy. It charts the fall of two proud, patriotic soldiers accused of treason, and follows them through a doomed prison insurrection. Over nothing. (more…)
Posted on November 18th, 2014 at 9:23 pm. Updated on November 18th, 2014 at 9:23 pm.
The opening credits of Blackwell’s Island contain the standard disclaimer about no resemblance to any person living or dead being intended, but without the resemblance to actual persons and events this film would be decidedly more silly than it already is. (more…)
Posted on November 10th, 2014 at 7:57 pm. Updated on November 10th, 2014 at 7:57 pm.
There are private prisons, and then there are private prisons. (more…)
Posted on November 3rd, 2014 at 6:37 pm. Updated on November 5th, 2014 at 7:49 pm.
It’s 1847, and juvenile offenders, waifs and strays are being transferred from La Roquette children’s prison in Paris to the Colonie de Grande–Île in Brittany. It’s a “Fatherly Home, not a penal colony,” insists the reform school’s idealistic warden, Monsieur Alexis (André Wilms). And to underscore the homeliness, his deputy (Michel Aumont) is required to be referred to as Uncle and all the other staff are known as Cousins. It all sounds really very jolly. (more…)
Posted on October 26th, 2014 at 3:45 pm. Updated on October 27th, 2014 at 7:50 pm.
Sadly, this is a crime thriller, not a prison movie. It’s also a movie about strategy, but not as much as its laboured chess metaphor would want you to believe. It’s more of an old fashioned shoot ’em up heist movie, with liberal doses of intrigue and black humour, and a master-apprentice theme. (more…)
Posted on October 21st, 2014 at 9:22 pm. Updated on January 1st, 2017 at 9:03 am.
The South Koreans certainly love a good prison tear-jerker – Miracle in Cell No. 7 (2013), for instance, and Harmony (2010) – both of which also star young children, as does this weepy. But Way Back Home is also very reminiscent of Hell In Tangier (2006) and Left to Die (2012), both of which feature prisoners in third-world prisons overseas, hampered by inept, judgmental and disinterested embassy officials, and eventually released after persistent media campaigns. As this one does. The point of difference from the last two is that in this case the prisoner is guilty. Of stupidity, at the very least.
Posted on October 14th, 2014 at 9:30 pm. Updated on October 14th, 2014 at 9:30 pm.
The crossover between westerns and prison movies is not a common one; Hellgate (1952) and There was a Crooked Man… (1970) being the only other examples I can readily bring to mind. Even in this film, once the scene-setting shootout between men in ten-gallon hats is dispensed with very early in the piece, it settles down into a standard prison movie. Well, as standard as you can get where there is one female prisoner in an all-male jail. (more…)
Posted on October 5th, 2014 at 5:01 pm. Updated on October 14th, 2014 at 9:48 pm.