Prison stuff. In prison movies.
There are plenty who are touting this as a masterpiece of dark and gritty prison realism. And there are certainly some masterful bits. But is it a prison movie masterpiece? I’m not so sure. (more…)
Posted on February 21st, 2010 at 6:42 pm. Updated on August 29th, 2019 at 8:45 pm.
They had a bit of fun with this campy melodrama, I reckon. One prison guard tells her reliever that she’s heading off “to catch the last show at the Bijou.” “That prison movie?” says the other, incredulously. “Yeah.” “They never get things right in prison pictures.” “I know. But I like to pick out the flaws.” Me, too. (more…)
Posted on February 21st, 2010 at 3:05 pm. Updated on March 14th, 2010 at 2:12 pm.
Take a new teacher with a past, a campaign against setting up a school in a prison, and an array of troublesome prisoner students. The temptation to bring everything to a happy conclusion (inspiring teacher redeemed, criminals reformed, star pupil singing ‘To Sir, With Love’… that sort of thing) must have been pretty strong. Fortunately, it’s resisted. (more…)
Posted on February 13th, 2010 at 11:04 pm. Updated on February 14th, 2010 at 7:32 pm.
Just how much acclaim should you give a film for its worthiness alone? As an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Mickey B is just OK (and even then, much better, I suspect, if you’re familiar with the plot of Macbeth; half the pleasure is in the recognition of each new character and scene). But as a story of a group of real prisoners, mostly murderers and long-termers in Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland, making some important discoveries about themselves while making the film, it’s inspiring. (more…)
Posted on February 6th, 2010 at 9:02 pm. Updated on August 13th, 2012 at 10:24 pm.
I don’t know whether it was the grainy print, or the DVD cover which has Leonor Benedetto looking like a bloke in drag, or maybe the general sleaziness, but Atrapadas (which translates as ‘Trapped’) has a definite ’70s feel about it. I kept waiting for Pam Grier to make an appearance. (more…)
Posted on January 26th, 2010 at 9:16 pm. Updated on February 2nd, 2010 at 7:54 pm.
There are echoes of all sorts of other movies in Diamond Geezer (known as Rough Diamond in Australia). The plot (master criminal seeks perfect alibi by escaping from prison, committing a huge robbery and then returning to prison before anyone notices that he’s been gone) is very reminiscent of Two Way Stretch (1960). The main character, Des (David Jason), seems to borrow some features from ‘Blanco’ Webb, the elderly prisoner Sir David played in the Porridge TV series. And the prison’s top dog, Mr Fellows (Gary Whelan), carries on a fine British film tradition [The Italian Job (1960), and Porridge (1979) for starters] of crime lords ruling the prison from their prison cells, not always in a gentlemanly manner. It’s all very comfortably familiar. (more…)
Posted on January 17th, 2010 at 4:38 pm. Updated on January 25th, 2010 at 11:45 pm.
Carl Upchurch had it tough. Born in 1950 in South Philadelphia, his first memory was apparently of his grandmother killing his grandfather. He grew up in gangs and in and out of trouble, and spent 10 years in jail. Then he found ‘the light within’ and became a religious man, a voice against his fellow prisoners’ meek acceptance of the inevitability of their lives and their incarceration, and an activist for political and social reform. Conviction is his story. (more…)
Posted on January 11th, 2010 at 7:24 pm. Updated on January 11th, 2010 at 10:08 pm.
To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to this movie. At all. A young rapper from a drug-infested ghetto in Washington DC goes to jail. I’m not a fan of hip-hop, and I’m not a big fan of gangsta angst in prison movies. And then there’s the film’s tag: Slam – All in Line for a Slice of Devil Pie. What?! But it’s much better than all that. It’s a powerful story which refuses to accept that it should be the lot of so many young African Americans to finish up in jail, sending a message similar to the one American Me (1992) gave about gang life destroying the potential of young Hispanic kids in LA. (more…)
Posted on January 10th, 2010 at 10:02 pm. Updated on March 25th, 2016 at 6:56 pm.
Henry Fonda stars as Clarence Earl Gideon in this episode from the ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’ TV series. It’s not a prison movie, although it is as a prisoner that Gideon lodges a petition with the Supreme Court of America, asking that it rule the refusal of his trial judge to appoint a lawyer to defend him as unconstitutional. (more…)
Posted on January 9th, 2010 at 7:12 pm. Updated on January 10th, 2010 at 10:07 pm.
This is a Women-in-Prison exploitation movie with a twist: the prison’s exploitation of the women is greater than the filmmakers’. That said, the filmmakers are not entirely innocent; they commit quite a few crimes of their own. (more…)
Posted on January 2nd, 2010 at 8:46 pm. Updated on January 10th, 2010 at 10:11 pm.