Prison stuff. In prison movies.
‘Locked up in a Turkish prison’ has been the most reliable shorthand description of the horror of being a foreigner locked up abroad (or of any worst imaginable horror, really), probably since Midnight Express (1978). But the ordeal of Briton Billy Moore in A Prayer Before Dawn might have a few people viewing Thai prisons as the new high water mark. Or low water mark.
Posted on August 12th, 2017 at 8:55 pm. Updated on August 29th, 2019 at 8:49 pm.
You have to feel for the prison ship’s newest prisoner, Taura (Sandy Brooke). Not only is she (vaguely) innocent, but she has to wear a different, more revealing uniform to every other prisoner and sport a horrible ’80s perm. Mind you, she’s not on her Pat Malone on that last count. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 4th, 2017 at 9:23 pm. Updated on August 4th, 2017 at 9:31 pm.
‘”… A classic” – The New York Times’ – trumpets the blurb on my DVD and my expectations are raised. It’s a long film, three hours (or three hour-long episodes) and midway I’m struggling both with this description and to maintain interest. How could I get it so wrong? I decide to look up the review: “The First Circle is a very sad film. Not because of the austerity of its place and time (a special Soviet prison camp for scientists in the late 1940’s), nor because hopelessness would seem the only rational philosophy under a tyranny as effective as Stalin’s. Rather it’s because the movie is such a wan and ineffectual testament to the novel it is based on, as well as to the life and career of its extraordinary author, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the 1970 Nobel Prize-winning Soviet writer.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 29th, 2017 at 9:59 pm. Updated on August 12th, 2017 at 9:09 pm.
By chance, an article appeared in my Saturday paper about Sigourney Weaver and the strong women she has played. It drove me to rescue Alien 3 from a stack of unwatched DVDs, where it had languished for many years, and finally check it out. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 18th, 2017 at 9:54 pm. Updated on July 18th, 2017 at 9:54 pm.
“You cannot ask a man to be both shepherd and butcher at the same time,” spits defence counsel John Weber (Steve Coogan) in his closing address to the judge and his two assessors. On trial is a teenaged prison guard and father, Leon Labuschagne (Garion Dowds), accused of killing seven black African footballers one rainy night. There is no doubt he shot and killed the men, but Weber asks the Court to find that Labuschagne’s actions were the direct result of the inherent trauma in his job: caring for men on Death Row, reading the Bible to them, dealing with their families, then taking their measurements, leading them to the gallows, and even rehanging them if the first drop did not produce the desired effect and the condemned man was being strangled slowly at the end of the rope. Both shepherd and butcher. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on July 9th, 2017 at 1:13 pm. Updated on July 9th, 2017 at 1:13 pm.
With Hong Kong’s approaching transition from British sovereignty to that of the People’s Republic of China providing an intriguing backdrop, this is an oddly dispassionate film highlighting the plight of 23 juvenile offenders sentenced to be held at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. They are serious offenders who would rather a definite sentence – and a release date – than the uncertainty as to when the Government might choose to release them, and the attendant fear that they might ultimately be treated more harshly than adults under the same circumstances. And they worry whether the elected Chief Executive in the new special administrative region of China will be less benevolent than his British predecessor, Governor Chris Patten, so they push for a decision prior to 1 July 1997. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on June 30th, 2017 at 11:05 pm. Updated on June 30th, 2017 at 11:05 pm.
Who would think that getting a bunch of murderers involved in a prison production of Sondheim’s musical adaptation of Sweeney Todd – the vengeful, serial murdering barber – would be a good idea? Why not get the local chapter of Sexaholics Anonymous to make up the chorus of Don Giovanni as well? But not only is this the basis of this BBC production, it appears – extraordinarily – that it was inspired by just such a production in which its director, Francesca Joseph, was involved. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on June 22nd, 2017 at 10:01 pm. Updated on July 17th, 2017 at 10:20 pm.
It’s a colossal problem for one-joke comedies when the one joke is not not particularly funny. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on June 11th, 2017 at 8:53 pm. Updated on June 11th, 2017 at 9:13 pm.
Low budget horror: three words that should strike trepidation into each and every audient. But The Evil Gene manages to come up with a twist or two that sets it apart from many others, which is to say that it is not an unmitigated disaster. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on June 3rd, 2017 at 9:56 pm. Updated on June 3rd, 2017 at 9:56 pm.
Wrath of the Crows is an Italian, English-language religious-fantasy-horror production, featuring one of those boutique prisons that looks like a real prison from the wide outdoor shots, but like the entire prison consists of just five movie set cells and only two staff once the action moves inside. And, to my surprise, a lot of people don’t seem to mind such things. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on May 27th, 2017 at 8:51 pm. Updated on May 27th, 2017 at 8:51 pm.