Shapeshifter is brought to us by the same production company that produced Dead Men Walking (2005). Same year, same filming location (the old Lincoln Heights Jail), same terrorising of guards and prisoners by non-humans showing the same flesh-eating techniques, same inexplicable removal of her shirt by the heroine to reveal the same singlet top, same low budgets. Why not combine those budgets and make one better movie, one wonders? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on April 25th, 2013 at 10:15 pm. Updated on April 25th, 2013 at 10:24 pm.
If, like me, you love every one of those people the police wish to interview on Law & Order who find something with which to busy themselves (rather than just sit) while being asked questions by detectives, you’ll love the psychiatrist (Sidney Poitier) in this movie. The Poitier character clearly went to the same school as the Law & Order people, but took Distracted Filing During Psychiatric Consultations 101 instead of Preoccupied Activity During Questioning about a Homicide 101. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on April 18th, 2013 at 9:30 pm. Updated on April 18th, 2013 at 9:30 pm.
Vacation is one of those rare prison officer-centred prison movies. If it were not so understated, it would celebrate ordinary men – plodders, the unambitious, and a murderer – acting with honour.
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Posted on April 10th, 2013 at 10:46 pm. Updated on April 10th, 2013 at 10:46 pm.
I’m not overly conversant with the horror genre, but I think that what this movie is trying to say is that it is a horrible job being a prison warden. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on March 31st, 2013 at 1:22 pm. Updated on March 16th, 2014 at 8:30 am.
“So, the story of this man is not yet over. Nor is the story of Cell 2455, Death Row. Whether Whit descends to the gas chamber or whatever the future holds for him, Cell 2455 still stands – ready and waiting for the next Whittier.” Thus the film and its subject both stop – mid-sentence. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on March 29th, 2013 at 3:12 pm. Updated on March 29th, 2013 at 3:12 pm.
Not to be confused with So Evil, So Young (1961) or The Weak and the Wicked (1954). But it does share something with both of those British movies – the young women in this reform school are not particularly bad, or wicked, or evil. Some, surprisingly, are even youngish. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on March 26th, 2013 at 9:42 pm. Updated on March 26th, 2013 at 9:42 pm.
“Nice but preposterous,” was my wife’s judgment after watching this made-for-TV offering. Or maybe it was the other way round. Anyway, she is rarely wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on March 19th, 2013 at 9:00 pm. Updated on March 19th, 2013 at 9:00 pm.
Some prison films are prepared to sacrifice almost any correctional principle for the convenience of the storyline or to accommodate the filmmaker’s artistic vision. This is one of them, I’m afraid, and I struggled with it as a result. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on March 14th, 2013 at 8:36 pm. Updated on March 14th, 2013 at 8:36 pm.
In Un Chant D’Amour (1950) the writer Jean Genet explored imprisoned men’s longing for intimacy. In his play Haute surveillance, published in 1949 and later made into this Vic Morrow film, he allowed his characters physical contact, but their longing remains unfulfilled. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on March 11th, 2013 at 3:31 pm. Updated on March 11th, 2013 at 3:43 pm.
Ji?í Kajínek is the most famous prisoner in the Czech Republic. Some people think he’s innocent of the crimes for which he is serving a life sentence – the murders of a crime boss and his bodyguard, and the attempted murder of a third man. He is the only man to have escaped from the Mírov Prison, in 2000, which would seem to have led to legend status being bestowed upon him. Kajínek is loosely based around his case. It’s hard to categorise; it’s not a prison film, sadly, and more biographical murder mystery. It has some elements of a classic thriller, but one of which all Czechs, presumably, already know the outcome: Kajínek has not been exonerated and remains very much in jail.
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Posted on March 10th, 2013 at 4:30 pm. Updated on March 10th, 2013 at 10:14 pm.