Thursday, June 23, 2016

Junesploitation 2016 Day 23: Prison!

White hot desire melts cold prison steel!

72 comments:

  1. Mean Guns (1997)

    Throw a bunch of criminals in a soon to open prison and give them guns, bullets, and bats. Then have them all kill each other. In the hands of a big budget super experienced action director this could have been the 90's answer to The Raid. Instead it starts off with a bang and just keeps repeating itself with the gun fights and bat beatings.
    I saw this one as a kid on vacation years ago, in fact it might have been 1997 and I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever. Nowadays the only thing that holds up is the Mambo soundtrack in my opinion. They should be able to open the new prison on time the next day since their were zero bullet holes on the walls in the prison, that's some really good aim by everybody.

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    1. Perez Prado: the original king of Mambo. This movie was dumb fun for me and a good friend of mine for quite a while. Christopher Lambert made a lot of bad career choices post-Highlander but I can at least enjoy this one on some level (which is not to say that it's in any way a good movie).

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  2. The Great Escape (1963)

    I was a little worried when TGE started that I was not going to be able to watch this as a movie but more a collection of references and parody moments. As soon as that famous whistling score came on all I could think about was Maggie Simpson trying to get her pacifer back. This movie has become so ingrained in the psychie, would it still be a movie?

    Yes, and TGE did win me over, it had time its a long movie. I was really happy to see Donald Pleasence, it is always a pleasure, Richard Attenborough is solid as usual, and Steve McQueen is the coolest guy in the room, even if the movie bends over backwards to show this, he's the one with the leather jacket and the motocycle.
    It is an easy movie to sink into, even if I don't think the caper element with the ending completely worked for me, I still enjoyed it a lot.

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  3. The Big Doll House (1971)

    We're down to pretty much the last week of Junesploitation so of course I want to start to close things out with a movie that has Pam Grier mud wrestling in one scene. Of course that's the obvious thing to mention about this movie, but what else can you say really? Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Pam Grier, Sid Haig? Short of filming it in Italy with some Nazi Zombies on motorcycles, it doesn't really get much more exploitation than this.

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    1. Another movie to add to the list, sounds brillant - thanks.

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    2. Do you know if this available streaming anywhere?

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    3. It's free if you subscribe to Amazon Prime.

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  4. Lock Up (1989)

    Sylvester Stallone is transfered to a maximum security prision for his last 6 months because he embarrassed Donald Sutherland that one time. Yes, the plot is thin, and it I don't think it quite successeds at being a prison drama. But I think there are some solid performances from Stallone and Tom Sizemore and Jordan Lund as creepy guard. But was it my imagation or did Donald Sutherland look board through most of it? I admit though I sat up a little more in the last 30 mintues when it went delightfully nutty.

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    1. This was my play of the day as well. Other than being set in prison, I agree, not much prison drama. They all seem to be able to do whatever they feel like - play football, rebuild/restore a car in what seems a few days without any supervision. Stallone being Stallone, he's just so likeable.
      I think Sutherland goes more for the stern man in charge performance, but he just comes in when needed, gives a speech, walks of set and comes back for his next scene. Not his best. Could have been anyone.
      Did they ever say why Stallone was in prison? I know they said he escaped before, but he got 5 year sentence on top of his initial punishment, but that happened when he was teen. Unless he's playing mid/late 20s character or I didn't hear it under Stallone's mumbling.

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    2. No I don't think the movie ever states what he did to get in. He's just there. You are right though, for a prison that is meant to be the worst of the worst, number for a name, rationed TP, they get away with a hell of a lot.

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  5. Women's Prison Massacre (1983) (first time viewing)

    Boobs, murder, rape, Russian roulette, a girl slicing a man's penis up by hiding a razor blade up her vagina. Eh, it was fine.

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  6. The Rock (1996)

    For the first 30 minutes I thought this might be the Michael Bay movie I actually like. Solid cast, Nicolas Cage being the right amount of crazy, the Bayisms being kept to a minimum. After watching this, if I had to choose a favorite it would be this, even though it is way too long too bloated, and for some reason under Alcatraz is the Goonies Priate Cave. The Bayisms were there just a little more hidden, I think he would unleash all in Armageddon. Though I did like the car cash through San Fran.

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    1. The thing about this movie that I can't get passed is Ed Harris' character. I just don't believe he is stupid enough to think the government would give in to terrorism. I used to like this movie but on a recent watch, I kind of hated it. I'd probably go with Armageddon as my favorite Bay movie because it still makes me cry. "I want to shake the hand of the daughter of the greatest man I've ever met." *sniffle* I'm the worst.

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    2. The more I think about The Rock the more I don't like it. Your right Ed Harris' plan is so dumb, the reason why Sean Connery is kept in prison is lame. After 30 minute mark it jus drags. Though with Armageddon, it did take me by surprise, on a recent watch I was hating it, the camera moved so often I was getting dizzy, except if they were raised by men on an oil rig, women were the worst - often for no reason, but as soon as Ben and Bruce have that final moment I all ooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

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    3. That moment too. It gets me every time.

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    4. Go Lindsay! Go Lindsay! Go Lindsay! I want to shake the hand of the greatest Junesploitation contributor I've ever read!. Those NASA guys are playing it safe they don't know what Lindsay can do!

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    5. Thanks Mouse Dog, that is insanely sweet of you too say. I am really just copying everyone else here :).

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  7. Midnight Express (1978)

    Next to Shawshank Redemption this is my favorite prison movie. And it´s a powerful and terrifying one, especially remembering that it´s based on reality. Upon it´s release it was criticized for being racist, hyperbolic and exploitative in it´s depiction of the turkish judicial and prison system. So, perfect for Junesploitation.

    It´s clear that Billy Hayes was rightfully sent to prison, but what happens to him during this movie, including torture and solitary confinement, isn´t something that can be justified by his offense.

    Alan Parker directed a fine script by Oliver Stone and got great work from his actors, some of them nearly unrecognizable at first sight.

    Especially the late Brad Davis gives a heartbreaking performance and has a pretty strange but still sweet romantic scene with a swedish inmate, powered by an iconic Giorgio Moroder score.

    As it´s the case with Shawshank, Midnight Express never fails to make me cry and both are two of the very few movies I ever rated 10 on IMDB.

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    1. This has been sitting on my shelf for like two years now. A family friend gave it to me when he found out I was "into" movies, but I haven't given it a look. Can't wait to check it out now.

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  8. The Muthers (1976, dir. Ciro Santiago)
    A mix of blaxploitation and the sort of Philippines women's prison island movie in which director Ciro Santiago specialized. It's fairly generic but entertaining exploitation stuff until the last act, which is a huge shootout that lasts more than 20 minutes. I still don't quite understand why Jeannie Bell is considered a blaxploitation icon, seeing as she's not a very good actress and can't fight, but there you go.

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    1. You fuckin'... I've been planning to watch that movie tonight for a month. I haven't been able to watch anything since Sunday, but I'm all recovered and tonight I was gonna make my biiiiiiiiiig comeback, to the adulation of all my adoring, fawning, barely able to conceal their panic fans, and what does Bromley pull. This shit. Fine. Might as well just watch TMNT 1 and NYSM 1 so I can finally go get caught up on the Hollywood dreck playing at my local sewer funnel this weekend. THANKS.

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    2. Ha! I will still applaud your triumphant return. And now we can just whisper and giggle about the movie like it's an inside joke.

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    3. Patrick... (shakes head and says condescendingly:) Patrick. I am not watching The Muthers tonight. You have already watched The Muthers tonight. I have dooooozzzzens (shuffles dvds and video files like playing cards) of unwatched prison exploitation movies I need to get through. My only course of action is to go even sleazier and get through a movie even less worth sitting through to re-level the playing field. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm scraping that barrel's bottom like mama's heels with the pedEgg right now, and you got a big 'ol cupful of foot flakes coming your way, mister.

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    4. BTW, I've already seen both, but if anybody out there is looking for a particularly powerfully dumb, tasteless WIP movie to watch tonight, I recommend either the Indonesian War Victims (maybe on Youtube), or Bruno Mattei's late career masterpiece The Jail: The Women's Hell, which may be the craziest one of the whole genre and was just saved by Intervision on DVD last year.

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    5. Try not to talk shit about my girlfriend Jean Bell:-)

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  9. Another Double Feature

    Escape From New York (1981)

    The first choice was a bit of an easy way out, I woke up tired and a little hung over after watching Ireland's heroics in the soccer last night so I needed a simple, reliable choice and you can never go wrong with Escape From New York. Every time I'm hooked as soon as I hear the score over the opening credits. The performances are all on point, hard to believe that it was only a few years before this when Kurt Russell was still making Disney movies. The movie is a true classic that I never get tired of watching.

    Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)

    So after taking it easy on myself early I had to seek out something new for part 2 of the double feature. I had heard how crazy this was and decided to give it a go. Boy did it not disappoint. Based on a Japanese Manga this delivers crazy action and unbelievable comic gore, the highlight of which for me was when a gangster disembowells himself in order to choke Ricky with his intestines. There's so much I could write about on this but it's best to just watch it for yourself if you haven't already seen it.

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  10. Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991)

    Been looking for an action film with Evil Dead level of violence and gore? It's cool folks, I found it. This film is NUTS.

    Random thought: I find it hilarious that in a film this gory the only female character falls face first off a tall roof and when we see her dead corpse there isn't a scratch on her. Chivalry isn't dead I guess?

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    1. I thought the exact same thing Daniel, I was expecting her to explode when she hit the road but not even so much as a bloody nose.

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  11. The Escape Artist (1982)

    The movie that killed Desi Arnaz.

    Okay, so he died 4 years later but don't worry about that. A decent premise that really doesn't go anywhere. Griffin O'Neal was somehow 17 in this movie but he looks like he's 10. He shows up at a prison(ok, jail but semantics). He says lock me up and I will escape within one hour. We then go back in time to see how we got there. There is a couple of little twists but not good enough to make it interesting. I can pretty much watch Raul Julia do anything and he's very charming in this. He plays Desi the mayor's son and at one point sits on his lap. The movie ultimately doesn't really go anywhere interesting so it's probably skippable. Unless you want to see Dottie from Pee Wee's Big Adventure looking adorable.

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    1. Damn I had forgotten all about this movie, i always thought the kid was cool, I just bought it from Ebay, looking forward to it, it had something about it I liked but I can't remember what?

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    2. It's not terrible. On a different day, I might have liked it better. It just didn't quite get there for me.

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  12. Vendetta (2015 dir. Jen & Sylvia Soska) on Amazon Prime.

    I have long been a champion for the Soskas, and while "See No Evil 2" and "Vendetta" have little of their personality, I still enjoy them. Dean Cain and Paul Wight(Big Show) are both pretty good even though they both play stock characters, even though Michael Eklund seems to have come out of a different movie. My biggest gripe is the screenplay, I had the biggest groan when during a gunfight, Paul Wight refers to himself as "the infamous Victor Abbott." It doesn't re-invent anything in the "prison" genre, but it is still entertaining.

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    1. The Twisted Twins are on this weeks Shockwaves podcast, they are really funny guests, well worth a listen

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    2. I thought American Mary was almost great...except for the ending.

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  13. Prison (1987)

    So, I think I might have a bit of a soft spot for Renny Harlin (which is Finnish for "piles of cocaine," I believe Mikko can back me up on that). He made A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which is a demonstrably bad movie that I love very much. His first American movie was this, which is another demonstrably bad movie that I have just now totally fallen in love with.

    The vengeful spirit of an executed prisoner is haunting a prison run by warden Lane Smith, and everything goes straight to hell. Insane gore (viva practical effects forever and ever amen), over-the-top performances that go about 30 miles over where over-the-top would normally be, and a legitimately creepy location (the prison of the title is a thing to behold) all come together and make maybe my favorite movie of this year's Junesploitation. Sooooooooo much fun.

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    1. A more accurate translation would be "piles and piles of cocaine", so you're pretty close.

      Prison is the only pre-2000 Harlin movie I've never seen. Will have to seek it out.

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    2. I unabashedly love this movie & was beyond thrilled to pick up the Scream Factory Blu a couple years ago.

      This may be my next entry today. Thanks, sir!

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    3. Went with this one as well (low-res upload on YouTube). We could all use a little Renny Harlin in our lives.

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  14. Caged Heat 3000 (1995)

    A women's prison with in-fighting and gang wars, a cruel torturer as warden, new girl appears to mix things up and incite a riot. No plot to speak of, extremely low production value, directed like a bad music video, actresses cast not for their talent but willingness to bare their tits, a cameo from Ron Jeremy... I know what you're saying, we've all seen this countless times before. But this time it's the year 3000 and the prison is on an asteroid!!!

    When you're in a sploitation kinda mood, you could do worse than Caged Heat 3000. You could also do a lot better. A lot.

    There's a VHS rip on YouTube, probably the only way to see this outside of an actual VHS.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. Bonus: Room 8 (2013)

      A really fun 7-minute short film about a prison inmate and a magical box. I won't tell any more, it's worth seeing without being spoiled.

      Available on YouTube.

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  15. Lock Out (2012) - for a while I couldn't figure out what it was about Lock Out that i found so charming.. granted I hit the FFWD button on occasion..to get to the good parts. But jeezus.. Guy Pearce is just delightful in this role. He's actually PLAYING the part of an laid back action hero i have never seen him so relaxed in a role. Usually he is wound up like a coiled spring..here's he's just walking through an actioneer like he's done it a dozen times. granted there are a few times when i want to drop Maggie Grace down a well...but the script realizes that and treats her bad enough that I forget i don't like her. All the brit villains are chewing scenery like no tomorrow but some of the dialogue still makes me laugh..."here's a an apple and a gun, don't talk to strangers." It's a simple little B picture, I would run it on the bottom half of a double with Total Recall. it's another Luc Besson production stable...they never completely suck, just leave you wondering if it could be better.

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    1. My favourite thing about Lockout is that they were sued by John Carpenter.
      I've heard so many things about the production. The directors were heart broken with how it turned out.

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  16. "The Wooden Horse" (1950) Dir. Jack Lee

    This one tested my patience a little bit. I don't normally have an issue with the pacing of films, but this film is only around 1 hour and 40 mins and it felt more like 2 hours and 30 mins. There are some nice flourishes here and there but for a prison escape film (this was released 13 years before The Great Escape and is based on the same story) there really wasn't much along the lines of excitement, suspense or tension. There are a few spots that do try to ramp up the tension but they don't really work and have been done better in countless movies since this one. Part of the reason I think this is the case is that there isn't much to the script or characters. Once they escape, the film also has a longer outside the prison section than I felt it needed. It might have been ok, but again there just wasn't any tension really after they escaped. I always look for things to like in films even when I'm not enjoying them so much so I will at least list a couple of things that I liked. There is a cool scene where someone is flashing back to his plane crashing and some nice escape film procedural elements, and I liked the use of the vaulting horse for sure. Probably the least fun I have had so far this month but I totally adhere to the "never hate a movie" line of thinking so I'm still glad I checked it out!

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  17. A prison for your mind!

    Matrix. 2000


    Crappy day at work, needed something easy and fun, Mr Smith makes this movie for me

    Spoiler

    Neo is the One

    neo > one

    I never worked this out at the time, I'm dumb sometimes

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    1. Dennis I also had a crappy day at work (I still blame the solstice). You chose wisely and watched something fun. I watched Salo...

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  18. ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)

    I know I should probably do The Big Doll House or something underseen like that but come on, you think I'm gonna pass up a chance to see a Carpenter flick for like the 70th time? No way. Never. Nope.

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  19. CAGED HEAT 3000 (1995)
    Ultra-cheap DTV shlock about a women’s space prison. The filmmakers went down the women-in-prison checklist and tried to come up a sci-fi twist for each trope. It’s ‘90s cheese at its cheesiest, and I agree that the prison uniforms look like music video backup dancer costumes.

    BLACK EMANUELLE 2 (1974)
    That Emanuelle certainly gets around, doesn’t she? This version of her is in New York, where she has amnesia and ends up in an asylum. The movie’s way more interested in exploring our heroine’s troubled past than it is in the sexy asylum antics. I guess they thought were making a serious drama.

    LUST FOR FREEDOM (1987)
    A female cop is abducted by evil hicks, who lock her up against her will in their small-town women’s prison. It’s Troma ridiculousness in the absolute best way. There’s even a voiceover narration that tells us, “It was just like something out of a low-budget prison movie.”

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  20. Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies (1999) Dir. Jack Sholder

    The Wishmaster is awakened by a thief and has to get 1001 souls to start the end of the world. What better place to do that? Prison!

    Holly Fields is pretty cute and Andrew Divoff is in full on Djinn cheesy line delivery mode. Looks like he was having fun. I wasn't, unfortunately. Not as fun as I had hoped although I am really tired. There are some decent kills and one great one where a dude get his face smashed in through jail cell bars.

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    1. Even if you weren't tired, it's not that fun. I was going to watch all 4 of these but after this one, I gave up.

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  21. J̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶M̶c̶T̶e̶i̶g̶u̶e̶ The Wachowski Siblings' V FOR VENDETTA (2005, 132 min.) on HD-DVD.

    After yesterday's pleasant experience with Brett Ratner's "Hercules" I want to keep the John Hurt party going (#Hurtsogoodsploitation!) with his take on a George W. Bush-type dictator of a dystopian movie future not unlike "Starship Troopers'" or "The Man in the High Castle's." A battle for the hearts and minds of too-afraid-to-speak- out citizens, symbolically represented by meek Evey (Natalie Portman doing the English accent thing), unfolds between not-so-Fearless Leaders' government apparatus and a lone, cool-as-shit terrorist named 'V' (Hugo Weaving). Not only is 'V' a man profoundly marked by his imprisonment (think Wolverine minus adamantium), but he also loves to read and watch prison-related classics like "The Count of Montecristo" whenever he isn't staging cool domino-dropping artwork for an invisible camera he doesn't even know it's filming him. What a guy! :-P

    Most people forget that there's a long section in the middle of "V for Vendetta" that is essentially a dressed-down-to-its-core prison movie. No spoilers for those that haven't seen it, but the reveal of how/why Evey ended up in jail is one of the most fucked-up things in a mainstream movie I have ever seen. And it's not done for shits & giggles, but as an important element of why these characters are the way they are. Characters jailed for their beliefs is part of the movie's fabric leading up to its memorable climax, one of the best uses of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture ever committed to film. Keep count of how many characters at the end revealing themselves are or were in prison throughout the movie. You're welcome. :-)

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  22. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, on DVD) - First time viewing: A truly horrifying experience. The weird thing is after watching a little over an hour of one atrocity after another I kinda became numb to it and almost bored. Was that the point? What does that say about me? Gonna have to mull over this one for a while. I think I'm glad I saw it and I know I never want to see it again. (3 out of 5 Griers)

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    1. Think about it, think about it, maybe watch some other Pasolini movies, think about it more, see it again in maybe five years. This movie suckerpunched me back when I was younger, and I still give it a lot of credit for getting me through the whole Funny Games/Antichrist "movies are not for your entertainment!" idea before I had sit through any of those. When I saw the original FG a while back, I was pretty annoyed with it, most likely because I'd seen this movie 10 or so years earlier and didn't feel like I needed to be preached to by a different movie after sitting through that one.

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  23. In Hell (2003)

    It's got the mussels from Brussels, it's got prison fights, it's got a voice over narration by football hall of famer Lawrence Taylor, and it's got a moth ghost.

    I don't think we get to see Jean Claude smile once in this movie (or do the splits....) The movie plays more as a drama than your typical Van Damme movie which was kind of nice to see. It's a little heavy handed with the melodrama but that makes it fun in its own way.

    This movie also taught me that apparently most "Russian" prisons are full of Americans and Belgians, AND that I enjoy anything that JCVD shows his face in. The man has charisma.

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  24. Get the Gringo (2012)

    Pressed for time, ran with the Netflix recommendation. Not the worst, definitely had some moments. A bit on the mean spirited side at times, but I may just be overly sensitive and cranky in my tired, older late 20s. Watchable, fine, yatta yatta.

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  25. I kept my word, and watched:
    Female Market: Imprisonment (1986, dir. Yasuro Uegaki)
    It was GREAT! If you can find it, watch it! I added it to my list of favorite movies after I saw it, and it's only an hour long!

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    1. make sure you have subs, or you won't know whats going on.

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  26. Get the Gringo (2012)

    Not bad, but there's nothing great or memorable about it.

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  27. Feeling Guilty!

    Ilsa, The Wicked Warren 1977


    Feeling like I cheated a little with Matrix I wanted something more exploitation so this was the best I had I my collection, Part 3 of the Ilsa series with a different Ilsa, not as good as She Wolf but kinda fun, crappy acting, wierd out of focus sex scene, and full female nudity for it felt like 90% of the movie,

    It did have one lady with the biggest 70s bush I have ever seen, in the UK some people call this a Growler

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    1. It was so big I was wondering if if was a Merkin?

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  28. The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015, Dir. Kyle Patrick Alvarez)
    First viewing. Maybe I was more caught up in the actual true story behind the movie than the movie itself but I really enjoyed it. Strong cast, fascinating and disturbing story.

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  29. A Prophet

    French film about a young man who enters prisons and slowly becomes the kingpin, its like the Godfather in prison, very interesting and well written film.

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  30. A Prophet

    French film about a young man who enters prisons and slowly becomes the kingpin, its like the Godfather in prison, very interesting and well written film.

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  31. In Hell (2003)

    Jean Claude Van Damme movie about prison being hellish. This movie is incredibly bleak, but does attempt to have a message that "working together makes you stronger". Pretty enjoyable. We get the usual fight tournament scenes cliche found in so many JCVD movies, but notably, he is using some fighting styles and techniques I've never seen him use before. (I couldn't tell you which style it is, just that it's different from how he usually fights).

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