prison Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I might not be the biggest fan of prison movies (well, except Cool Hand Luke), but anything that could keep Francis Lawrence busy and away from an I Am Legend prequel is all right by me. The Hollywood Reporter announced that Lawrence has just signed to helm the story of the 1987 Atlanta Prison Riots for Warner Brothers. Black Hawk Down writer Mark Bowden came across the still-untitled project while researching Black Hawk, but did not have the time or resources to devote to the story. So here we are eight years later, and Bowden has enlisted the help of his brother, Aaron, to produce the film under the Wild Eyes banner.

For those of you who are a little fuzzy on their penal history, here's a primer on what Lawrence will be working with: In 1987, the Atlanta State Medium Security Prison was one of the dumping grounds for Cuban refugees from the Mariel Boatlift who were ineligible to be released. When Cuba later agreed to repatriate 2500 inmates currently being held -- well, to be blunt, all holy hell broke loose. The ensuing riot lasted over 10 days with more than 100 hostages involved -- heck, inmates even burned down a substantial portion of the facility itself. In the end, it took the intervention of the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta to end the siege. Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it?

But the bad news is that before Lawrence can get to work in the big house, he still has to finish developing Sara Gruen's historical novel, Water for Elephants for Fox 2000. Now if we could just do something about that Legend prequel ...

Yesterday's New York Post contained a gossip item in Page Six taken from the book party for James Rosen's The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate in New York, where attendee Tony Danza expressed an interest in playing Richard Nixon aide H.R. Halderman -- maybe in a movie version of Rosen's book. Halderman, who died in 1993, worked for Nixon as White House Chief of Staff until the Watergate scandal landed him eighteen months in prison in 1973. His story, partially recounted in The Strong Man, involved a longstanding relationship with Nixon going back to the 1950s and the tense moments immediately before and after the president's resignation. In between, he was involved in a botched attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro and other tumultuous events dutifully recorded in Halderman's diary, which became available to the public years later.

Many political scandals often revolve around a single corrupt individual, but it's the right hand man whose story can be most revealing. (Roy Cohen's personal drama has way more twists than that of Joseph McCarthy, for example.) There's little doubt that Halderman's experiences would work well on the big screen, but this wouldn't be the first time: IMDb lists no less than five actors who have portrayed Halderman, including James Downing in The Pentagon Papers, as recently as 2003. Would Danza make sense in this role? And will any film have a chance at getting people interested in this story after Frost/Nixon nabs the spotlight later this year?

This just in: Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison and fined up to $5 million for evading federal income taxes. Snipes was given the maximum penalty under the law. From the government's sentencing recommendation: "The fact that Snipes was acquitted on two felony charges and convicted 'only' on three misdemeanor counts has been portrayed in the mainstream media as a 'victory' for Snipes. The troubling implication of such coverage for the millions of average citizens who are aware of this case is that the rich and famous Wesley Snipes has 'gotten away with it.' In the end the criminal conduct of Snipes must not be seen in such a light."

The ruling comes despite the fact that fellow actors like Woody Harrelson and Denzel Washington sent letters to the judge on behalf of Snipes. I imagine the judge briefly entertained the thought of letting Snipes off the hook based on the fact that he really liked The Great Debaters, but then came to his senses and did the right thing. Personally, I have nothing against Snipes (except for the fact that he's made me suffer through so many bad films), but if he doesn't file taxes for three years and tries to be all shady about things, while the rest of us do what we have to do, then he deserves some kind of punishment. Perhaps he can use these three years in prison to help train for Blade 4.

Thoughts? Should he get three years for not paying taxes, or is there a more fair punishment?

Sky News reports that two prisoners -- Jose Espinosa, an alleged gang member awaiting sentencing for manslaughter, and Otis Blunt, facing robbery and weapons offense charges -- escaped from Union County jail in Elizabeth, New Jersey on Saturday night. Using improvised tools, the men removed cement blocks from two walls, squeezed through the holes, jumped to a rooftop below, scaled a 30-foot high wall and hopped a razor wire fence to escape from what was considered the most secure area of the prison. The men had only been prisoners for a couple of weeks. Pretty exciting little news story, isn't it? But why am I telling you about it on Cinematical -- the world's greatest movie news website?

Because the escape was apparently inspired by Frank Darabont's modern classic, The Shawshank Redemption! (Which was adapted from Stephen King's novella, but let's just assume these boys saw the movie.) You see, the inmates covered up their escape holes with photographs of women in bikinis! I guess had they used Rita Hayworth posters, it would have been far too obvious. In addition, they put dummies underneath their blankets to give the illusion that they were still in bed -- a trick I'm assuming they swiped from another awesome movie -- Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The escapees left a note saying "Happy Holidays," and thanking a guard they claim helped them escape. The jail -- and I'm sure many more to follow -- have banned posters and photographs from prisoners' walls. Espinosa and Blunt are said to be armed and dangerous, but if the movie taught us anything, they're probably just going to meet up on a beach somewhere and live out their days happily.

In 1971, a professor at Stanford University named Philip Zimbardo conducted an infamous psychological experiment on the psychology of incarceration. The experiment involved volunteers playing the roles of guards and inmates while living in a mock prison. It didn't take long for this test to degenerate into chaos -- the "inmates" of the experiment staged an uprising in response to physical, mental and even sexual torture they had experienced. In the end, the experiment was shut down prematurely, but it did manage to demonstrate how impressionable we all are when provided with a legitimate reason for inflicting distress on another person. More importantly, it was a scary example of the power of authority.

Variety has announced that the film version depicting the Stanford Prison Experiment has attached a director. Christopher McQuarrie will helm the real-life drama for Maverick Films this April. Although credited with writing the screenplay for The Usual Suspects, McQuarrie has only directed one film so far -- unfortunately, that film was The Way of The Gun. Maverick films have also bought the rights to Zimbardo's book The Lucifer Effect - Understanding How Good People Turn Evil , which doesn't hit the shelves until March.

The timing for the film couldn't be better, with questions of torture and cruelty in the news on a regular basis – hey, it could even be shown as a double bill with Errol Morris' new film. Whaddya think?

[via Dark Horizons]

Rob Cohen, the man behind XXX, The Fast and the Furious, Stealth, and the intriguingly titled Big Bosoms and Square Jaws (an upcoming bio-pic of exploitation veteran Russ Meyer) is set to direct Scared Straight, with Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson producing for Contrafilm. Ron Brinkerhoff who penned The Guardian is rewriting the script. The story deals with a governor's son who, after running afoul of the law, is sent to prison for a brief stay as part of the Scared Straight program. While he's on the inside, a riot breaks out and the inmates take him hostage. He teams with other street kids and a con to stop the riot.

Cohen says this will be a high-tech modern prison, so Shawshank this ain't. "After the success of 'Prison Break,' there is revival of interest in the genre," says Cohen. "It's going to be a genre movie with depth, and the depth will come from the character. It's the fight for the soul of this young kid who is on the verge."

Scared Straight is, of course, a real program in which felons are used to scare the living hell out of youthful offenders in hopes of discouraging them form a life of crime. Arnold Shapiro's Oscar-winning Scared Straight! (1978) documented the program.

[via Moviehole]

Mansour (Hossein Yari) is guilty of murder, awaiting the decision of whether or not he will be executed. His fate does not fall in the hands of a judge, though. It falls to the family of the man he murdered; if they ever make it down to the prison to make the call. Under Iranian law in cases of capital punishment, it is up to the victim's family to either condemn the offender to hang or save him with their forgiveness, but they are required to appear on the day of execution to officially select their verdict. Mansour has already faced the day of his sentencing a few times, and each time the judgment has been postponed due to the family's absence. And so he continues to wait for his appointment with death.

Anyone familiar with existentialist Iranian cinema can predict how Day Break ends, but it doesn't really matter if Mansour lives or dies. He is like Schrodinger's Cat, simultaneously alive and dead and neither state all at the same time. Trapped in a form of limbo, he endures the psychological struggle with having an indefinite future and a definite lack of free will. The torture of not knowing, for Mansour, becomes far worse a punishment than death.