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5lbs of Pressure 2024 - Movies (Apr 13th)
Auschwitz Countdown To Liberation 2025 - Movies (Apr 12th)
The Big Scoot 2025 - Movies (Apr 12th)
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Ricky Martin A Loco Life 2025 - Movies (Apr 12th)
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Cinderellas Curse 2024 - Movies (Apr 12th)
Aliens Expanded 2024 - Movies (Apr 11th)
The Piano Lesson Legacy and a Vision 2024 - Movies (Apr 11th)
I Am Martin Parr 2024 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Ernest Cole Lost and Found 2024 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Home Sweet Home Rebirth 2025 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Meet the Khumalos 2025 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Pets 2025 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Shadow of God 2025 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Douglas Adams The Man Who Imagined Our Future 2025 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Miyazaki Spirit of Nature 2024 - Movies (Apr 11th)
Have I Got a Bit More News for You - (Apr 13th)
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The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer - (Apr 13th)
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Lazarus - (Apr 13th)
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The 1947 Escape Attempt At La Sante Prison. Le Trou (The Hole) is directed by Jacques Becker and adapted to screenplay by Becker, Jose Giovani and Jean Aurel from Giovani’s own novel. It stars Michel Constantin, Jean Keraudy, Philippe Leroy, Raymond Meunier, Marc Michel and Jean-Paul Coquelin. Jacques Becker’s last film before he would pass away shortly after the film’s completion, is a tightly wound prison procedural that deals in grim realism and claustrophobic sparsity. There’s no prison movie clichés here, there’s no sadistic prison staff, no Mr. Big who is in with the wardens and demands money with menace, and no rapists hovering about the place to seize by force and break the last inch of spirit of the victim, this is as pure and unfussily raw as it gets. Based on a real escape attempt at La Sante Prison in 1947, story has four men in a cell plotting to escape via digging a hole in their cell. When construction work within the prison means a number of prisoners have to be relocated, the four men are a bit perturbed to find they have another inmate thrust into their already overcrowded cell. While of course there’s the small matter of the escape attempt that’s planned, will they be able to trust the newcomer? Will he join in and help? Pertinent questions hang heavy in the sweaty air. Once Claude Gaspard (Michel) arrives in the cell, the narrative initially operates on a cat and mouse basis as the men sound out the newcomer. There’s no histrionics, no threats of violence, an enforcement of machismo to intimidate the new cellmate, just human interaction with viable concerns. Much of these passages pulse with atmosphere as the men talk in hushed tones, or just exchange glances, and then once an accord is reached, all parties are comfortable with each other, it’s time to put the escape plan into action. What follows is quite simply engrossing suspense as Becker deals in long takes of silence punctuated by animal strength as the men pound on concrete with metal. The camera stays static, filming as if in real time, the sound department ramp up the volume to splinter the ears. We observe as the men fashion devices to aid their escape and to remain undetected, some of it genius in its simplicity. And all the while there is the feeling of trust, a bond between the incarcerated males, where the two lead off men are entrusted to go out and beyond the bowels of the prison, working tirelessly in charting the course through a maze of murky masonry, and to then return back to “HQ” for some rest and updates of the progress… The use of non professional actors works brilliantly, adding further realism to the story, with one of them, Jean Keraudy, a bona fide prisoner from the actual event back in 1947. There’s no music here, it isn’t needed to emphasise or manipulate a scene, none more so with the denouement, a closure of some emotional magnitude, and once again it’s without histrionics, and once again it works brilliantly. 9/10
This week's Noir of the Week is Le Trou (1960) directed by Jacques Becker. The film was called The Night Watch when released in the US in 1960. The 2 ½ hour prison escape film, like Rififi, utilizes long, unbroken, often dialogue-free shots to dramatize the simple story of a group of prisoners attempting an ambitious escape from prison. Le Trou is shot in black and white and is totally without soundtrack music until the very end. The film begins with one of the escapees, now outside the Santé Prison walls introducing the story. The film then flashes back to the Paris prison in 1947. We’re then introduced to a young man Claude Gaspard. He’s put into a very small cell with four other inmates. There he meets the charming, always smiling Volsselin, nicknamed Monseigneur. Also in the cell are fellow inmates Roland Darbant, the man who introduced the film, Geo Cassid, and Manu Borelli. The men work in their cell assembling cardboard boxes. Gaspard finds out that the men in his cell all eat well from care packages from the outside and all are close friends. What he doesn’t realize is that the men are working on escaping. While picking up a care package filled with bread, butter, saugage, smoked fish and rice pudding, the men discuss whether the should tell the new guy about their prison escape plans. They eventually take Gaspard into their confidence and being the long task of breaking the floor. Slowly, in real time, the men chip away at the concrete floor that leads to a sewer tunnel. The film lacks most prison film clichés. There are no sadistic prison guards, and all the prisoners seem like regular guys. Director Becker, who died shortly after the film was completed, used unprofessional actors including Jean Keraudy who was an actual participant in the escape attempt in 1947. Given the film takes place in only three days, the sense of overwhelming tenacity shown by the prisoners is an astounding piece of filmmaking. The film has a number of memorable scenes, including the noisy breaking of the concrete floor with one of the bed legs –in real time- while another prisoner looks out the peep hole using a spy glass made from a tooth brush and a broken piece of mirror. Watching the scene draws you in an even makes you feel like a participant in the hacking, sawing and picking. I won’t give away the ending or any of the interesting plot twists, but let’s just say there’s a heart-breaking double cross involved in a very un-Hollywood finish. Young Gaspard has to bear the brunt of an ironic plot-twist at the end. The film is a great prison escape film not to be mistaken for the French New Wave happening at the same time. Written by Steve-O
Carol Jeffries is a naive American woman staying in the Philippines. She is given ten years in prison after being set up by her drug-dealer boyfriend, Rudy. She endures the harsh conditions, sadistic head matron and attempts on her life, then convinces her cell-mates to try to escape with her through the jungle, in spite of the knowledge that ruthless trackers will be sent out after them.
A docudrama about the escape of Russian pilots after being taken hostage by the Taliban in 1996.
Lew is a small time loser with a troubled past and a very big secret. Overhearing a couple plan a kidnapping, Lew is tempted to come up with a scheme of his own. He decides to get to the victim first and then blackmail the real criminals. His plan soon spins out of control.
A detective starts spiraling out of control when a wave of gruesome murders with seemingly similar bizarre circumstances is sweeping Tokyo.
In the late 1990s, society is descending into ecological collapse and totalitarianism. Saiga Riki-Oh, a mysterious man with a six-pointed star on his fist, finds himself at the privately-owned Tokyo State Prison. Serving a term of three years due to assault, his first offense, Riki-Oh openly antagonizes The Four Emperors, four powerful prisoners that control the prison and keep the rest of the inmates in line...
Two prisoners escape with the help of their jailer to search for a treasure that is supposedly buried with a dead millionaire.
In this fast-paced, noirish road movie, a computer expert embezzles half a million dollars and races off to Reno to start anew. Unfortunately, en route, he picks up a pair of hitchers and ends up entangled with a crazed couple who commandeer his car and leave him alone in the desert to die. As soon as he can, he hits the road to get revenge and to find his money before they do.
It’s the spring of 1945 in a small resort town on the Baltic. Günter is 16 and firmly believes that the Germans will win the war. During the hunt for a forced labourer who is on the run, Günter catches him and watches as he is shot to death. He proudly accepts the award of an Iron Cross before being shipped to the nearby front as part of the last contingent of troops. He is quickly captured by Soviet soldiers, but manages to escape and return home. When the town is occupied by the Red Army, Günter is arrested for the murder of the forced labourer. The film was banned in 1968 before it was completed, and a large portion of the negative was later destroyed.
While under heavily armed guard, the dangerous convicts aboard a cargo ship unite in a coordinated escape attempt that soon escalates into a bloody, all-out riot. But as the fugitives continue their brutal campaign of terror, they soon discover that not even the most vicious among them is safe from the horror they unknowingly unleashed from the darkness below deck.
When World War II breaks out, two German lovers are cruelly separated. While he is sent to fight at the front, she, a Jewish girl, is sent to a concentration camp where humiliation and death have been elevated to a sinister art.