Kristi Jacobson’s HBO-aired documentary goes inside the segregation units at Red Onion State Prison, a supermax facility located in rural Virginia. The convicts incarcerated here are among the most violent in the penal system – and while they initially come across as articulate and charismatic in their on-camera interviews, the insouciant manner in how they detail the carnage that landed them behind bars is more than a little unsettling.
Jeremiah Kipp and Jessica Blank’s “Pickup” is the incredibly uncomfortable portrait of an uneasy relationship where a woman is stuck in a perpetual cycle of self-destruction that promises to become very dangerous, if she isn’t careful. Director Kipp is very wise to lead us in to a final scene that is very ambiguous and leaves the audience wondering what will happen next, and I appreciated that. “Pickup” involves a horrendous situation where once it explodes, everyone will feel the pain. And it likely involves two people that know the explosion is coming and both of them are doing everything in their power to prevent it before they have no choice but to face it.
In Cleveland, a murderer and rapist is accumulating victims while people do not seem to care about the missing women. This documentary explores his victims, through surviving family members and, most importantly, through surviving victims. This is done with interviews, court footage, and information written on the screen.
Shane Meadows previously worked with Paddy Considine in the criminally underseen “A Room for Romeo Brass.” Considine is a man capable of playing many things, and someone without much of a mental balance is probably his best character yet. Paddy Considine is admittedly one of the most unorthodox choices for the lead in a very dramatic and powerful revenge thriller, but he’s a man who can lend a lot of menace and terror to someone who doesn’t quite look like someone who’d knock heads. When he first meets the men that tormented his younger brother, he lays the fear of God in to them by merely glaring at them when they attempt to crowd him. One scene even finds him rattle a power drunk thug in the middle of a crowded bar.
James DeMonaco’s second sequel to the exploitative and silly “The Purge” series reaches the masses in a very politically fueled year, and while DeMonaco and Blumhouse have the advantage of very much satirizing the current political climate, “Election Year” just continues the same routine we’ve seen with this movie series so far. It’s a lot of the same where there is an opportunity to offer a scary dark satire of America, but it backs off in favor of a lot of goofy plot twists and meandering sub-plots. Once again the annual the Purge is about to commence where every year for one night there is no such thing as law. So you can murder as you please, rape as you please, pillage, plunder, take a penny without leaving a penny, pick at a buffet without the sneeze guard, leave your trash with the recyclables included, walk on the grass, loiter like hell for hours on end, the sky is the limit.
After Michael comes back to Montreal, his good friend throws him a party when sensual games are played and exploration of sexual identity mixes in. As he and the others discover their likings and what they are opened too, things get interesting.
George and Harold have been best friends since kindergarten, pulling pranks left and right and having creative imaginations that lead them to create Captain Underpants. One thing leads to the other and their creation lives to save lives and cause chaos.