I just finished watching this movie. It was based on a true story. It stared Val Kilmer. It was really good. I had never even heard of it, but my mom said she liked it, and she hadn't watched it in years, so we watched it. It was about the chain gangs of the 1920's. It was a total drag. Has anyone ever seen it? Val Kilmer did a fantastic acting job.
Posted by 80'sRocked (Member # 6979) on :
I never heard of this, but I like Val Kilmer movies. I'll have to buy this one.
Posted by jdocster (Member # 5752) on :
I saw this years ago. It's pretty good. The woman was a nut-job...
Posted by ISIS (Member # 1780) on :
The woman- Sonia Braga? She was weird. But, she reminded me of a whole situation that I am going through right now with a friend.
My one friend is marrying a man who she has known a month, and he has a bad past history...and I have tried to talk her out of it, but she is set on it, and I am scared for her and her 2 daughters.
In this movie....Val Kilmer moves in to a "Bed n Breakfast"/ Boarding Home -after he escapes from the chain gang...and he starts to write a book about what he went through...she finds the book and reads it, and even though he tells her he made the story up- she doesn't believe him, and holds it over his head, and makes him marry her.
He later falls in love with Kyra Sedgewick.
It really was an awesome story. They made a real life movie about the story....and in this movie he watches the real movie about his life...so it is totally different from anything I have ever seen.
It was horrible ...the conditions and the treatment those men received in the chain gang... if punsihment like that still existed...we'd have no crime...can you imagine eating beans and mush for supper every night, and cornpone and molasses every day for breakfast and lunch.
They were shackled together every day, worked 15 hours a day, hard labor, they were hung upside down and beat with a whip, they were put in "hot houses"...alot of them died. They weren't given water. It was awful.
Now, in prison you get gourmet food, a college education, TV, all kinds of entertainment...what's to stop crime? Most people who go to prison ...have it made in prison. Their lives were brutal before prison.
I was watching the documentary about Charles Manson...Tex Watson- who's the main guy who stabbed to death most of the people when they went on that killing spree- he's been allowed to get married and have children...how does that work? He has a job as the prison pastor.
If you look at the facility that Susan Atkins is at...it looks like a really nice place.
So, when I was watching this movie, I couldn't believe this stuff was happening the same year my Grandpa was born.
Posted by LoverswithCassie (Member # 7794) on :
Hey, ISIS, do you think that you could give away all that tripe about prisons having gourmet food, a college eduacation, TV, all kinds of entertainment and so forth? Because if this is really the case, then why are we told that they are places to be avoided? And why are there still rapes, suicides, assaults and murders in prisons, for goodness sake? I suggest that you try living in that county where Joe Aparo (I don't know how his surname is spelt) is Sheriff and he has reintroduced chain-gangs and so forth -- and yet, that county still has one of the highest reoffending rates in the United States of America!
Posted by ISIS (Member # 1780) on :
Well....I don't believe in reintroducing chain gangs, and I know that prisons are not a fun place- but the people that are doing the crime to begin with...don't fear prison...because it's a part of their world. What I am saying is...today...people are out on the streets walking around who have commited murder and are child molesters...and yet in this movie- Val Kilmer was just standing beside a guy who committed armed robbery- he actually had the gun held on him, and the robber said if he didn't help him rob the place...he would shoot Val Kilmer- so he ends up in jail, and he didn't do anything.
Now....people have criminal records like it's nothing...I am sure everyone knows someone that's spent time in jail- it doesn't even seem to be out of the ordinary any more. If it was so horrible in jail...then how come we really do have such a high crime rate?
At least when someone goes to jail, they don't have to worry about what's for dinner- or how am I going to pay for it...they don't have to hold down a job, and pay the electric bill...they don't have to worry about what they're going to wear for the day...they get TV, and get to go outside, and they get all their basic needs met.
The things in the prisons like rapes, and drugs and murder are outside too...so if you grow up like that...your not going to know any different.
The prisons in this country that are scary to be in are the maximum security ones, where people are in for life, or on death row...because those people have nothing to lose...my friend worked in a local maximum security prison near here, and he had to save his boss's life, because an inmate attacked them and stabbed them with a homemade knife. I am not saying that prison is a wonderful place, and that everyone should go there for a little mini vacation....I am saying that prison isn't as bad as it was in this movie, and that this movie wasn't made that long ago...that it was made during the beggining of my grandfather's life...and you don't see that kind of stuff any more....not the "Hot houses", and the hanging people upside down and whipping them. That's what I am saying...is prison isn't like it was in the movies. Prison absolutely is not anywhere I ever want to be.
