Missing Litchfield after binge-watching your way through OITNB Season 2? They may not fill the hole left in your heart by Piper and Co., but these movies will help tide you over until the Netflix series returns. Warning: Some spoilers ahead!
Con Air (1997)
When Piper (Taylor Schilling) is loaded into prison transport to be flown off to an unknown destination in the first episode of Season 2, she ends up meeting a genial fellow inmate named Lolly, played by Lori Petty. But when Nicolas Cage's Cameron Poe boards a prison plane on his way to be released after serving time in Con Air, he's not so lucky. This 1997 action flick may be the only Cage movie in which the weirdness of his performance ("Why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box?") is equalled by the fierce scenery chewing of his co-stars, including John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, Dave Chappelle, and Steve Buscemi.
Touchstone Home Entertainment
Greenfingers (2000)
If you're pining for more stories of gardening behind bars after Season 2's introduction of Red's (Kate Mulgrew) shed, this British comedy stars Clive Owen as Colin Briggs, a hardened prisoner who learns that his true calling is plants, and becomes a softer, friendlier human being in the process. Introduced to gardening by his cellmate, Colin ends up competing in the posh Hampton Court Palace Flower Show after attracting the attention and support of aristocratic celebrity gardener Georgina Woodhouse (Helen Mirren).
Columbia TriStar Home Video
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Institutional corruption and the sadistic side of power is a theme in both Orange Is The New Black and The Shawshank Redemption, though Shawshank's Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton) reveals himself to be far more of a monster under the pious exterior than anyone on the series (which presents a human side to all of its characters). But while Andy Dufresne's (Tim Robbins) integrity and perseverance in the face of the warden's hypocrisy and cruelty does eventually allow him to triumph, there's no such clear-cut justice on the show, which suggests that everyone gets warped and compromised by the system.
Castle Rock Entertainment
Caged Heat (1974)
Women in prison stories used to be synonymous with exploitation films, like this 1970s feature distributed by schlock king Roger Corman's New World Pictures. And that means sadistic wardens, predatory lesbians, and all the trashy stereotypes that Orange Is The New Black digs into and subverts. Written and directed by Jonathan Demme, Caged Heat was the Silence of the Lambs filmmaker's debut, and contains its own satire of the genre along with some social commentary — as well as all the expected gratuitous nudity and over-the-top violence.
Shout! Factory / Via mooninthegutter.blogspot.com
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