Bovie Movie

With an insane asylum standing in for everyday society, Milos Forman’s 1975 film adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel is a comically sharp indictment of the Establishment urge to conform. Playing crazy to avoid prison work detail, manic free spirit Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is sent to the state mental hospital for evaluation. There he encounters a motley crew of mostly voluntary inmates, including cowed mama’s boy Billy (Brad Dourif) and silent Native American Chief Bromden (Will Sampson), presided over by the icy Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Ratched and McMurphy recognize that each is the other’s worst enemy: an authority figure who equates sanity with correct behavior, and a misfit who is charismatic enough to dismantle the system simply by living as he pleases. McMurphy proceeds to instigate group insurrections large and small, ranging from a restorative basketball game to an unfettered afternoon boat trip and a tragic after-hours party with hookers and booze. Nurse Ratched, however, has the machinery of power on her side to ensure that McMurphy will not defeat her. Still, McMurphy’s message to live free or die is ultimately not lost on one inmate, revealing that escape is still possible even from the most oppressive conditions.

A census taker (Jeremy Sisto) sent to find out why the population of a small, puritanical town has remained fixed at 436 for the last century finds out that even the most idyllic small towns can harbor deadly secrets in the feature directorial debut of longtime television producer/director Michelle Maxwell MacLaren.

Writer/director Ernie Barbarash helms this prequel to the sci-fi thriller Cube, with events that unfold some time prior to those in first picture. Here, another group of prisoners navigate the treacherous confines of their futuristic trappings. Each step is potentially the last as the deadly last traps hidden in the sparse rooms find the numbers of the unwilling prisoners quickly thinning. Only when they can figure out the mysteries of their constantly changing prison will the surviving inmates have any hope for escape, and even then there is no guarantee of freedom — much less survival. As the cube workers who monitor the prisoners progress bear witness to their increasingly grim bid for survival, a sudden sting of remorse finds one of the employees empathizing with the victims and plotting to assist them in their unlikely escape.