MOVIES AND MORE MOVIES

WOMEN’S PRISON MOVIES: Caged (1950) Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead. “She’ll be back.” Don’t miss the scene where butch sadistic prison matron steps out for her Saturday night date, lording it over and leaving the love-starved inmates to twist and turn. Turn the Key Softly (1953), dir. Jack Lee; British drama starring Yvonne Mitchell, Joan Collins (surprise) as a prostitute, Kathleen Harrison and Terence Morgan. Three women from different backgrounds are released from prison over the course of 24 hours each face a struggle to avoid returning to her criminal ways.

THE TEMPTATION IN THE DESERT: MAN ON WIRE AND FREE SOLO

Both Petit and Honnold practiced obsessively and incessantly, memorizing every  every inch of the cable, every handhold and foothold.


“I like to differentiate between risk and consequence,” says Honnold. “The chance of me falling off is quite low even though the consequence is extremely high.”

That may be, but what of a risk in which the consequence is certain death?

ICONICITY: ART IN THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DESERT

Director/producer Leo Zahn has made documentaries about mid-century architect William F. Cody and Frank Sinatra in Palm Springs.

Now he brings us “Iconicity.” The core theme: “Why are artists attracted to the [Southern California] desert? There is something here, call it a mystical energy or what have you, but it’s also very practical as to why certain art gets created only in the desert.”