In Brubaker, when newly appointed prison warden Henry Brubaker (Robert Redford) tries to get a firsthand idea of the conditions his inmates live in, he discovers untold brutality, a broken system housing broken men. And, terrible, terrible food. In the opening sequence, the disguised warden sits down to a paltry and maggot-ridden dinner. And when he dramatically reveals that his is not a newly interred convict, one of the first changes Brubaker makes is to turn the county farm back into a working farm.

Over the years, Redford has become a symbol for a certain soft-hearted Hollywood liberalism that focuses on the marginalized by making movies about their experiences. Whatever you think about that, there's some rather prescient ideas in Brubaker, particularly that of having the prison supply its own food. With concerns about the industrial food system running high because of rising prices and  continued environmental destruction (pig sewage lagoon, anyone?), it's worth noting that prison food is pretty much the only food in the country worse than school lunches.

The Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit group that studies the effects of mass incarceration on prisoners and on society at large, found that prisoners in Florida are fed for just $2.32 a day, while those incarcerated in California luxuriate in a $2.45 per person per day food budget. It's not easy to feed a person for so little, and as recently as 2002, the St. Petersburg Times reported on Brubaker-like conditions: Maggots, rotten meat and tiny portions in the Florida prison system.

In Brubaker, tending the vegetable garden is portrayed as the first step toward humanizing a terrible system.

Get on board the prison reform bandwagon with Brubaker. For a complete schedule of this movie on AMC, click here.

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