Simply put, Woodpeckers is a miraculous film. Written and directed by José María Cabral, a 29-year-old with talent, Woodpeckers was shot on a tight budget in real prisons with real inmates and real guards as background and extras. But Cabral doesn’t let the docudrama aspect of Woodpeckers get in the way of his imagination — some scenes feel like they were lifted from a 1970s science-fiction film and made real. This allows Woodpeckers to move easily from comedy to romance,…

Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a man who likes his pad, his body, his ride, his boys, his family, his church, his girls, and his porn. He likes his body, his pad, and his ride because they are always neat and tidy and well maintained. He likes his boys, his girls, his family, and his church, because he sees them on a regular basis (and only a regular basis). He likes his porn because it allows him something that reality cannot…

Remember those old movies? The ones where a couple drives down the road, only they aren’t driving, they’re sitting in a car on some studio lot. And that’s not a road behind them; it’s a rear projection of road. Looks fake doesn’t it?

Did this fakery bother audiences back then? Not in the slightest. Back in the 1920s, ’30s and even into the ’40s, movies were about beautiful people living in fabulous mid-city apartments, dressing glamorously, saying the right thing…