Shawshank Redemption

[Panbaams]

My copy of The Shawshank Redemption has a 16:9 version of the film on one side and a 4:3 version on the other.

I'm fairly certain the spine doesn't have one of those "Compatible with PlayStation 2" logos, though.

(Edit.) For some reason it's a Cook'd and Bomb'd tradition to say that you've noticed that you've posted the first post on a page. So I'll do that here.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Is it just me who sets the number of posts per page at 50 in settings, so it never is a new page for me? Fuck having only 30 on.

[QDRPHNC]

The Shawshank Redemption is precisely the sum of it's parts and no more. It's parts are very good. Well-written, good acting, looks good, tugs at the heartstrings when it's supposed to. There's nothing big wrong with it. There are one or two brief moments that are a touch cringey.

The ending. It was better in the book, soz Ferris. The idea of Andy giving Red hope in an uncertain future is far more powerful than them getting together on a beach and doing boats.

The Green Mile I've watched twice. In terms of filmmaking, it's the equal of Shawshank, but you can see why it's far less audience friendly.

[bgmnts]

The Green Mile has Sam Rockwell in it, ergo it's superior.

[gilbertharding]

It's the funniest film set in a prison since Porridge the Movie.

"Buck Tarbrush..."

[QDRPHNC]

The Green Mile has Sam Rockwell in it, ergo it's superior.

Good point.

[Gulftastic]

Good point.

Yes. I just hate the tacked on end bit about old Tom Hanks being immortal. Not needed.

Younger Tom Hanks finally having a pain free piss is some of the best acting h's ever done.

[Pseudopath]

The Shawshank Redemption's an incredible achievement, especially when you consider that the picture had no backing.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Lambshank Redemption

[Replies From View]

Yes. I just hate the tacked on end bit about old Tom Hanks being immortal. Not needed.

Agreed.  The Polar Express handled this theme far more effectively imo

[Ferris]

The Shawshank Redemption is precisely the sum of it's parts and no more. It's parts are very good. Well-written, good acting, looks good, tugs at the heartstrings when it's supposed to. There's nothing big wrong with it. There are one or two brief moments that are a touch cringey.

The ending. It was better in the book, soz Ferris. The idea of Andy giving Red hope in an uncertain future is far more powerful than them getting together on a beach and doing boats.

The Green Mile I've watched twice. In terms of filmmaking, it's the equal of Shawshank, but you can see why it's far less audience friendly.

If it's unanswered questions you want, you can simply imagine the things they might do on the boat (which the film leaves to the viewers' imaginations). Jet skiing, deep sea shark fishing, illegal international-waters gambling ring etc etc.

[bgmnts]

Wouldn't it have been fucking briliant if Andy got nicked a few weeks after escaping.

[NJ Uncut]

Needs a crossover with Critters

Critters in the brig! (Do prisons have a brig?)

Oh no a Critter in Andy's hole! Can he use his booksmarts and banker know how to remove the Critters from the beloved institution?

[kalowski]

In the book he's called Red because he's a red headed Irishman.

[NJ Uncut]

Yes. A whitey.

It's his name in fillum

And the other changes are good. Film better than book!!

[Sebastian Cobb]

Wouldn't it have been fucking briliant if Andy got nicked a few weeks after escaping.

He'd crafted that other identity though hadn't he. You haven't thought this through.

[bgmnts]

He'd crafted that other identity though hadn't he. You haven't thought this through.

No I don't mean he gets caught as Andy I just mean if he did something daft like shoplifting mars bar from the offy.

[grassbath]

Not seen this for years.

Saw it when I was 12 or 13, because it was #1 on IMDB and I was just getting into films so my dad bought it for me.

It blew my tiny tits off. I thought it was the most marvellous, epic, rich, tense, dramatic, joyful film I'd ever seen. I laughed, I wept and was giddy. Didn't see the escape coming at all and it floored me. I thought that if this is what adult films were like, if this is the kind of shit they're making for over-15s, then I was in for a hell of a life. I had seen my first 'proper' film, and thus become a man.

Now I am an actual adult, theoretically, and would probably deem it a load of trite, sentimental bollocks. Even just the distant memory of the ending causes my gorge to rise.

[NJ Uncut]

Trite, sentimental bollocks

Naw

Watch it in HD with good sound and you hear the cat calls of the inmates, stuff like that. It's quite bleak for most of it. Even the start, fuck me, the trial. But before that, Andy sitting heartbroken and gun toting in his car. Beautifully shot and a show, don't tell, most of the time (interesting how most over remember the voice over but when Andy gets caught by the Sisters, or even the great brutal shot when Boggs gets battered, hell even the rooftop booze shot, it shows so much the right way)

The power of the story is being so bleak it's genuinely brilliant when Andy escapes. I see it as a metaphor too. Haven't we all felt trapped, haven't we all crawled through shit?

Also vs Green Mile. Hate the look of that, like a TV movie (ironic when you consider Shawshank found fame on cable TV). Seems deliberate Oscar bait, whereas Shawshank is genuinely affecting and a lot deeper than one might remember (I genuinely liked the vibe you get from the gang hanging out, for example, like when they go collecting stones for Andy - some good supporting parts. Green Mile is just Tom Hanks gurning with a mouse)

What's the Green Mile a metaphor for?

[QDRPHNC]

Wat.

[bgmnts]

What's the Green Mile a metaphor for?

Sam Rockwell being better than Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman AND Clancy Brown?

[Dex Sawash]

Guy at work left tells me one morning,

" I left the shoeshine reduction on your seat"

I didn't ask for clarification but was not expecting to see a DVD there at lunchtime.

[Chollis]

Naw

Watch it in HD with good sound and you hear the cat calls of the inmates, stuff like that. It's quite bleak for most of it. Even the start, fuck me, the trial. But before that, Andy sitting heartbroken and gun toting in his car. Beautifully shot and a show, don't tell, most of the time (interesting how most over remember the voice over but when Andy gets caught by the Sisters, or even the great brutal shot when Boggs gets battered, hell even the rooftop booze shot, it shows so much the right way)

The power of the story is being so bleak it's genuinely brilliant when Andy escapes. I see it as a metaphor too. Haven't we all felt trapped, haven't we all crawled through shit?

Also vs Green Mile. Hate the look of that, like a TV movie (ironic when you consider Shawshank found fame on cable TV). Seems deliberate Oscar bait, whereas Shawshank is genuinely affecting and a lot deeper than one might remember (I genuinely liked the vibe you get from the gang hanging out, for example, like when they go collecting stones for Andy - some good supporting parts. Green Mile is just Tom Hanks gurning with a mouse)

What's the Green Mile a metaphor for?

This guy gets it

[Ferris]

Which was the better redemption, Shawshank or Red Dead?

[QDRPHNC]

What's the Green Mile a metaphor for?

I love metaphors. I really got into them a couple of years ago. And now, if I see a film that is too literal, it actually annoys me!

[Ferris]

Don't avoid the question.

[QDRPHNC]

I can't answer the question, as The Green Mile is an allegory, not a metaphor.

Mind you! If we're going by NJ Uncut's type of metaphor, I could be all like, well, they're in jail, yeah? And who hasn't sometimes felt like you're in jail sometimes with the wife and kids and stuff yeah? Metaphor.

lol!!!

Edit: Oh, your question. Red Dead. Shawshank didn't have horse baggs gone all swole in the heat.

[bgmnts]

It also nicks the "there's a part of you they can't cage" shit from Escape from Alcatraz and probably every cliche prison film ever.

[greenman]

Not seen this for years.

Saw it when I was 12 or 13, because it was #1 on IMDB and I was just getting into films so my dad bought it for me.

It blew my tiny tits off. I thought it was the most marvellous, epic, rich, tense, dramatic, joyful film I'd ever seen. I laughed, I wept and was giddy. Didn't see the escape coming at all and it floored me. I thought that if this is what adult films were like, if this is the kind of shit they're making for over-15s, then I was in for a hell of a life. I had seen my first 'proper' film, and thus become a man.

Now I am an actual adult, theoretically, and would probably deem it a load of trite, sentimental bollocks. Even just the distant memory of the ending causes my gorge to rise.

For what it is I think it holds up well, that is I'd say a quite sentimental and generally pretty straight forward prison drama.

Its moreso a case of do peoples tastes in cinema go beyond that? for a large part of the population the answer is probably no so its understandable why it sits so highly on IMDB. I mean that in itself isn't something I'd have a problem with, its not so much decrying people for not having watched say A Man Escaped but rather when Shawshank(and again a lot of Nolan) itself gets invoked at the expense of cinema people view as beneath it.

[lankyguy95]

Naw

Watch it in HD with good sound and you hear the cat calls of the inmates, stuff like that. It's quite bleak for most of it. Even the start, fuck me, the trial. But before that, Andy sitting heartbroken and gun toting in his car. Beautifully shot and a show, don't tell, most of the time (interesting how most over remember the voice over but when Andy gets caught by the Sisters, or even the great brutal shot when Boggs gets battered, hell even the rooftop booze shot, it shows so much the right way)

The power of the story is being so bleak it's genuinely brilliant when Andy escapes. I see it as a metaphor too. Haven't we all felt trapped, haven't we all crawled through shit?

Yep and this is why it's not just a straightforward 'sentimental' film. There are some really bleak and sometimes pretty devastating blows. The little victories feel great in amongst all that. It's also why the end meet-up is so necessary to me, because it's fully earned over the course of the film rather than being tagged on.

It gets pretty much everything dead-on in tone, especially the weight of the time and the struggle, which as you say makes the escape fucking glorious.