I remember Michael Medved really ranting against this movie as another example of Liberal Hollywood against America. The heroes in the film are criminals and the bad guys are the authorities, typical leftist fare. At least according to some conservatives.
Hey, all I did was make a joke. Then answer the questions put to me. Sorry if I found the OP’s insistance that there is a factual reason why people like something funny. Perhaps I should lighten up and. . . not make jokes?
FYI, here’s a Wall Street Journal article from 1999 about the success of this movie. It points out that the movie only made $18 million in its original release (and then $10 million in a re-release) but was a big rental in 1995, and then heavily promoted by the TNT cable channel.
As for its popularity in the IMDB polls, I stopped paying attention to them long ago. One reason was that once the daily poll was which Humphrey Bogart film is your favorite and the top response (over fifty percent) was “I haven’t seen any of these movies.” What kind of schmucks haven’t seen any film starring Bogart?
I haven’t. I’ve tried, but I can’t get through one. I find the acting styles in those old movies so ridiculous that I can’t get into them. I’m not much of a fan of the Hayes code era straightjacket either.
I don’t know if this is what you mean by “balance”, but I can start watching Shawshank at any scene and be captivated. There aren’t any boring, filler-type scenes, no long scenes of people driving or having inane conversations. And the actors are all wonderful, especially James Whitmore.
Shawshank has only made about $28 million domestically. Clerks II made about $24 million.
Very few people went to see Shawshank, so it would be hard to capitalize on this popularity.
But, the group who did go was middle aged, white collar white guys. They associated with the main character and felt the horror of being in jail through him. But almost no one else went and no one else reviewed the movie. I suspect that if you showed the movie to poor black audiences they’d just laugh at the prissy little white guy running around and think the movie was stupid.
I have always been fond of you. I think I may now have a crush.
There’s also the Stephen King factor. He is one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Fortunately, the movie stuck very close to the book, and the story was very much as King told it.
Also, we can’t underestimate the effect of the casting. Morgan Freeman was absolutely perfect in the role and he’s such a charismatic actor that his presence just makes a movie more likable. (Note that the character was written by King as a white Irish guy, which is why he’s called “Red.”) Also, they cast people who could actually act. Could you imagine Nicolas Cage as Andy Dufresne? :eek:
As Dio pointed out, it’s not really a prison escape movie. Sure there’s an escape in it, but that’s not really what it’s about. Totally different kind of movie than Escape from Alcatraz and so forth.
No, the Blackadder thing was very funny, but also a joke he clearly didn’t get, so your subsequent defense just seemed a bit harsh for someone clearly talking on a different wavelength. That’s all…
Good point. I guess by the end of my post ( I got interrupted while typing) I was thinking about Andy’s revenge, not redemption.
The other day I watched Escape from Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood. I wonder if Stephen King “borrowed” any ideas from that movie. I was reminded of Shawshank a bit. The scene where Eastwood was shaking dirt out of his pocket into the yard hit home. 
Ah. I didn’t catch the different wavelength part. Reading back, I see what you mean. I didn’t think I was being particularly harsh but then I never do.
Anyways. . . why was he called Red? He didn’t have red hair. Maybe Morgan was a communist. Or David Caruso was too busy learning to whip off his sunglasses to play the part.
Didn’t the movie make a joke about this at some point, where Freeman delivered the line “Because I’m Irish” with a straight face?
Stephen King called him Red in the book, because he was a white Irish guy with red hair.
I’ve always wondered the same thing. I mean, it was a good enough movie, but the utter worship for it baffles me.
Well, maybe not. The movie is corny, but only in a general way; there isn’t anything specific about it that’s particularly bad. So people tend to get a good feeling from it but there’s no one thing about it to turn people off.
That was actually true. Allied POW’s did this in WWII. So King, Darabont, Bruce, and Tuggle probably all took it from The Great Escape.
He was easily embarassed.
As you might expect with a movie where the hero crawls through a toilet pipe, Family Guy did an memorable spoof. “Why he chose enchilada night, I’ll never know.”
Tim Robbins is not a little guy. Neither is Peter Griffin, for that matter.
I’m not sure where I’d rate it in one of those polls but this movie is one that I can watch all or part of multiple times and not get tired of it. “The Princess Bride” and “Stand By Me” are two other movies that I’d give that description.
Simultanous synchronicity at work! [Both posts were made at 8:31 am]
That’s because the question is not wether or not it is any good. The question is why is it so succesful. Not: do people like it, but: Why do people like it. Many people wrote meaningful replies so I know I am not mad or incomprehensible.
If you meant that nonsense was supposed to be a reference to Ink and Incapability, you may want to notice the subtle use of the word “dictionary” in my reply. Even so, now every piece of gibberish is suddenly a Blackadder reference?