Honestly, it doesn’t make any difference to me what category it’s in. It’s about what makes something popular and it’s at the same time about a specific movie. Either way it’s fine with me.
And can I just say that some of the replies could very well be perceived as a little bit condescending?
Why do I have to be tarred with the epithet ‘noob’ merely for doing something completely unimportant? I’ve heard tell that Barrack Obama, the US president, often double posts on forums because he keeps clicking the submit button. Nelson Mandela has a signature that is two pages long, the Dalai Lama doesn’t shrink his photos when he includes them, Nigella Lawson, the British restaurant critic, mentions spoilers without warning, and J.K. Rowling posts explicit material. So if you’re calling the author of Harry Potter a newbie, I’m going to have to ask you to log off!
The political aspect to that criticism is not really relevant, but the portrayal of all of the prison officers as really, horribly evil and corrupt, and all of the criminals as really, incredibly angelic, struck me as being quite silly.
Then there’s hero’s use of a tiny geologist’s pick to build a superhighway through the solid concrete of his cell wall (luckily for him the prisoners never had to change cells in twenty years). The newly built cell exit was effectively concealed from prison searches (did they even have them?) by a large pin up poster which got updated every five years.
I can’t believe how highly this movie’s rated either.
Yes, and the book also goes into the particulars of the concrete, it is an inferior quality prone to cracking and disintegrating, large chunks would fall out on a regular basis. Had the cement in the walls been up to par Andy would have made no headway. Also, in the book he did have roommates from time to time but they did not want to stay there because the cell was always too cold. I wonder why.
I would submit The Day Of The Jackal (the 1973 film with Edward Fox and [del]Hugo Drax[/del] Michael Lonsdale) as being another “perfect adaptation of a written story”- it’s completely faithful to the story and an excellent film in its own right.
Tiny, tiny, tiny nitpick: they should have left out the very last scene in the film. The ending of the novella was perfect… it’s not whether Red makes it, it’s that after decades in a place without hope, he hopes. Tacking on that last scene reduces the impact of the ending ever so slightly for me.
Just checking in to say the reason I love this movie is not because it’s brilliantly written… it’s because most of it was filmed in my hometown. That prison is on the road between where I grew up and Gramma’s house, so I’ve been by there more times than I can count.
I didn’t live there anymore when it was being filmed, so of course I had no idea that there was even a film crew in my hometown. Imagine my delight when I’m watching the movie and when I got to the scene where Andy and his friends are tarring the roof, my eyes narrowed. I thought, “Wow. That looks just like home!” And then the scene where Brooks gets out and works in the grocery store? Again, “Hmmmm… that looks really, *really *familiar. Like, I’ve been there familiar.”
And yes, my hometown is stuck in the 1950s.
So I had to watch every last credit to discover that, in fact, the movie was all filmed in and around where I grew up, so it will always have a special place in my heart. If I ever get homesick, I just watch it again and I’m reminded why I love living in Florida so much.
Only the warden and Hadley were corrupt-the guard whom Andy locks in the head when he plays the aria seemed on the level. And aside from the sisters of course, I don’t know if I would characterize the likes of Haywood as “angelic.”
The second point is more apropos-once the tunnel was completed, drafts would cause the poster to constantly buckle, in and out. Still doesn’t really ruin my love of the film tho.
There will be payback. In a decade or so, you’ll be talking to some teenager and make a reference to Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones or E.T. and they’ll look at you blankly. You’ll explain what you meant and express amazement they didn’t get it.
“Oh, I never saw Star Wars/Raiders of the Lost Ark/E.T.”
“What? How could you not have seen Star Wars/Raiders of the Lost Ark/E.T.?”
“I never watch old movies I guess.”
“Old movies? These aren’t old movies!”
“If you say so. But the oldest movie I ever watched is Titanic.”
And here I am being remembered, again, of that time I overhead two airheads discussing the first two LotR movies, and one of them complaining that the studios were already cashing in by selling the no doubt spoiler-full novelization of the third flick, like, a year before it comes out.
Never before had I wished I had a shovel in the subway.
Very true. And the likability of the prisoners shown most often in the movie is largely because this is a narrow, very specific group – the guys who were Andy’s friends. One would only expect that a guy like Andy would befriend the less evil / more sympathetic types. By and large these were the not-as-violent offenders.
Wait … if he’s chopping through a solid wall of cement (and if it’s a tunnel, it must’ve been a tunnel through something), where is the cross-draft coming from?
Like many others I adore this movie, even more than the excellent short story. You don’t expect a film about prisoners and brutality and injustice to be so damn beautiful, but it totally is.
One of my favorite aspects is that it’s a rare modern film where opera is highlighted for its beauty, the Mozart duet being depicted as sublime and uplifting – no mockery about fat women with horns/shields. The William Sadler character does wish that Andy had played something more modern (I think he mentioned that he wouldve liked Hank Williams?), but that’s only after the fact: as Sull’aria plays, every one of the prisoners seems transfixed.
Also like others, Shawshank is a movie I am compelled to watch whenever it’s on TV. I have the DVD but it doesn’t matter – when it’s on live, I’m there. (Contact does that to me too.)
And how that cavetroll was totally stolen from Harry Potter (OMG WTF dude).
No. No. I refuse to believe it. Please, admit you were punked that day. Surely, these guys just pretended to be disgustingly stupid to taunt random bystanders.
