Zorac (zorac) wrote,
Zorac
zorac

Shawshank Redeemed

Watched The Shawshank Redemption this evening. It remains in my estimation one of the greatest movies ever made - if for no other reason then because it's a film that I can watch whatever my mood, and always get something out of it. The film manages - eventually - to be feel-good without restoring to romance or sentimentality, and puts you through an emotional grinder along the way. There seems to be a huge amount of plot and character crammed into it, and yet at the same time the pace is leisurely, never rushed. It never puts a foot wrong, and it seems a shame that none of its seven Oscar® nominations produced a statuette - Morgan Freeman in particular was robbed in my opinion. It does have popular acclaim, though - both IMDb's Top 250 films and the top 100 movie list on Channel 4 a few months back had it in the number two spot, behind The Godfather and Star Wars respectively. Oh, and it serves as a reminder that Stephen King can write more than just trashy horror tomes...
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  • 6 comments

nmalfoy

August 25 2003, 19:12:39 UTC 17 years ago

I think some of Stephen King's best stuff is his non-horror stuff. "The Green Mile", "Hearts in Atlantis", and "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". Also "The Body" (the movie "Stand By Me" came from that short story).

Am geek, yes.

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nmalfoy

August 26 2003, 10:30:35 UTC 17 years ago

It is. It is the rare case where the movie is as good as the story. They didn't change much at all, and the last line of the story... yeah. Read it. It isn't very long.

zorac

August 27 2003, 05:27:09 UTC 17 years ago

Thanks for the rec - I've now got a copy of Different Seasons on order from Amazon.

katiemorris

August 26 2003, 05:27:54 UTC 17 years ago

Totally agree about Shawshank and this being one of Morgan Freeman's best performances. Loved the scene near the end where he finally wins his parole after, what was it? thirty years? Part of the reason the film is so good (apart from the superb direction) is the script uses mostly actual text from Stephen King's story. That's why the dialogue is so good.

For a BETTER Stephen King read try The Dead Zone. This was made into a very good (mildly horror) film starring Christopher Walken about twenty years ago. At least I thought the film was good until I read the book and flipped over it. King's early work was all of such a high standard, I hate what he's turned out latterly. The man can really write.

Kate

zorac

August 27 2003, 05:34:11 UTC 17 years ago

Not just thirty years, but forty. Hard to imagine. Thanks for the book recs, the only King I've read previously is one or two of his more recent Big Horror Doorstops when trapped away from my own book collection.

rachet

August 26 2003, 09:16:44 UTC 17 years ago

Shawshank is a hometown favorite. It was filmed about 20 minutes from here and I have several friends in it.