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"The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), Directed by Frank Darabont, Produced by Niki Marvin, and Starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman


DonRocks

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I'm not sure why some movies seem to be virtually unobtainable online, at any price; while others are only available for rent; and still others are available in various places for free. "The Shawshank Redemption" is one in the latter category - for whatever reason, it is available in high-definition on the internet, free-of-charge (if you Google it, you'll find it, but I was watching my version here).

This is a film that I didn't love in the theaters (I was 33), but I enjoy a bit more now that I'm older - maybe it's the subject matter, or maybe it's because I can take my time watching it (I've been watching it over several days), or maybe it's because I'm fully aware of the importance and charisma of Morgan Freeman. Regardless, I like this movie, but don't necessarily love it. I'd be curious to know how others feel about it.

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Funny, I was watching this last night on AMC (I think).

I like the movie. It's has an excellent cast and is well written. I wouldn't say it's formulaic, but it's definitely Hollywood. In addition to Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, James Whitmore (Brooks), Bob Gunton (the dastardly warden) and Gil Bellows (Tommy) were perfect for the roles.

Check out the Shawshank Redemption Homepage. Rocks, you'll like this, it has an excessive analysis of all 299 scenes in the flick.

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Funny, I was watching this last night on AMC (I think).

I like the movie. It's has an excellent cast and is well written. I wouldn't say it's formulaic, but it's definitely Hollywood. In addition to Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, James Whitmore (Brooks), Bob Gunton (the dastardly warden) and Gil Bellows (Tommy) were perfect for the roles.

Check out the Shawshank Redemption Homepage. Rocks, you'll like this, it has an excessive analysis of all 299 scenes in the flick.

Interesting, and just before I now walked back to the computer, I was thinking how utterly implausible it was for Dufresne to crawl through *500 yards* of that sewage pipe. Anyone thinking otherwise should go out to a track one day, and try crawling around one time (400 meters) without kneepads - they won't finish, they probably won't even finish 50 yards, and Dufresne would have passed out and died (literally, died) less than 20 yards into his crawl. I understand it's "Hollywood," but for something to really resonate with me, it must be at least plausible as in "one out of a billion"; this wasn't. To me, it was sort of a fecal version of Sandra Bullock making it home in "Gravity" when she's floating around out in outer space without a ship (and needless to say, Matt Damon's eventual return to Earth in "The Martian" (Matt Damon saying, "I'm gonna have to science the *shit* outta this!" might have pumped me up when I was 15 years old; now, not so much). Also, "In your face, Neil Armstrong" is an embarrassingly stupid line.

And wow, that Shawshank Redemption Homepage *is* great! Anyone watching the movie should reference it!

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I like the movie. It's has an excellent cast and is well written. I wouldn't say it's formulaic, but it's definitely Hollywood. In addition to Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, James Whitmore (Brooks), Bob Gunton (the dastardly warden) and Gil Bellows (Tommy) were perfect for the roles.

Check out the Shawshank Redemption Homepage. Rocks, you'll like this, it has an excessive analysis of all 299 scenes in the flick.

I've been watching individual scenes on YouTube - I think I like the scenes more than the movie as a whole (it's the same thing with "Good Will Hunting"). Another actor who was *perfect* in his role was Clancy Brown, who played the robotically sadistic Captain Hadley so well that it's hard to imagine him ever playing anything else, and it's even harder to imagine that he's a nice guy in real life.

Brown graduated from St. Albans High School because his father, Bud Brown, was a Congressman who filled in after the death of *his* father, Clarence J. Brown. Between the two of them, the Brown family represented Ohio's 7th district for 44 years - from 1939 to 1983!

One interesting scene in the movie was, I believe, a mistake, although perhaps not. Clancy Brown is a big man, standing 6'4" and having a square jaw making him look even bigger. Tim Robbins, however, is 6'5". In most scenes, they didn't portray Robbins as being so tall, and they certainly didn't make him look as tall as Clancy Brown (it's counter-productive, so to speak). However, on the famous "rooftop scene," there's one moment where Robbins is standing face-to-face with Brown, and they made no effort to hide Robbins' ample height. This was also the one scene in the movie where Andy Dufresne (Robbins) won over the sadistic Hadley (Brown), so perhaps this was intentional, but I think it's more likely a mistake - however, if that's the case, it's one *hell* of a mistake. Anyway, you can judge for yourselves (and also watch the videos that follow, which go in sequence - it makes for a fun twenty minutes or so):

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