We would stay and respond and expand and include and allow and forgive...
Finally saw Shawshank Redemption the other night (this free month of Netflix is proving great for finally seeing some of the classics that I never seem to sit down and watch—let’s hear it for sitting on my ass in front of the television!!), and though I enjoyed it, I have to know what is so unbelievably great about this movie. Seriously. It’s one of those flicks that everyone I know loves. And clearly that’s a widespread sentiment, as it’s on tv all the time, and I can’t imagine that tv stations would repeatedly show a movie that no one is watching.
So seriously. Why is this, like, one of the greatest movies of the recent past? I thought it was really good – well directed and well acted. An engaging, well-paced story that held my interest and even moved me at points. But then there were those other points... Those points where I either cringed in embarrassment or watched in disbelief at the sheer impossibility of certain details that were just glossed over in the interest of preserving the other heartfelt, well developed ones. And admittedly I’m not really one for cheesey endings, but come on. That final scene with Morgan Freeman walking down the vast, pristine Mexican shoreline as Tim Robbins sands his boat in the blazing sun had me feeling like I was being raped by one of the “sistahs” back in the showers of the prison. Ugh.
Too cynical for my own good? Perhaps. Can’t imagine why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I can’t turn on the radio, open the newspaper, surf the net, check my e-mail, have a conversation, walk down the street, or pretty much breathe without being confronted with information that makes me think the entire world has gone insane and question what the hell my place is in all this insanity. Maybe the utopia of that Mexican beach and the self-made lives of the two ex-cons who escaped to it is just too much for me to take—an unattainable nirvana that on the one hand I wish were attainable and on the other hand seems like a total cop-out in the face of the state of the world.
Or maybe I just hate cheesey endings.
So seriously. Why is this, like, one of the greatest movies of the recent past? I thought it was really good – well directed and well acted. An engaging, well-paced story that held my interest and even moved me at points. But then there were those other points... Those points where I either cringed in embarrassment or watched in disbelief at the sheer impossibility of certain details that were just glossed over in the interest of preserving the other heartfelt, well developed ones. And admittedly I’m not really one for cheesey endings, but come on. That final scene with Morgan Freeman walking down the vast, pristine Mexican shoreline as Tim Robbins sands his boat in the blazing sun had me feeling like I was being raped by one of the “sistahs” back in the showers of the prison. Ugh.
Too cynical for my own good? Perhaps. Can’t imagine why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I can’t turn on the radio, open the newspaper, surf the net, check my e-mail, have a conversation, walk down the street, or pretty much breathe without being confronted with information that makes me think the entire world has gone insane and question what the hell my place is in all this insanity. Maybe the utopia of that Mexican beach and the self-made lives of the two ex-cons who escaped to it is just too much for me to take—an unattainable nirvana that on the one hand I wish were attainable and on the other hand seems like a total cop-out in the face of the state of the world.
Or maybe I just hate cheesey endings.
posted by P/O at 4/01/2005 12:17:00 PM
1 Comments:
I love that movie.
Sometimes for Freeman's narration. "Some birds aren't meant to be caged..."
Sometimes it's for the way the movie sells the idea that your soul is untouchable by the big bad world around you. (the opera loudspeaker scene)
Sometimes for the portrayal of the fragility of life. "Brooks Was Here"
Sometimes it's just see somebody get what he deserves. (Both the Warden and Andy Dufraine)
But mostly it's the hope. This movie is the perfect antidote for depression.
That why I love it love it love it.
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