Every time I think of this movie, I think about how hard I worked to avoid seeing it. I heard about this movie for what seemed like years. Everyone always named it as their "most favortist" movie, which always makes me doubtful. Directed in 1994 by
Frank Darabont, who seems on only directed Stephen King adaptions (and most recently and strangely he produced The Walking Dead TV Show). I always feel like I'll just be disappointed when I see movie that people talk about in such glowing terms. I don't doubt their taste, I just tend to become more critical and surly. I'm not alone in this feeling. I worked on a short film for DePaul my senior year, working on production design and creating a set for a drug addict to live in. During shooting in the apartment, I became tired of the sheer cattiness of production design and resigned myself to just PA. I sulked in the cockroach-infested hallway with my friend Rick. Between our bouts of whining and confirming into the walkie-talkie that we had "this shit locked down", we complained about movies. Specifically, ones we had never seen. We both immediately named
The Shawshank Redemption. It was so talked about that we both felt it couldn't possibly be that good when we watched it. I'm not going to say I wasn't right, because this is by no means my favorite movie. But it was for sure a great movie, and an exceptional movie. The story was sort of contrite, but it felt really good to watch it. It did a lot of cool things with pacing and tone and cinematography. There were some parts that felt meh to be, but overall, I was really impressed with the movie, and I understand (to some extent) why everyone loves it so much. I can see why people name it as a favorite. My favorite movies that I tend to actually declare "my favoritst" are the ones that sort of opened my mind to something new. A movie that I saw something different in, or I have a really strong, good, memory about. I often name my favorite movie as being the first movie I saw where I "got" film analysis, and I was like, "Oh, movies can mean things!" Anyway, on to the actual film at hand.
