I first saw this movie back in 1994 in the theater. I was visiting a friend in New York and had no idea it had any connection to Stephen King. At the time I definitely didn't think it would become the award-winning basic cable staple that it turned in to. Now I think I should have had shirts made bragging that I saw it "first". Oddly enough I never saw it in its entirety again until this summer, so when it came up in this project, I was actually pretty excited.
Clearly a good deal of time passed between my first viewing of the film and reading the story. Therefore, I felt that the movie messed around with the source material to make the story more cinema-ready. However, on the second viewing I think I'll take that back. I think Shawshank culture (see below) made me forget that much of the grit from the original stayed in the movie. There are a few understandable consolidations of various events, but nothing sending the plot in a different direction. Red and Andy still reunite at that hard-to-say place on the Mexican coast. Ahhh....
Speaking of which, Shawshank culture is amazing. Some genius managed to manipulate it into a rom-com trailer:
And although released in the middle of the 16-bit era, here is the 8-bit video game version:
God bless the Internet!
