LOL - never seen it before. I do enjoy a good Steven King yarn though.

It started off a bit slowly, but after the first 45 mins or so it began to open up like a wonderful flower. Brilliant.

UB

 

Steven King ? I thought it was directed by the same guy who did Green Mile ?

In my humble opinion the best film I've ever watched ! Closely followed by Green Mile !

Jai

 

was it written by Steven King?

 

The Green Mile also blew me away when I first saw it.

They are *both* written by Steven King!!

UB

 

Yup, both by "the king of horror", suprisingly. In fact, there's a few films about that he wrote that you don't immediately connect with him (Running Man for example written by King under the name Richard Bachman)

 

Yep, that's one of his. And Lawnmower Man.

I'm currently listening to 'Christine' in audio book form. That's great too.

The man's a goddam hero!!

UB

 

Stand By me (The Body)

 

Why have I never seen this film before? I dunno. What a great evening I have just spent at home.

That will go down as one of my greatest all time films.

Perhaps the director of Dreamcatcher should take note.......

 

It's not so much the director, but the story teller. It's a mark of King's genius that he can make a 3 hour prison movie so deep and meaningful - and do it twice

When you see how good a story can be, it makes other stuff seem so mediocre by comparison.

UB

 

Got it but never got around to watching it! I will now...

Never realised it was based on a Stephen King short story - probably read it as I've read most his stuff

Generally (Apart from 'The Green Mile' which was good) his stories translate pretty poorly onto the big screen though.

 

You won't be disappointed by the Shawshank Redemption - one of the finest movies made in the last 30 years. I find it very hard to compile lists of my all time favourite films etc, but this would certainly be in my top 5 no question.

Chris

 

I love the shawshank redemption defo 1 of best films ever made if not the best, think ill buy it on DVD if it’s available


Is stand by me a Steven king film ??

Slightly off topic but I seen a film ages ago with a send up of the dead body thing, were some black kids go looking for 1 and find a dead body which is Elvis, does anybody know which film this is I cant remember the name

 

Its based on his book called The Body

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092005/

 

Another one to watch out for.

UB

 

That's because you're making the mistake of assuming that films win Oscars on the back of whether they're any good or not.

You also need to bear in mind that Shawshank for some inexplicable reason was a relative flop on its initial release.

 

Interesting though that Tom Hanks went on to star in The Green Mile.

Perhaps he felt guilty?!?

UB

 

One of the best films made

 

It was directed by Frank Darabont from his OWN screenplay based on a steven king short story.The green mile was also his own screenplay from an SK short storyl.

As a side note(unless something has changed recently ) Mr darabont is suposedly writing the screen play for the next possible indiana jones film .Should be interesting at the very least .

 

How did it end, i fell asleep!

 

That makes it sound like Darbont did most of the writing work. The screenplay is very true to the story i.e. it is the short story with a few stage directions

Decent Stephen King films:

Stand by Me
The Running Man
Shawshank Redemption
Green Mile
Misery
Dolores Claiborne
IT (tv series with Tim Currie as the clown)

Bad Stephen King films:

Pet Cemetary (great book, though)
Dreamcatcher (film is OK if you've read the book, confusing nonsense if you haven't)
Christine
Carrie (made for TV film)
The Stand (TV series)

Actually, not a bad hit rate, really.

Tried watching Kingdom Hospital but thought it was a load of old nonsense.

 

Different Seasons is a collection of 4 novellas. One of the stories is Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. It's not quite a Novel but certainly not a short story. Hence-Novella! There must have been a mistake with the credits for Frank Darabont to claim the screenplay as his own for I have never seen a movie that not only followed the original story as closely but also the dialogue.Most of the time word for word. The script really is just chunks taken out of the story.
Great movie.

 

I suspect Mr Darbont's screenplay was a copy of the "novella" with hand written notes

 

Yeah for sure. But you can't blame him. There's just no way he could have improved on the original. The last few spoken sentences of the film, (so touching) are the exact same ones found in the last paragraph of the story.

 

This is stolen from a short series called 'Kingdom' with a strange character in it called little brother made by some mad dutch/swedish guy who also did a film called the 'idiots' , possibly the wierdest s**t ive ever seen.

Andy

 

Nah, Shawshank is a truly great film, but as a landmark piece of movie making not much topples Pulp Fiction - you chose well

 

it's a bit soppy / huggy though isn't it? designed to tug on your emotions. good film, but bit daft, I mean who digs a tunnel for 20 years? oh please.

 

Not going anywhere for a while? Dig a tunnel!!