Bad Books Make The Most Watchable Movies

The Shawshank Redemption ended about half an hour ago, and I shook my head when I considered how many times I've seen various parts of the movie. It's one of those movies, like Rocky IV , III, II, or even the first one, where you can watch certain parts of it for eternity. I can't think of another more pleasant "hell" than one in which I'd be forced to watch Ivan Drago beat Rocky to a pulp, only for the eugenic Drago to say, "He is not a man. He is a machine." about Sylvester Stallone. And then, the Russian premier gives Sly a standing ovation, to Dolph Lundgren's (who plays Ivan Drago) chagrin. It's such a horribly dumb moment. I can recognize this, though, and still appreciate the kitschy sentiment. The same goes for 1994's The Shawshank Redemption.

One of my verbal treatises, with which I annoy numerous people (I'm sure), is that bad books make the most watchable movies. Two examples just from the '30s spring to mind to contradict me. The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind both came out as iconic movies of that decade, so I won't toil to make these movies fit into my offhand theory. Nevertheless, for the most part I'm right. Have you tried to stomach the movie of The Great Gatsby? Robert Redford ached to be put out of his misery there, so his ultimate demise should be refreshingly welcome.

The Shawshank Redemption, of course, is easily the most successful movie on cable regularly, and the story itself comes from an awful Stephen King novella. There are several instances in which some hackneyed lines come straight from his pen (I'm sure--I'm not going to read the small book to find out). The warden, played evilly by Bob Gunton, refers to Indians, or Native Americans if you want to be feebly P.C., as "Injuns." It's painful to see him utter this stale, anachronistic line. I know he's supposed to be cruel, but the warden doesn't also have to impersonate Yosemite Sam. Later, when Red (Morgan Freeman) speaks of the long night of uncertainty that precedes the truth about Andy (Tim Robbins, the main hero of the story), he says, "Time can draw out like a blade."

I know that you're not supposed to dissect each bit of prose until it loses meaning, but that is really trite. Mind you, I was an English major, so I'm very conscious of bad phrases that get dashed off with nary a consideration. Like a blade? Ugh--that is so stupid. Maybe it would make more sense if I were a samurai, but alas, I am not. It may sound okay, but that line makes no sense if you think about it for more than five seconds.

The same goes for Morgan Freeman's narration, as Red, that says that Andy Dufresne had been imprisoned for "nearly twenty years." Is it that hard to say exactly how long he was in the pen? "Nearly twenty" means "not quite," so you're far too close to saying, "Well, at least he wasn't in there for twenty..." Nineteen years and change sound mildly do-able when put next to this round, non-prime number. At least he didn't reach the 20-year milestone...

The lynchpin for Andy's prospective release comes in the form of Gil Bellows's glib story of a talkative inmate that he used to live with, some guy named "Blatch." The name is an onomatopoeia for something bad. He might as well be named, "Creep-erton." Of course, Blatch murdered Andy's wife and her golf-pro lover, the crime for which Andy was convicted and now is serving time.

Family Guy has made the point that Red most likely forgot the name of the Mexican town that Andy wants Red to add at the end of his itinerary, but I think the cartoon gets ahead of itself here. There's no way Red is going to remember to go to Zihuatanejo, but his location of the rock and letter that Andy left for him is equally crazy. During the same conversation in which he drops the long name of this Mexican city, Andy also tells Red to go to Buxton, Maine, and find the tree where the letter is buried. I'll let Red find the tree, because Andy describes it so eloquently as "like something out of a Robert Frost poem." At that point, I don't think a convict would be aware of the revisionist history of Frost's legacy as a poet of pastoral nursery rhymes and whimsical catchphrases. Beside this, the rock that Red finally picks up when he reaches the tree is wholly unremarkable. Dust and dirt cover it, so there's no way for Red to see what makes it so different from the other stones. Why does it jump out at him?

There are many such leaps of logic that the movie asks of us. For instance, what shoes does Andy wear while he crawls through the sewer? Forget that, for now. I defy you to change the channel if you land on The Shawshank Redemption. Or, for that matter, Misery or The Shining.

Or even The Green Mile. Yes, it's too long, but why would you watch the whole thing from start to finish? Pick and choose wherever the dial lands, like I do with Shawshank. Whether it's the scene in which Brooks feeds his similarly incarcerated bird, or he swings after having had enough trouble bagging groceries, I'm confident you'll forget whatever horrible reality show you were watching.

As someone who spent a summer bagging groceries, I can say that suicide doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

R