127 // Charlie Harris 🆚 The Shawshank Redemption // Thumb Wrestling

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If you're going to take down a movie, then why not the one at the very top op the IMDb Top 250? This episode is all bout the big one! The Shawshank Redemption (1994), the big bastion of rewatchability, the movie that underperformed at the box office and then went on to win our hearts by extensive tv syndication and dvd sales. It's the first of the Stephen King prison movies, filmed by Roger Deakins. And it has Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, as well as William Sadler. What's not to like?

Andy Dufresne finds himself doing a long stint in Shawshank Prison, after he's been convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover. The former banker quickly finds friendship with Red, the man who can get you anything. Including tiny rock hammers! Despite the threat of frequent rape, being persuaded to cook some books and the fact that being incarcerated for a long time does strange things to your mind, there's one thing Andy never seems to lose. Hope.

So. Who the hell could take offense to this great modern classic? Well, if it isn't a film scholar from the British isles by the name of Charlie Harris. That's right, the one of Because You Watched... Podcast fame. Charlie can find enough to like in the film, but he sees even more that leaves him underwhelmed by it all. And so, there's a lot to discuss!

For instance, we address how The Shawshank Redemption is a high school movie in disguise, the danger of trying to cram way too much of a lifetime into just one biopic, and how being institutionalized and being rehabilitated might just be the same thing.

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Links:

• Because You Watched... Blade Runner (with kaj van Zoelen): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/because-you-watched-blade-runner-feat-kaj-van-zoelen/
• 'Let's Talk Buckaroo Banzai' on Because You watched...: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-talk-buckaroo-banzai-with-fionn-creber/

Extra links:

• The Shawshank Redemption on Unspooled: https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/the-shawshank-redemption/
• The Hidden Meaning of The Shawshank Redemption – Earthling Cinema: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91XDnA9z8h0
• Honest Trailer: The Shawshank Redemption: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGJiR65aS6M
• 'How The Shawshank Redemption Humanizes Prisoners' on Pop Culture Detective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhGJ5SmSE2o