The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Freedom and Redemption: Unpacking "The Shawshank Redemption"
What is it about "The Shawshank Redemption" that continues to captivate audiences, earning it the top spot on IMDb? Join us as we unravel the profound narrative and explore the rich performances, particularly Morgan Freeman's unforgettable portrayal. Reflecting on the theme of institutionalization, we'll dive into Brooks' heart-wrenching story, his struggles beyond prison walls, and what it reveals about our own world. Tim Robbins' Andy Dufresne stands as a beacon of hope and resilience, a character who resonates deeply as we ponder the film's lasting impact over the decades.
As the plot unfolds, the film's ending leaves us with tantalizing questions and an exploration of hope that transcends the screen, echoing the spirit of the Christmas season and its eternal message. We promise our listeners a special treat, a Christmas surprise that mirrors the film's gift of storytelling. With our fourth season drawing to a close, we reflect on our journey, comparing this cinematic masterpiece to other timeless classics such as "The Godfather." Prepare for an engaging discussion filled with insights, reflections, and a perfect six out of six rating that underscores the timeless magic of "The Shawshank Redemption.
Hello everyone and welcome to the last movie review episode on a Tuesday of Nadie and Katie at the movies for 2024. Can't believe we've been on this journey for an entire season and we finally made it to the number one movie according to IMDB, and that is movie according to imdb, and that is shawshank marion devjohn, and I'm your host, nathan aka nady, of course, and with me on this monumental moment is my good friend katie. Hi, katie, how are you?
Speaker 2:that's me. I'm actually not doing well. I'm sick, my son is sick, we were sick two weeks ago. You may experience this as elementary teacher, but I just feel like the months of november and december it was just like we might as well just live at the house and not go anywhere. Oh, but that gave me a lot more time to watch movies, that's for sure yeah, yeah, my son was sick.
Speaker 1:And then, I guess, when, as soon as I mentioned my son was sick, that's when your son got sick.
Speaker 2:So you kind of? Blamed me, even though we live in completely different states that's fair, could still happen, but anyway I the final movie of the year, the number one ranked imdb movie of all time on the male, you know know, male dominated list.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Is the.
Speaker 1:Shawshank Redemption, which is based on a short story written by Stephen King.
Speaker 2:Yes, and when he says short, I mean it's 100 pages, it's short.
Speaker 1:See, I've never read it. I'm not much of a reader so I wouldn't know. But before we can talk about our likes and dislikes of Shawshank Redemption, I have to go over the synopsis. A banker convicted of murder forms a friendship over a quarter century with a hardened convict, while maintaining his innocence and trying to remain hopeful through simple compassion. Shawshank Redemption stars Tim Robbins, morgan Freeman, bob Gunton and William Sadler. Last episode I could have sworn his name was Tony Robbins, but no, that's the motivation.
Speaker 2:I mean, he was also motivational, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, katie, what'd you think of the number one movie on IMDb?
Speaker 2:Shawshank Redemption. Gosh, it was a really good movie, really really good movie. I love Morgan Freeman. I don't know, I'm going to go ahead and say it right off the gate. I don't know that I would say it's the best movie of all time. Feels pretty strong statement. However, it was poetic, it was moving, made you laugh, sometimes cry, sometimes, disgusted sometimes. So I definitely got all those reactions out of me.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably a poignant conversation and I don't, you know, I'd have to speak to someone in the prison system to understand, like, how accurate is this? Are they treated better? Are they treated worse? But I'll say one specific like is you know, this movie spans what? 20 years or more, I think 25 years, and they did an incredible job over the two and a half hours to do that transition. Like there was no point. I felt like, oh my gosh, and we're expected to believe it's been five years and at the same time, the fact they were able to go 25 years and still I don't want to make everything count and I think it does speak again to jail. It's like you just get into a routine and one, two, three years can just skate right on by because there's not much. Maybe that happened or changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought the performances were great. I think the shining star of this movie is Morgan Freeman. I thought he did a brilliant job. I also think the actor who played the character Brooks was very, very good too, and his story is extremely heartbreaking, and if you haven't seen it, I'm not going to spoil it.
Speaker 2:I do recommend the guy from up.
Speaker 1:No, he's not.
Speaker 2:No, and he's not the guy.
Speaker 1:No, not, he's not Ed Asner, and I don't know if you were saying if you thought that was the actor who played Brooks, or if Carl is inspired by this guy.
Speaker 2:I don't understand. They just look alike. But yes, you're right, his character was very, very powerful. I watched a few videos because I really wanted to. I liked this movie in and of itself and I have a rating before the reviews that I watched and some of the facts. But the more you learn, the more interesting it is.
Speaker 2:And he was supposed to be sort of like a knockoff, just side character and he really, if they had taken him out, I think the whole idea of institutionalism was a big backbone of the movie and he was perfect proof of that.
Speaker 2:And again, to be vague so we're not spoiling it, but he spent his whole life in jail. For that pretty much it wasn't in the movie, but someone said in one of the videos that and maybe it's in the book that he murdered his wife and child. Like that was what got him in. I'm like it makes me a little bit harder to understand you, but just the idea that his whole life had been in jail. So the idea of leaving jail was terrifying and I think it's very speaks to the prison system today that the government can do all they can to try to set people up, but when you've been institutionalized for a long time, especially these kids that get in when they're young. They're kind of being raised by the jail. It's essentially an orphanage, so to kick them out in the real world really is scary yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess the big question would be what did you think of tim robbins? He's the star of this film. He's the banker who gets accused of murdering his wife and her lover. What did you think of his performance? I'm interested to see what you think before I tell you what my thoughts are you said they all did well.
Speaker 2:Um, I think he did a great job. I think I'd have to say an edit, though. He's meant to be someone we are impressed by and he's helping shape the culture of the jail and he's bringing things to the jail, making it a better place. I have to admit that in the early parts of the movie it came across as arrogance, a little bit like I'm better than you guys. I'm truly innocent, unlike the rest of you, and I'm more educated than you and I'm gonna bring the real world to you. Dumb dumbs, uh. And so, even though maybe they're trying to make you think it was totally selfless, you know there's another piece of you that wonders is he manipulative of like? Does he know what he's doing all along? And he's sort of setting the stage for that. So I'm a little bit skeptical on his character, acting I didn't feel like was noticeably bad or good well, I think morgan freeman's character mentions that.
Speaker 1:Like that, a lot of people were considered him being very ignorant and full of himself and uh, hidey-tidey and you know this rich guy who was a banker and all this stuff. I thought his performance got better as the movie went on, but at first it was just very like dull to me and I don't know if it was because he was just learning how to maneuver himself through the prison and he kept to himself a lot which they described in the film, but I don't know, it just came off as very like, not very, not not much emotion to it, I guess, is what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2:I think that that's probably. It kind of goes along with my other positive. I said about the span of time that it takes that long for them to develop these characters, but I I would maybe argue that's intentional. It's sort of like morgan freedom says at one point that you know he's a nobody out there, but inside he's like the big man you know he can provide things, and so I do feel like robin's character sort of comes into his own. But you do need that dull beginning because he really was just a Joe Schmoe banker that his wife left, so he was kind of a nothing and you do see him slowly, slowly, slowly rise to the highest power you could probably get as a prisoner.
Speaker 1:So how frustrated were you with the warden and Mr Krabs was beautiful.
Speaker 2:I liked seeing that some people can be that way that they ascribe to sort of the rigidity of faith and use it for their own good, and I do feel like that's what he was doing, which I did appreciate. There's a scene where and I actually I knew it I had a feeling so Spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:Spoiler alert had a feeling, so spoiler alert, spoiler alert one of the tools that he gets is like a hammer, like a little hammer, and they come and do a check in his room and he's like holding his bible and the bible's cut out like he's got the hammer inside the bible because it's like one place. The guy's probably's cut out Like he's got the hammer inside the Bible Cause it's like a one place. The guy's probably not gonna like flip open and check. I knew that I called that ahead of time, but again, it was kind of funny. He used the Bible kind of against him. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought. I thought the movie as a whole was very well done. Was there any negatives about this movie for you?
Speaker 2:Well, Negatives about this movie for you. Yeah, like I said I did. I felt like they kind of made him more of a prick than just like a guy that you wanted to root for and, some of the times, a little bit of arrogance, and I also feel like you have to have it in this movie. However, a number one movie of all time I would prefer not to be watching people get beaten mercilessly. He's sexually assaulted multiple times and he's there's people being beaten up and there's just someone shot point blank. So I do feel like if it's the number one movie of all time, it's a little dark for me. Again, this thing is part of the movie, but it was one of those where you're kind of like when we watched Hotel Rwanda, where you're like this is just too dark.
Speaker 1:I've seen prison movies based in all men prison and it didn't do the stereotypical things that this movie did. You know show sexual harassment between men and all these things that I guess people would assume would happen in a prison. The movie Sing Sing is is a prime example of a movie that I went to go see and I was kind of hesitant about it when it started because I didn't know I was watching that, because it was a screen unseen movie. But it it pleasantly surprised me because it didn't have any of the things that I would think would be in a film taking place in an all men prison. So there is the ability and I would say sing sing should be high up there. I thought it was a brilliant movie. I think, yeah, I would say it's better than Shawshank redemption. Just, it's a really great film.
Speaker 1:So sing sing needs to be way up there but going back to Shawshank redemption.
Speaker 1:I honestly didn't see anything negative except my original thoughts about Tim Robbins, even though you kind of justified it with the character choice. But other than that I thought I thought it was a. I thought it was a really really well done film. Obviously, I'm not a fan of a lot of language and there is a lot of language in this movie, a lot of language and there is a lot of language in this movie and but I think showing the things that happen in the prison make it more raw, make it more real, make you more sympathetic for the people that are in that prison and what they're having to deal with and the corruption in the system and all of the above. So I thought they did a really good job portraying that and I mean we we've already said it before, but I think morgan freeman stole the movie, along with the character of brooks. I think they outshined even above tim robbins in this film.
Speaker 2:So and anything's going to be good if morgan freeman's narrating it, so you know the whole movie is being narrated from his sort of perspective and memory. I liked the ending as well, like they could very well have left it open-ended and like, oh, you just hope that there's a happy ending. It does have a happy ending. They give you what you want and I appreciate that, and I actually was reading an article and the guy said, yeah, they better give us a happy ending for what they took us through. You know, like it was almost like they owed it to the audience, like this is a super dark movie. We're going to end it on a positive note, but I think it was good and I think, if you really sat and we had hours to talk about it, there are a lot of just big themes in the movie.
Speaker 2:That'd be my last positive is the themes of friendship and what friendships can be built on, how friendships can grow. What friendships can be built on how friendships can grow, what it means to slow down, what you can, how a person can develop when they have nothing to do but, um, persevere and develop. I think it has to do. You know a lot with the jail systems and it's something interesting to think about there, and I think there was also a lot of good quotes. I don't I don't know if there's quotes that stand out to me and the top of my head, but there was something about living and dying. If you're not living, you're dying, and I'm like is that from this movie or was that also quoted somewhere else?
Speaker 1:um, overall good movie would recommend one and the biggest theme is finding hope in the most hopeless situations, and I think that you because he spent years in prison for something that he stood by the fact that he didn't do.
Speaker 1:And so how do you find hope in that kind of situation where, just when you think you're getting somewhere, you take like three, four steps backwards because of the system that you're being forced to be a part of? And so I thought, but I also thought that the ending and I don't know I mean I guess I could research this later I don't know if it was ever confirmed that what was happening at the end of the movie actually happens.
Speaker 1:I didn't know if it was one of those like parasite if the ending was just in their, in their minds because I found it kind of random that Morgan Freeman's character ends up where he is at the end of the movie. I, I again, I don't want to give it away, but it just it, it. It stood out to me kind of random that you just so happened to get to that place.
Speaker 2:How did he get to that place? Yeah, at the end of the.
Speaker 1:He just so happened to get to that place. How did he get to that place? Yeah, at the end of the movie, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:He's very resourceful, nathan. He learned a lot in jail, okay.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm hopeful. You see what I did. I'm hopeful that the ending is actually in reality. But that's that's our thoughts on Shawshank Redemption, the number one movie on the 250 IMDb movies of all time. I said that in the wrong order, but that's it, that's it, that's it.
Speaker 2:And you know what? What better way to end than on hope? You know, we're in the Christmas season, and that's exactly what the Christmas season is about it is hope. It is hope amidst seemingly impossible mountains to climb, and so, luckily, we have our hope in Jesus Christ, because he already came. That's the best thing to hope in, because promise is already there. So if he did that, what else can he do?
Speaker 1:And you know what else you can hope for? You can hope that maybe we are nice and we might be giving our listeners their very own Christmas present tomorrow, tomorrow so if you wake up around 3 am because I know I'll be awake because it's christmas. I'll be super excited. You might find a special present on your phone or wherever you listen to your podcasts is it?
Speaker 2:is it a free shirt?
Speaker 1:no, we can't give everybody who listens. What are you trying to say? You that we wouldn't have to send that many shirts out Cause we don't have that many listeners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fantastic gift, all right.
Speaker 1:Anyway. So let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and rate this thing. What would you give Shawshank Redemption?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to rank it as the number one movie of all time, but I'll give it a six.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm right there with you. I don't think. I think there's a lot of movies on this list even that I think deserve to be higher up than Shawshank. Redemption, like the Godfather is, is, I think, a better film than this. But I'm also going to give it a perfect six out of six, and that will do it for our fourth season.
Speaker 1:We still have one episode left our year in review that we always do and then we have again big announcements coming up, some changes, some yeah just some fun, some fun exciting four, four years.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Four more years.
Speaker 1:I know it's crazy. I thought about that. I was like man. We've been talking to each other about movies for four years. It's insane.
Speaker 2:And yet it took until just this past week to have watched Shawshank Redemption.
Speaker 1:The number one movie and the Godfather and the Godfather and all these other movies that people probably are like why haven't you watched it before? So any final thoughts before I do. Our final movie quote of 2024?.
Speaker 2:No, I want to hear what quote you chose.
Speaker 1:I guess it comes down to a simple choice really Get busy living or get busy dying.
