Ever notice that every blockbuster movie has the same fundamental pieces? A hero, a journey, some conflicts to muck it all up, a reward, and the hero returning home and everybody applauding his or...

Shawshank PrisonAbout 95% of the movie takes place inside the walls of Shawshank, so we should probably talk about it a bit. Keeping in mind that a director's job is generally to make an audience e...

We've got two main characters in The Shawshank Redemption, and one of them does double-duty, playing the part of our narrator. Half the time he's engaging in dialogue with the other characters; the...

Drama, CrimeWe're throwing "Crime" into the genre description because there is some element of that in there, but really this is flat-out Drama. Calling it anything else feels dishonest. Like calli...

Does the word "Shawshank" make you giggle? Oh, well then you would have had an all-out laughing fit if the movie had been given the exact same title as the short story on which it was based. The fi...

Did they have to wind up in a town as difficult to spell—and pronounce—as Zihuatanejo? Seriously…it took us like fifteen seconds to type that, just to make sure we didn't make any mistakes.In...

RShawshank was rated 'R,' although some of the more desensitized viewers among us might wonder why. There was zero boobage and buttage, no guts being sprayed all over the camera lens, so where did...