The Rewatchables - 'The Shawshank Redemption’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Bill’s Dad

Episode Date: September 25, 2019

Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Bill’s dad get busy living or get busy dying by rewatching ‘The Shawshank Redemption,' starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rewatchables is brought to by all birds. The perfect shoes to express your personal style to the fullest. Their simplicity stands out in a good way. No logos to distract from the rest of your look. Only clean lines and subtle detailing to create a visually appealing look. Plus, range of colors can follow however you're feeling. Settle, bold, whatever you want. Choose from a variety of silhouettes to match your style in any situation.

The perfect shoes for any style. Get your own pair at allbirds.com. We're also brought to you by Zorro.com. We'll find everything you'll need for businesses of any situation. size, almost any industry, tools, equipment, and supplies for everything you need. Electrical, plumbing, contracting, manufacturing more. Zoro's got it from brands you know and trust. And Zorro.com offers amazing customer service.

From real people based in the U.S., visit Zorro. dot com slash rewatchables, Z-O, in all lowercase letters, to sign up for Z-mail and get 15% off your first order. We're also brought to you by the ringer.com and the ringer podcast that work. Fellas, I believe in two things. Discipline in the Bible. Here, you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. Welcome to the rewatchables. There's not a day goes by. I don't feel regret. I'm Mr. Norton, the warden. You are convicted felons. That's why they've sent you to me. I married you to Frey. Why have Kelling Banker. Why'd you do it?

I didn't since you asked. You're going to fit right in. There are places in the world that aren't made out of stone. There's something inside. They can't touch. We'll talk about it. Hope. Damn it, Duprin, you're putting me behind. Hope so dangerous name. Hope and grab a man insane. Oh, my holy God.

Get busy living or get busy dying. All right. Chris Ryan is here. My dad is here. I am here. No idea what's happening. I did fly in from Boston. Well, you flew for my birthday. Happy birthday, Bill.

Thanks. All right. For my birthday, I want... That's it. Yeah. I'd turn it 50 today, and one of the things I wanted was to do a Shawshank rewatcher. We've been saving this. It might be my favorite movie of all time.

I'd really have to sit down and make a final list. I loved it from the first day I saw it. The only reason you saw the movie was because I recommended it to you. That is. It is true. It came out. It had a weird title and it bombed. And we're going to talk about all the backstory with that.

And then my dad saw it. I went to see it by myself. Yeah, he saw it like five o'clock. And I started raving to you about it. He called me. He said, he said, yes, he the same. movie. I'm like, that Shawshank movie's like, yeah, you got to go. And I took my girlfriend at the time and we went to, I think it was in Quincy. It was the afternoon showing. I was barely

working at the time. And barely working. And limped out of the theater and just shock and disbelief and just completely drained and sat in the car and just talked about it for 15 minutes after. And I've loved it ever since. When did you first say, Chris Ryan? So in the movie theaters, this is my first in movie theater. We watchable because I saw it in Lakeworth, Florida. We were visiting my grandmother down in West Palm Beach. I saw it in Lake Worth. I saw the movie by myself and was like so rocked by it.

I actually wandered into the next screening of it that was already in mid-screening in another theater in the multiplex. Wow. To just run back the last hour? Just watch the last hour. Yeah. But it is a movie that you can jump in at any point during the movie. Yeah.

And I think because of what they do in every single facet of making this movie, it's a world you kind of don't want to leave even though it's so violent and depressing at times. Yeah, it's definitely violent and it's definitely depressing. But the last 40 minutes, I would say from the moment him and Red are talking and Andy's like losing his mind. Yeah. It's like, oh my God, this guy might kill himself. From that moment on, it's an unassailable 40 plus minutes of rewatchable that. But if it's on, if it's on T&T, if it's on CineMax, AMC, wherever.

You got to see Red get to Mexico. And he's talking to Red, and he's like, hey, man, I want you to remember this name, Zawatne. I'm like, all right. I'm done for the next 45 minutes. I'm just watching this. Yeah. Whenever the movie is on and the sisters scenes are on, I go to the bathroom. Well, before texting, my dad would call me, and I'd be like, hello, and he'd be like, channel 42.

I guess I just missed my friend. And I'm like, oh, and then I put it on and watched the last hour. Yeah. I would argue this is the most rewatchable movie of all time. It's probably one of the most rewatched because it has this whole second life of it becoming a staple of TNT. Oh, yeah. For 20 years where it essentially makes up like 150 hours or however many times they play at a year of programming for them. And if you had basic cable from 1995 on,

this movie was on pretty much once a week, if not more. I also think, Bill, you made it more famous because you wrote so many articles. I did. I did. I tied it in with the Red Sox. You included quotes from this movie 150 times. Well, the first piece I ever wrote for ESPN was after No-Mar got hurt in 2001. And it was a whole thing about Shawshank and the Red Sox in Hope. And it's a crazy article to reread.

And it's basically like Nomar No more blew out his wrist I miss my friend I hope He's the bird in your pocket You're trying to give him worms The three major themes of this movie

In whatever particular You want to go to It's ultimately a movie about male friendship There's no women in this movie at all There's a woman at the very beginning Who's Andy's wife Who's cheating on him with the golf pro And we just see her like getting

pinned up against a wall Making Out with some random guy and then the three posters. Yeah. And those are the four women in this entire movie, which is weird, but it's also a world where I'm not sure why any woman would have even been in this world.

Probably not. In a all-male prison. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's essentially about, in most cases, it's about like a platonic love story between two guys for the course of decades. Yeah. That's one thing.

Hope would be the second, and maybe most important theme. Hope is a good thing. He talks about hope. There's multiple scenes. There's a tug of war between Red and Andy about where Andy's hopeful about these things and this piece inside they can't take away from you. And Red is more in the camp of, don't think that way.

We're stuck here. You can see why Red would feel that way. He's been there eventually 40 years and keeps getting rejected at the parole board and sees horrible things happening. So he's lost hope. Or red bad hang. Like, share up a little red. We're fine.

But the tug-a-war of how they feel about hope. And Andy's a guy who just shouldn't have any hope at all. I mean, his first couple years were pretty brutal. And now he's just laundering money for the warden, basically. And he shouldn't be there. No. He's the only innocent man in the Shosh. So when I saw this movie originally,

and he's telling Red, I buried this thing for you. If you ever get out of here, go to this weird wall in Buxton. There's a cornfield. There's a tree. Boket up this one rock. It'll be great.

I have something there for you. A rock that doesn't belong there. Yeah. I have something there for you. I thought he was going to hang himself. And then I thought Red was going to go out. And just in the moment, it's going to go to the stone wall

and he's going to find the gun. And it'll be like, Andy did kill his wife. and that was going to be the ending. That was where I was going mentally. And then the warden throws the rock through the poster. And they all kind of do the double take. And he reaches through in the hole. And then there's like music and Morgan Freeman goes.

In 1966, Andy Dufram escaped from Shawshank Prison. That is like the all-time woe moment I ever remembered a movie theater. It's like, oh my God, he got out. Yeah. What is happening? Because now we've seen it a million times so you know he's going to escape But the first time did not know he was going to escape

I don't even know that the first time You're not even sure that Morgan Freeman is going to make it out of Portland Maine When he's working as a clerk in the grocery store I mean there's a lot of suspense in this movie And they do because of the structure of it I think Frank Darabond

Who directed it and wrote it Essentially structures the movie like I think if I counted it up right It was like nine short stories So the nine short stories in this movie Are Fresh Fish Andy and the sisters beer on the roof

Brooks was here the opera Tommy the escape Reds release Mexico yeah that's a good way I think about it if you take all of those

in each one of those there is a level of suspense we're like what's going to happen to red here what's going to happen to Tommy here and they structure it in such a way that anything can kind of happen in those stories

so by the time you get to Zwantonayo you're like is he going to get stopped at the border he has that one line where he's like, I hope I make it across the border. And Darabot didn't want to do the reunion. He wanted to leave it ambiguous. Yeah, do you know that?

No, I didn't know. And there's a lot of... They filmed, like, what, three different possibilities? And one, there's one that where they're, like, hanging out and shooting the shit. And then, that's not even online. Yeah. He, like, he destroyed all tapes because he just said it didn't work. But initially, it ends.

So this movie could have ended three times. It could have ended with him just saying, I guess I just missed my friend. And that could have just been the ending. Then you have the second one where he gets on the bus and he's like, I'm in the, I hope the Pacific Spoozy. I'm a man on one. I hope. Yeah.

And that was when it was supposed to end. Oh. And then they pushed him to have to actually see the reunion. So they filmed it actually on St. Croix, not in Zawai. I'm also glad they did. The last scene is terrific. Yeah.

Oh, it's, yeah. You absolutely have to have the last scene. You absolutely have to have it. Sometimes you just need it to be okay. Yeah. Yeah. But the other thing, so I've seen every variation in this in the mid-90s. I think Showtime ran, I'm going to say like 97, 98 range.

Showtime ran it and they had like 30 minutes of deleted scenes. Some of which are on YouTube and some art. And one of the deleted scenes, and they show it at the end when he's, when he realizes he can dig through the wall and Red does the pressure over time speech. And they show Andy carving his name and the piece of the wall comes out earlier, like 75 minutes earlier, he gets up to start carving his name in the wall and then it cuts away. We just think he's like this lonely guy

carving his name in a while. But in the original cut, we see the wall break and that was in the original cut. So from that moment on, if they had left it that way, you would have, oh, this guy's going to dig through the wall. But they cut that so that there was actually the reveal of, oh, my God, he got out.

And you can argue that's one of the greatest editing decisions anyone's ever made. Because it completely changes the movie if we know 45 minutes in that he knows he can get through the wall. You're right. It creates a lot of unknowns. I'm thinking of the scene in the dining hall

when Haywood shares that he has given Andy the rope. Right. I still don't know if he's going to kill himself. I don't know that the wall's been broken through. I mean, and Robbins does a really good job of acting like a guy who's contemplating that. Yeah. As he's walking down the hall

and he goes up and he's sitting in his bed in his cell and he's got the rope across his lap. You're just kind of like, what the what's the fucking is going to happen here? So male friendship, hope is a good thing. The third theme is personal one for me, the Pacific Ocean. Oh. Both of us moved east coast to west coast.

The Mexicans say about the Pacific, no memory. And Andy says, that's where I want to live the rest of my life, a warm place with no memory. It's kind of how I feel. I didn't know when I moved here, we'd win all these titles. At the time when I moved here, it was like, Yeah, Boston Sports.

We're screwed. Yeah. This is like reminiscing on your birthday and moving out here. Chris's Eagles did beat us in a Super Bowl. He can't be too bitter. We'll give them that one. So those would be the three themes. So the backstory in this movie, Frank Darabont,

Frank Darabont, purchases the film rights in 1987 to a short story of Stephen King wrote, which was called... Reita Hayworth and the Shawshanker Dumpeter, right? Who was the male star in that movie with Rita Hayworth? No. In Gilda? Glenn Ford. Oh, I was going to say James Mason, but that's...

So Stephen King was confused. He had no idea how this could be turned into a film. And Darabant was like, it's obvious, and spends the next five years working on it, thinking about it. And then finally writes it in eight weeks for Castle Rock. Castle Rock was Rob Reiner's company that also did Seinfeld. Castle Rock, one of the great runs. Yeah. And it's sort of founded on off the back of Stand By Me,

named after the town in Maine where Stephen King sets his stories, a lot of his stories, Castle Rock. And Stephen King, who normally hates most of his movies, love this one, gave the rights away for free to Darabond. People have noted before about how strange it is

that the two best Stephen King adaptations are not horror stories. It's the body which became Stand By Me and this which became Shawshank. Yeah. And they're from the same collection of novellation. us. So this movie, $25 million budget, it comes out, it comes out during one of the great movie

years we've had in the last 40 years, the year with Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump, all this stuff. Which is maybe why it kind of got buried. Absolutely. I think the biggest reason was the title. Because when that title's in the theater, like, if they had called it like escape from Shawshank or the prison or Hope is a good thing, whatever you want to call it. but just seeing like, oh, Shawshank redemption is coming out with Tim Roberts and Morgan Freeman.

But it's a good point. Escape from Alcatraz. You kind of were drawn to it. Yeah. Yeah. So it bombs. It makes $16 million. Doesn't even make the budget back.

It had my money. It had my money. And then something very old school happens because there's no internet net. We're talking late 94. There's no way. There's no groundswell. The word of mouth is just different. It gets seven Academy Award nominations.

in January. That's crazy. Best picture, best actor, Morgan Freeman. And Golden Globes also. Well, screenplay, cinematography, editing, sound mixing, original score.

And people are like, what? So they re-release it. Right. And then it does well. And it ends up at $58 million. And then by that time, word of mouth is going.

And I might have seen it again when they re-released it. Yeah, you definitely did. Does this arc does not happen anywhere? No way. I mean, there are movies that take on second lives, there are movies. I mean, it tends to be, I think,

more stuff like Den of Thieves where it becomes kind of like a genre cult classic a couple years later or 18 months later because people are like, man, did you see? I was just, I needed to watch an action movie and I just saw this thing on cable and it was so good and it kind of develops a reputation.

It's very rare. For a drama, dramas will get you know, improved reputations as years go on, but they don't get second releases. They don't get second live. and it's very rare for the academy to recognize something like this, where they say sort of against critical indifference for the most part. I mean, people liked it, but there were plenty of reviews that were like,

this is hokey, there's too much voiceover, whatever. They went for it. And yeah, I remember that bump. I do remember it becoming a big thing around that time of the Oscars then. And then such a great Oscars race, we have Morgan Freeman in there for Best Supporting Act. of Shawshank for film and all the movie nerds,

especially like in our age range, we're all like Pulp Fiction better fucking win this. Now I look back 25 years later. I'm not sure who should have won. It's either Pulp or Shawshank. So it's Pulp, Shawshank, Gump, quiz show and four weddings?

Yeah. We did Forrest Gump as a rewatchables and we came in the conclusion that movie is actually really underrated. I think it got stained a little by it became, kind of the critical, sappy choice over these other two that were so beloved. But the bottom line is that was just a great Oscars year.

Roger Ebert, four stars. When it came out. It's about time he came through. Is school didn't like it, I think? Or maybe he did. I can't remember. I don't think he liked it as much. Did he ever give four stars right when it came out?

Yeah. He said mostly the film is an allegory about holding on to a sense of personal worth despite everything. Good job, Roger Ebert. Very good. He takes some heat on this thing. So the big thing that happened, this is right there in the heyday of the VHS Blockbuster era. They shipped 320,000 copies throughout the U.S.

People eat it up. Everyone's renting it. DVDs are starting to come out. It becomes one of the first DVDs. I remember buying. And then... It kind of reminds me of the way... When we did the Jaws rewatchables, we talked a lot about the publishing of Jaws, the book,

and how they got it ready for mass market book club paperbacks. Like they knew it was going to have this long life. It's almost like what they're doing with Shawshank where it's like the movie, the theatrical run is only one part of the release strategy. Oh, yeah. So then Castle Rock is bought by Turner. Turner says, cool.

We're just going to show Shawshank on TNT all the time. So starting in 1997, they just were like, here's Shoshank again. And it's the perfect T&T movie because... You can either watch Tom Glavin or Shoshan. or Rick Flair. So it's 142 minutes to movie, but if you put it on T&T,

you can add 38 minutes of commercials. You have a perfect three hours. It's literally the perfect time. Seven to ten. So it could be seven to ten, eight to eleven, nine to twelve, whatever you want. In the beginning,

I would leave you a message. Sharshank is on again. But then eventually it was silly because it was on every day. And the other place it was on was Showtime, which was where. they ran all the deleted stuff and things like that. It hit a point where it was just on all the time

and it didn't seem like it was on enough. It just could have almost been its own cable channel. Now, all these years later, 25 years later, it is the single most popular movie on IMDB. They have the rankings of the reader, or whatever subscriber rankings, and it's number one. And it's been number one for a long time.

only 91% on on Rotten Tomatoes Morgan Freeman didn't win Best Supporting Actor I forgot who won I thought he won Golden Globe though No dad we don't care about the Golden Globts here I'm sorry

I'm looking up I had this written down Yeah it was a weird Oscar year Because yeah Martin Landau Won for Ed Wood Right I remember that A fucking travesty that is

Jesus Morgan Freeman didn't win but Martin Landau won for Ed Wood? What's the last Ed Wood conversation you had? Tom Hanks won for Best Actor. Forrest Gump won Best Picture, obviously. I mean, you could make a case. Morgan Freeman should have been nominated for Best Actor or not.

He's not really supporting, right? I think the fact that he narrates the movie makes the case. I mean, Robbins probably does more action. But Morgan Freeman is the perspective through what you view the movie. I thought Robbins was terrific in that movie. Is that your expert opinion, dad? I don't think he's gotten the credit. I think Red Freeman got most of the acting credit in that movie.

It's not the same movie if it's not Tim Robbins. Yeah. And that's the thing I love about this is that everything from the price that he paid to get the rights from Stephen King. Don't step on casting. I'm not. I'm just saying the casting process. We're going to get into that. First time director had a rough shoot.

Oh, yeah. All this stuff that happens, and it somehow works. You know, it's like one of those like happy miracles in Hollywood, which don't really happen that often where you're just like, I can't believe we got, people said no, there were fights about things, all this stuff. And it wound up being this movie. Do we know who else competed for the role of Andy? Dad, we're getting to that.

I'm new here. I'm a newbie. In a 2014 Wall Street Journal article, it was estimated that Shawshank had made $100 million since the movie was released. Bob Gutton, who played Warden, Warden Norton, the evil warden. Sam Norton. Sam Norton said by the 10th anniversary in 2004, he was still earning six-figure residual payments. And he said, 10 years later, we're still earning a, quote, substantial income from it.

So these guys, you know, they all fix the numbers and fudge the numbers and pretend the movies aren't making money. There's no way to hide it with Shawshank because every time it's on AMC, whatever, it's just like another 500 grand. It's got 10-4-truck ads on it. Yeah. Oh, my God. So now these guys, oh, there was a little controversy where Turner sold the rights to T&T once you bought Castle Rock and they probably got stiffed out on profits.

Yeah. Probably could have you made more money in that. So all these years later, Freeman said about everywhere you go, people say the Shawshank Redemption, greatest movie ever saw. and that such praise just comes out of them, he said. You know, Freeman has been in so many movies. If I met him on the street or here, I'd call him red. None of the other movies matter.

Well, he had seven a year later. That was a pretty good one-two punch for him. Yeah. Do you remember his name in seven, though? No. Tim Robin said, I swear to God, all over the world, all over the world, wherever I go, there are people who say, who say that movie changed my life. So Jalen and I did Jimmy Kim alive, I'm going to say four or five years ago.

And Tim Robbins was the other guest. And I rarely do the pictures with celebs really ever. And this is like, we're getting this one. And it was me, Jalen, and Tim Robbins. Super nice. Yeah. I was just like Shashank, my favorite movie ever. And it was just, he clearly just hears that.

You're like me and Nelson Mandela. It's a favorite movie. We're going to go into the categories because there's a lot to come. cover and most rewatchable scene, which I think we've done 86 rewatchables. I'm going to say this is the toughest we've ever had for most rewatchable. I think that episode 200 cruising will be tougher. Yeah, we're doing cruising for episode 200. 100. We're doing heat again.

200 cruising. And then 250 is boogie nights. And then the series ends. Boogie Nets will be the last rewatchable. Hey, Hotel Tonight partners with awesome hotels to help them sell their unsold rooms, which means you get incredible deals on cool, top-rated. boutique hotels. You can book in advance, which is great,

whether you're a planner or a procrastinator. Don't scroll through endless lists of hotels. Use hotel tonight. They show you the best deals in hotels you'll actually want to stay at, perfect for a weekend getaways, big vacations, staycations, road trips, business trips, and more. As you've heard me talk about, I have used Hotel Tonight many times for last second.

Soccer trips for my daughter. Always reliable, always valuable. Hotel Tonight's special daily drop feature. choose a major city, unlock an extra amazing deal just for you. You get one daily deal per person. Once unlocked, the offer only last 15 minutes. So it's like a fun game where you have to book quickly. Not available on all destinations.

But some of their best deals are available via DailyDrop, whether you're searching for tonight or a few weeks away, daily drop, an awesome way to save big on a great hotel. Visit Hotel Tonight.com or download the app to unlock a getaway today. All right, so most rewatchable scene, here are the nominees. Andy and Redd's first scene together. I understand you're a man that knows how to get things. I'm not going to locate certain things, time of time.

I wonder if you might get me a rock hammer. What? A rock hammer. Red warns him about the sisters. What if I told you I wasn't homosexual? Neither are they. You'd have to be human first. Just setting the tone for like,

watch out for these guys. These guys are frightening. Why do they call you Red? Maybe it's because I'm Irish. And then Red says, He strode like a man in a park without a care or a worrying in the world. Like he had on an invisible coat

that would shield him from this place. Yeah, I think it would be fair to say I liked Andy from the start. Red and Morgan Freeman in real life, Darabont filmed so much. many takes to that scene that he threw out

his arm and he was pissed off about it and showed up the next day to work in a sling. Darabont was doing the young director.

Let's get one more tank. Freeman's like, oh my God. He's like, I'm gonna get Tommy Johnny before we see

he's doing. He does. Like, he is throwing a lot of baseballs if you watch that scene again.

I would say that's the first most rewatchable scene unless you want to go fresh fish. No, I think.

Fresh fish is like, what kind of what kind of movie is this could do? Not an uplifting ending where Hadley just beats the hell out of the fat head.

No, that's a terrible scene. Yeah. All right, so that's the first one. Second rewatchable scene. Andy on the roof, convincing Hadley to to help with the 35K inherited. Starting with the opener. Mr. Hadley, do you trust your wife? Oh, that's funny. You're going to look funny or sucking my dick with no teeth. What I mean is, do you think she'd go behind your back, try to hamstring you? that's it step aside

this fucker's having himself an accident you don't push him off the roof because if you do trust it there's no reason you can't keep that 35,000 what did you say 35,000 35,000

all of it all of it heavy penny probably could have handled that part differently yeah perfect scene it's just where the movie

jumps up a notch this is gonna be mine but it's just and also the way that the way they orchestrate it when the when they finally get the beers and all of a sudden the screen fills with color

because they were sitting in the sun drinking the beers and for like a brief second they kind of have this moment of peace and happiness out there and you just realize you're watching a different kind of movie with that. I agree with that. It's the moment of humanity. It's also the moment I thought that Andy got accepted by the others.

Yeah. Really great lines too like this guy's about to have an accident. Uh-oh, somebody's about to have an accident. And then they do the beers and red goes... Three bears. The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous. And then Red does. This is really when Red's narration goes to the other level, and he does the whole,

we sat and drank with the sun in our shoulders. And that's how it came to pass, that on the second to last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate factory roof in the spring of 49, wound up sitting in a row at 10 o'clock in the morning, drinking icy cold, bohemia-style beer. courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison. Drink up while it's cold, ladies. The colossal prick even managed to sound magnanimous.

We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation. And he's got that little glazed face. That was the same look that I had after the Red Sox won the World series in 04. I'm just like, happy birthday.

Thank you. I had that look when the Eagles beat the Patriots. No, no, no, you didn't have that look. You had the look that Andy had after the sisters got him in the film room. That whole scene start to finish. One other part that's great is they're going back and forth. And Hadley's like, watch that trust some banker crook like you. And he's like, blah, blah, blah.

But I'm sure you would have done this. and they cut to all the guys who are tired and were like just get back to work and say I go sorry Hadley

your guy Clancy Brown Clancy yeah what a run for him bad boys he's got the jacksickma haircut he's the bad guy in that in 1982

and he becomes that guy and then he becomes Hadley and Shawshank and then he's all this character actor kind of an iconic Stephen King character I think he shows up in a couple

I think he's in Pet Cemetery The first pet cemetery or something? But then ends up in billions as the senator, but he's had quite a run. All right, so that's the second scene. Third one for a rewatchable candidate. Red speech about Brooks and then the Brooks letter. And Brooks getting out.

I don't know if I'd call that rewatchable. It's really good, though. I'm going to make the case for it. The one in the library? No. After Brooks gets out and we see the end, and he hangs myself, but then it cuts to Red, and Red's, and they're talking about it,

and Red does the whole, he should have died in here. And he says, you believe whatever you want, Floyd. But I'm telling you, these walls are funny. Race you hate them, and you get used to them. Enough time passes. You get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.

Shit. You need that scene because it sets up later when we think Red might kill him. or commit a crime or whatever. It's just really well done and it's really good Morgan Freeman. And I think it's important because it sets up,

this guy's actually way smarter than the typical convict guy who can get things. Like he actually sees the big picture with like, I don't want to end up like that dude where I'm here for so long. I'm just,

I can't be anyone else. It's also so odd for a movie to do a 15-minute interlude about a supporting character and just follow his journey. I mean, if they had just found out in the next scene that Brooks had hung himself.

They could have just done the same scene with Red. They could have done the same speech. But the fact that you visualize Brooks' entire journey, it makes the Red journey once he gets out that much more nerve-wracking and poetic because he's following the exact same steps in the same room and the same job. Right.

There's some deleted scenes. I'm kind of torn on whether they should have kept them in after Red finally gets out. And you see him he's working in the same grocery store that Brooks did and all that stuff. But then there's another scene where he's like at the park and he's looking at how women are dressed because it's the late 60s.

And he's seeing like, you know, short mini skirts and stuff like that. And he's just like, what the hell is going on and just talking about how fast and crazy. And it's actually pretty effective. Really? I'm not sure that fits in the movie. It didn't. It's better because they have to get to red and Andy and Zawatneo.

So that's why they cut it. But it adds a little color to it though, because it does make you think like this guy went in a jail in 1929 or whatever. And never saw women. Comes out, there's cars, there's women wearing mini skirts, and, you know, all hell's breaking this.

But you know, it's already a very long movie. Right. Right. Next one, the opera music scene. Yeah, marriage of figuro. Great scene. Yeah. Andy?

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsick. It's great. He makes the Andy Dufrayan face again. Right.

That kind of just going into his own. That's the Roger Deacon's highlight reel right there. The sweeping shots over the yard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He has that, and he has, in like eight minutes in, the first time we see Shawshack and they do the Ben Affleck helicopter shot, but it's actually great of the prison.

And we get to see how it's all laid out. The town helicopter. helicopter shots are so notorious that they retroactively. The Affleck. Like when in Lawrence of Arabia, they're like, that's the Affleck. Yeah, they're doing the Affleck. For me, that scene also, when they scan the yard and you have, not all those convicts are nice people. Right.

But for that short period of time, they had a humane moment. Yeah. And I love that part. Even the sisters were like, oh, cool, the opera. I also like, I'm going to include in this part the follow-up scene at the dinner table after he gets out when they're asking him why he did it. And then he's like, I had it all in here.

It was the easiest two weeks I ever did. And then the guy says, why do you play Hank Williams? And he says, they broke the door down before I could take requests. You seem like a guy who would get thrown in the hole every couple of years. Yeah, you got it right, you know, maybe do something. Go high and inside every once in a while. Yeah, ESPN threw me in the hole a couple times. Three weeks.

It wasn't the only time. That's also when Andy lays down the theme. Skipper was like, your ass belongs to me. Yeah. I will cast you down with the Sotomites. I think it was Iger who said your ass belongs to me. There's something inside you that they can't touch, hope. That is also established from that point out.

All right, next rewatchable scene. Red and Andy's last scene together. Tell you where I'd go. So hot to now. So. A little place on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory.

That's where I want to live the rest of my life. Robbins really is down in it up here. It's a borderline saw Rubeneck candidate. He's really going for it. Yeah, understated Rubenek. He's going for it. Maybe it needs to be a subcategory of the Rubeneck. It's when you go Rubeneck but low.

It's a low Rubeneck. And you kind of have to do it because, Red has to go back to the dudes after me like, man, Andy was acting crazy. I don't know what the hell was going on with him. So he has to kind of play it that way. Well, also he was reeling after the Tommy Williams. And two months in the hole. Killing.

Yeah. So Andy does the whole, there are places in this world that aren't made of stone. There's something inside they can't get to. They can't touch. That's yours. And Red's like, what are you talking about? And he's like, hope. Red's like, okay, cool.

And then he does, hey, man, there's this place in Mexico. You got to remember names of Watanayo. And then... I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Too busy living. This is when the movie goes another level right here. From this point on, it's an unassailable of 45 minutes. But you still don't know what Red's going to do.

There's still that unknown. Red or Andy? Red when he gets out. And Andy... Right. In the cell. Both. So the prison escape would be the next one.

From the moment the warden throws the rock through the poster. And breaking down how Andy did it. Pulls it out. The flashback. Then we see him do the book switch, which was really smart. He's got the long jacket. They show it two different ways. Does that.

He's walking by. When do you look at a man's shoes? Great point. I never look at a man's shoes. And then him just staring at the poster. and then all of a sudden he's behind the poster and then we see the digging and the whole thing. You know, once they realized that he was gone,

at least then I knew he hadn't killed himself. Yeah. So that set for me, I knew the movie was heading somewhere else. We meet Randall Stevens. He cleaned out a few banks that morning. Red's all-time narration. Yeah.

Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards of shit. smelling foulness I can't even imagine. Or maybe I just don't want to. 500 yards. That's the length of five football fields. Just shy of half a mile. Andy Dufrayan headed for the Pacific. Five football fields.

And then my dad's single favorite part. Sometimes it makes me sad, though. Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright And when they fly away The part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up Does rejoice

But still The place you live in is that much more drab and empty That they're gone I guess I just miss my friend This is my dad was saying this to himself When I moved from Boston, LA It's like some birds aren't meant to be caged Bill had to go to L.A. and work for Jimmy Kimmel

His feathers were just too bright Jimmy was your Zawantana. He was. He was the boat you were standing. The J.K.L. Green Room was my Zawatina. I'm like, what's happening? Who was your red? I don't know.

Probably Sal. You're so disappointed. Sal's a man who knows how to get things. Sure. He's a man who knows how to make bets. So that seems out of control. The Andy prison escape. Yeah.

The Randall Stevens the next day, just everything, how he executes it. I remember the first time watching that, just being like, oh my God. This is unbelievable. So much thought of care. And then finally, two more rewatchable scenes, actually. This is all basically the same scene. Red going to Buxton.

The cornfield. That one I love because this movie is so good. I mean, like a lot of people always, you talked about it in the beginning of the pod, the geology reference, the pressure and time thing. But this movie is really, really good at depicting the passage of time in a not showy way. Like, you know, if you watch, like,

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay, or Hoover movie, he ages, like, 50 years in that movie, and you're like, all right, it's just DiCaprio with old guy makeup. But this movie shows sort of, like, the patience it took for them,

for the characters to go through the experience they went through. And that Buxton walk that he does, like when he finally gets out there, and then they drop him off, and then he walks through down the country road all the way and keeps looking for the right field. It's like, you feel like you're really going along on that journey.

There's something about the editing that makes you feel like, man, this guy must have spent all day looking for the tree. Yeah. You know, and that's the movie at large. You kind of feel like

you go through decades with these guys. You know what, you know why he did it? Because there was only one thing that stopped him from breaking his parole. It's a promise

he made the ending. I love that scene as well. I also think really underrated when he gets a box and he's kind of like looking around. still thinking like a criminal almost, and then he gets the money and he does it again, he's looking around again, like, oh shit.

And the letter. Yeah. Dear Red. If you're reading this, you've gotten out. And if you've come this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don't you? Say what to Neo. I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels.

I'll keep an eye out for you. And the chest board ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you and finds you well. Your friend, Andy. Kind of sticks it to him there a little bit. All the times they played chess, it was like...

I didn't feel he stuck. No, it's like, come on, Red. I told you hope was a good thing. But keeping him since the suspense was good, if those guys had all felt like good, Dufrein got out. they would have implicated themselves. I thought he was still motivating Red to do what he wanted him to do. You could make the case Red should have just immediately

just gone to Zawatneo. He didn't need to go to the court field. And he told him he was going. We had no money. He could have robbed the bank and they're just taking off. Let's get a manhood going. Shawshank too on the run. No, when he got on the bus, he said,

this is only the second crime I've ever committed. You don't want a... Parole violation. I'll be hoping this letter finds you and finds you well, your friend Andy. And then Red does the trying not to choke up face. In the wrong hands, that scene is mangled

by the wrong actor. They're either trying to sell the emotion too hard or whatever. And he's just like, you can just see, he's like, holy shit. I fucking love this guy. You basically start from his parole monologue and you go to that look.

And that's just like, Hall of Fame acting. It's not quite, quite as good as Martin Landau and Edward. But it's like 80%. 80% there. And then the last rewatched was seen, the last couple minutes, Red doing the whole...

I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still a hole of thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his head.

hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I was hoping the bus ride be a little longer because I wanted the movie. I wanted more. Him talking to just whoever he was sitting next to him. Something, yeah. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as has been in my dreams.

I hope leading to the beach hug. Red's hat comes off as he's walking toward him. He doesn't even care. Andy's just sanding a boat for some reason. So do you think Andy's, has he got in the hotel yet? Is he just doing the boat? I think they could have done the wide shot of like the defraining. Yeah.

Yeah. Although maybe he wouldn't have called it that. Maybe what was Andy Seltel called? That might have signaled that it defraining and escaped to God. Yeah. What would you have called it? Were there any deleted scenes at the end that you saw? No. Because we never saw the scene where they were hanging out.

Where they're having like coronas. What if the hotel was called the Shawshank Redemption? Or Shawshank. Yeah. The Shawshank. That also probably would have drawn some attention. Maybe like, maybe Raquel Welch or Raquel and Rita. Yeah.

Something like that. All right. What was the most rewatchable scene? The roof? I think the roof for me because, as I mentioned a little earlier, I thought it switched things for Andy. I mean, he still hadn't been accepted by anybody before that. Yeah. And suddenly all those guys looked at him differently.

First of all, they thought he was going to get thrown off the roof. Yeah. And then they looked at him differently as. and they got three beers, and I thought the whole movie changed at that point. He was a key member of that group. Do you go roof for opera? I'm going last three minutes.

I could be, like, standing on hot coals, and if the last three minutes are happening, I'm just watching. I just fucking love it. And I always get mad that... Why would you be standing? I don't know. I always get mad that I feel like they could have stayed low,

for another two seconds. Before they pan away, yeah? They pan away. And then in memory of Alan Green's just coming right up. It's like, could you waited like two seconds? I'm remembering Alan Green. Can I just see the hug? A different way of asking it

because all of us have caught it on TNT or TBS somewhere during the movie. Which, if you were turning on the TV and it was on, where would you want to catch it? What point in the movie? That's a great question. Yeah, that's usually, how I think a most rewatchable scene.

For me, for me, it's when him and Red are there for the last time in prison. And he's like, so what now? You want to go past Tommy and everything. You want to be past Tommy.

I'm just like, if that's on, I'm just watching from that point. I don't care if I saw two weeks ago. I like to go post sisters. I like to go post-sisters. I think like, you know, pre-sisters of like,

I'm in the bathroom during sisters anyway, so I'm not watching it. Yeah, if the sisters are, So post-repeated gang rape. Yeah. That's when you get it. Okay. If I have the choice.

Yeah. What's age the best? There's a lot. So I'm an anti-narrator guy for the most part. I think it's a crutch. You've always been anti-narrayor. Yeah, especially like when we were doing 30 for 30. And any documentary I've done, I always fight to, I think narration is a last resort.

It's usually a sign that you didn't do something correctly. The surfing docted narration that came off fine. It needed it because it was. If you do it, you got to do it. But like Maradonna doesn't need narration. No. If you do it, like Andre the Giant did, and if you do it dock correctly,

it doesn't need narration. It's a crutch. And I think with movies, there's been a lot of cases of narration being terrible. Ironically, Forrest Gump and Shawshank, same year, are two of the better narration movies

that actually needed narration. This one might be the all-time best example of narration working. I think it's this or Goodfellas. Goodfellas narrations. It's still pretty incredible. It's a good call. Freeman's voice, though?

Yeah. I mean, I like the character that the narration and Goodfellas takes on, but Freeman's voiceover is really, really beautiful. This would be a good poll for the rewatchable's Twitter feed. Best narration of all time. Goodfellas or Shawshank. Yeah. I think that's the finals.

It's that or maybe Apocalypse Now gets in there. Saigon. Well, it's interesting. Freeman did narration and Driving Miss Daisy as well, if you remember. Right. It didn't come off the same way. We don't like that movie as much. Oh, okay.

That movie knocked. That movie won the Oscar somehow in 1989. We still were mad about it. The music has aged the best. Tom's Newman, beautiful. Funnily enough, in the trailer, great trailer. But the music in the trailer is Carter Burwell's score from Miller's Crossing, the Cohen Brothers movie.

And I remember just when the trailer came out, I still, gosh, I wonder if the trailer was on a video for like city slickers or something in the 90s. because I remember seeing this trailer a couple of times and you would only see them in movies or on VHS tapes before like when you would put the tape in for the first time. But I was blown away and I was like, oh, they're going to use the Miller's Crossing music? I didn't know that sometimes they use temp music and things.

Yeah. I would say this soundtrack, St. Almost Fire, and terms of endearment are the three things that have been used the most in sports. Terms of endearment. Yeah, the terms of... Oh, that's right. Oh, no, that was St. Elmo's fire.

Terms of Endermann had another one, though, that got... I remember in the NBA in the mid-80s, they would always start the CBS things. With Terms of Endearment? Yeah, there was some Terms of Endearment part. Wow. Yeah. Wow. But those were the three where they want to get like a little emotional coming out of the gate.

Yeah, wasn't the Terms of Endermint. I don't know. Sinoma's fire was... No, no, no, no, the piano one. Oh, the piano, not the sacks. Yeah. Yeah. Another age is the best.

Oh, I mentioned this, the overhead shot of the prison. Deacons. Deacons is working. Tribute to Affle. Yeah. And Deacons working from the Affleck playbook, you know. But no, the fact also, I really think it's in concert with Deac's work. But the fact that this movie takes place over the course of decades and has like mild references to what's happening in the outside world there, you know, when Tommy shows.

up. It's like James Dean. It's the cool 60s. But for the most part, is completely timeless. And I think that's why it still plays well today. Yeah. There's not a lot of like period behavior. So you get to make a timeless period piece. That's pretty incredible. The fresh fish gambling

pool has aged really well for me. I like that they used to bet on this. Yeah. It's like I got I got the tall guy. I got fat, what do you call him fat ass? And that they're betting like just cigarettes. Then after he wins, Hey, it's like, all right, boys, bring them up.

But they're, like, throwing them, like, one cigarette. I like when Red looked down and said, Andy looks like a stiff breeze would blow them on. Yeah, yeah. Bill, have you ever thought about, like, what role you would play in a 1940s prison, 1950s prison society? I would have tried to be the man who can get things. Yeah?

That's a great role to be. I can see you definitely running a very elaborate sports book. I definitely would have run the fresh fish pole. It would be like, yeah. What's the over, under? on Stan Musial for at bats today. That would have been the highlight of the week. How would you have stayed away from the sisters?

I would have been the man who knows how to get things. They would have needed me. How are they going to get stuff? They got to come through me. Go ahead. I'll save it for picking nets. There's some good picking knits for this. Another, what's age the best for me, just bear with me.

Andy's just the sisters are just wreaking havoc with Andy. and Red's doing that monologue and he goes I do believe those first two years were the worst for him oh really Red you think that might have been

the nadir the two years of gang rape maybe might have been the worst part for him I just always cracks me up are we gonna nitpick at things that bothered us

later okay yeah I also believe that if things had gone on that way that's the place would have gotten the best of them and then that leads to the beers in the roof.

The three posters, so they pick Rita Hayworth, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Dad, you're older than us. Were those the right three picks? I'm going to say they were. The Raquel Welch poster is iconic.

I mean, there might not have been a better-looking woman ever. Right. And Monroe. Recognizable photographs of like the 20th century. And that's also like classic, you know you were in the mid-1950s with that. We know Raquel Welch were. mid-60s.

Maybe Sophia Lauren. Yeah. Could have fit in there. Okay. What if she got on the cutting room for? Boggs getting out of the hole, going back to a cell and Hadley's there. Two things never happened after that.

The sisters never laid a finger on hand again. Boggs never walked again. They transferred him to a minimum security hospital upstate. Hadley doesn't really have a light touch. There's not a lot of examples of Hadley just like lightly beating a guy up, it's either he kills him or he puts him in wheelchair. Well, Boggs, to my knowledge, he lived out the rest of his days, drinking his food through a straw.

Tough beat for Boggs, you don't feel bad for him one aorta. Not a second. It's like, good luck, Boggs. Good luck. Now he's drinking out of not even a plastic straw. It's like one of those environmentally friendly. A simple sip cup. A middle straw.

Another one's age the best for me. Andy explaining the whole laundering scheme to Red and saying, you know, the funny thing is, on the other thing is, on the other side of the other side of the outside. I was an honest man. Straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook. Just a great line. How could you be so obtuse?

Best use ever of obtuse, Chris Ryan? Probably. In a movie, yeah. Critical mistake by Andy. Yeah. Getting high falutin on the warden. Do you think the warden got upset that he was being called obtuse or that he didn't know what the word obtuse meant? Called obtuse. I think even just being challenged at all.

Because you can tell in the end when he thinks, when Andy finally gets out of the two months in the hole, and he's doing all the work and he's shining his shoes, and he's just like, the warden thinks he's broken him. The warden's like, this is exactly how I want you, and it's great to have you back this way. Because now I've got to shine my shoes and do my books and do everything like that.

Well, when the warden visits him in the hall, and he says something like, am I, do you still feel him uptuce? And then he says, give him another month. I mean, not a happy guy. This is the warden's best part When he does the I'll pull you out of that one buck

Hilton and cash you down with the sodomites You'll think you've been fucked by a train In the library gone Sealed off brick by brick We'll have us a little book barbecue in the yard He's so evil You're just like, oh I just want this kind of die Quite a move to invoke book burning after Hitler

Oh You know So brutal They'll see the flames for miles Yeah We'll dance around it like wild engines You understand me Catch my drift or am I being obtuse?

You're like, ah, this guy needs to die. And he does. And then he kills himself and Red says, I'd like to think the last thing that went through the warden's head, other than that bullet, which is another one's age the best. And then the other one, he still did the narration as not long after the warden deprived us of his company. It's great use of the word deprived. What else does age the best for you, anything?

The score, Deacons, I just think in general Freeman's whole performance throughout the movie. You know, Tim Robbins has some low Rubenek moments, but Freeman never sounds a wrong note the entire time. It's one of my favorite performances by anyone ever. It's definitely like I'd have to make the complete list, but out of the 86 rewatchables we've done, it's way, way up there.

Yeah, it's like in the final level. Rubeneck and true romance. Yeah. And Waingrove. James Conn and the Godfather. I fucking love Sonny. Yeah. But yeah, it's...

Not Johnny Fontaine and the Godfather? No, not Johnny Fontaine. He was a category. We forgot to put him in there. What was the context of the category? It was the Johnny Fontaine, your fucking terrible category, whatever. I think it was. You know another thing that's sustained while bringing Tommy Williams into the whole prison?

You like that. You like Tommy. Because I thought it switched. Andy's thinking when they killed Williams Andy had had enough and that's when he

I think really made his decision Yeah Tommy is hope Yeah you know And he's killing his hope Any other what's age the best for your dad? Well I think we talked about it The music And the overhead of the prison scene

Hangs with me So I'm going to say for what's age the best Morgan Freeman is the narrator I think and now it's to the point where it's amazing sponsors just don't have him narrate their products and commercials because you hear his voice and it's just

it's like Morgan Freeman and Peter Coyote and if you're not using one of those two guys just not doing narration right? You know you mentioned earlier and I know you've never liked narrated movies that movie isn't working without narration.

Yeah it pushes it up a notch What's age the worst? Not a lot, but Andy's legal defense. Not sure who his lawyers were with that whole thing, but... Except he was very passive in his own defense. Where were his lawyers? You're right. He's passive and he's a little, like, fresh.

Like when he's saying, like, you know, he has something... It says something in the opening statement where he's like, I couldn't tell you because I didn't do it. It's like, you should be a little bit more upset about this whole situation. You seem a little like stoned about your wife getting murdered. What do we think Andy was doing in the car with the gun? Because it seemed like he kind of wanted to kill her. A little bit.

Something's going on. Why is he putting bullets in a gun? Yeah. Yeah. But obviously we know he didn't do it. Do we? He's the only innocent man in Shussing. You believe Elmo Blatch?

I certainly do. The Gilbello section as Tommy. It's the most convoluted part of the movie. Yeah, you could argue. this would be what you cut. Do you think? Yeah, I heard your case before, but I'm saying if you wanted to get this movie,

if you want to shave 10 minutes from this movie, it's pretty much the same movie without Tommy. You need something in the movie that takes away Andy's hope. Yeah, temporarily. I would, my amendment to your resolution is you just need, you just lose the GED stuff. You could have Tommy show up. Yeah, we don't need it.

And Tommy is, you know, They like him. He's this fresh kid. That's pretty cool. And then he says, what, wait a second. That's your story? I know a story about that.

Right. And then they do that. And then he goes to the warden. Now in the book, Tommy actually uses his, he says to the warden, like, I won't talk if you send me to a minimum security prison. And that's what they do.

It's not that whole, that whole convoluted like, I'm going to go to the warden and try and get Andy out. And then the warden's like, oh, weird and turns his back. That's not, that's not in the Stephen King book. The only other. Wood's Age the worst for me is

this is such a minor nitpick but after Andy gets out and it's like we were telling Andy stories and then Hayward's telling the one story of the Bears on the roof how many Andy stories were there kind of kept to himself do you think they're just sitting around telling Andy stories

for three hours? Was he like a hilarious guy? You have the roof story and that's really it. Just telling the roof story over and over again. They wouldn't be like hey did you see this new Hank Williams record came in a live? It's pretty good I remember when Andy wrote those letters, man. Oh, shit.

Andy once asked, he had a rock and he chiseled at it for a while and made a chess piece. I'm telling you the truth. He made a whole night. You know, that's a really valid point. When they had that scene in the dining hall, I was trying to think, what were the other funny things that Andy did? Red's like,

oh, the stories we told about Andy. Do you think after like a couple of decades, you'd be like, you know what, I'm going to go sit with somebody else for lunch? I mean, I love you. You know, I've worked with you for almost 10 years now. I think Hayward kind of ran out of surprise. I think if we push 20 years, I'm going to go try and have lunch with someone else. We're just doing rewatchables podcasts in the prison yard.

From memory. We're doing the Gilda rewatchables. What saves the best, Reed Hayworth. Oh, wow. No, I'm going Glenn Ford. One of the nipicks I have, it took two years. Wait, we haven't done nipicks yet. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm jumping ahead. God, Dad. It's coming up. We're up to casting what ifs. This is going to be great because one of the reasons I want to have my dad on this pot is he doesn't know a lot of this stuff. That's going to blow his mind. The role of Andy Dufrain originally offered to Tom Hanks, who couldn't accept due to scheduling conflicts with Forrest Gump. Wouldn't have been the same movie, would it, I don't think.

Or would it have been better? No, couldn't have been better. How could it be better? Tom Hanks is the best actor probably the last 40 years. There was something about Andy's 6'4 frame. Yeah, I agree. I'm glad it's Robbins because this became. Tim Robbins kind of becomes Andy Dufrained

for the rest of his life, whereas Hanks is Hanks. When you see Tim Robbins in any other movie, I think he's Andy Diffraim. I couldn't feel that way about Tom Hanks. It's amazing to me that some like beer company or Apple or something hasn't filmed the commercial with Morgan Freeman and Andy

and Tim Robbins, like on the beach. Old Andy and Red, cracked open of Coors Light. Just being like, it's a watt and a. I'm like, man, I can't believe we're still here. Yeah. Like, if you're just trying to... Coors light for guys who escape from prison.

Yeah. For guys who have hope. I thought you were going to say a commercial with them up on the roof. Or you can do that too. Where he's almost ready to throw them off. And suddenly we have three bottles of some kind of beer. But think about the goal of a commercial is to get my attention for 30 seconds. Hadley almost throwing off the roof.

That would get my attention quickly. what if it was just Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman on the beach of Mexico? And that's the commercial starting. And Morgan Freeman's talking like red. I would just be like, what's going on? Why is this happening? And then it's like, Cadillac. With a boat in the background and a hotel over here.

Why is this happening? A big sign, Sharshanke Hotel? Yeah. Kevin Costner offered the role of Andy. Past. Of the people who were offered the role, that was the one I was most curious about. I just think that he's. I think he would have been really good.

He would have been really good, but there's like a believability thing with Robbins where it's like, you know what? He kind of has like a little creepiness to him. Like he has that dazed look to him. Seems like maybe he did. What if he did kill his wife? You wouldn't believe Costner killed his wife. Cosner would have done his like kind of choked cry thing once and you would have been like, you know, whatever he needs. Well, I'll go back to a similar point I just made.

For me, Robbins didn't click with any other role. roles that he had prior to Sharshanc. Except Bull Durham is pretty good. Yeah, Bulldorm is pretty good, a totally different role. I still think his size was a key part in that movie. Yeah. Well, this next one you're not going to like. Okay.

And this person almost did the role of Andy and even attended table readings and declined to do the movie because he thought the director was too inexperienced. Oh. A man by the name of Tom Cruise. Yeah. Well, every line in this movie, if you run through the time cruise intensity generator, he ruins the movie. It would have been nuts.

He ruins the movie. There's no way. It can't happen. I see Tom Cruise. I understand you're a man who can get things. Yeah. You know? Like, you can't do that.

I would have cast Tom Cruise in the role of Tommy Williams. Do you trust your wife? Yeah. She'd go behind your back and hamstring you? Why are you being so obtuse? It just doesn't work, Tom Cruise. That's bizarre that those are the listing of people who got off of that role? I will say, though, I did think about, I did follow the Cruz thing in my head.

And the part where Andy escapes and he has to climb down and break through the... Oh, it would have been... The Pope... Oh, Cruz would have been... You would have practiced it. You would have practiced crawling with Navy SEALs to get ready to get the perfect crawl. Young Tommy. was supposed to be Brad Pitt.

He dropped out because Thelman Louise became a big movie and he was getting all these other offers. I think Pitt would have been good in that role. Brad Pitt's really... It's almost distractingly good. Yeah. Because now when you go back, if you had watched it and pits in it, the time he's funny scene becomes a way bigger deal.

Well, this would have been even more alarming. Boggs was originally supposed to be James Gandalfini. And the best... He passed to do true romance. So it's not like he passed to be in... Look who's talking. He passed to be in... Why couldn't he have done both?

Can you imagine? I mean, I think maybe he was afraid of being Tedcast as a... As a terrible person? Yeah. There was a couple other people up for Andy, not up, but like rumored to be considered... And I think they would have been interesting. Depp, maybe too pretty,

but has a kind of spaciness to him. and the one that's really interesting to me because you have to remember this is pre him becoming a complete kind of internet meme is Cage, is Nicholas Cage. And he has a little bit of the build that Robbins has and he has a little bit of like

the kind of mystic dizziness that Robbins has and an intensity that Robbins lacked so I think it would have been interesting to see him in it. The one other thing is Rob Reiner who was the co-founder of Castle Rock he loved this script.

he offered Frank Darabont $3 million to allow Rob Reiner to direct it. And to produce any movie he wanted to do other than this. He was basically like, let me do this. I'll fund any other movie you want to do. Let me direct this. And his plan was Tom Cruise is Andy.

Harrison Ford is red. Oh, gosh. Well, I don't hate it. I just, I mean, obviously, Freeman's the right choice. I bet it makes more than $18 million on a second weekend. Harrison Ford is red. Definitely, you're making $100. with that. And Darabont

very smartly. And this has been a recurring theme in the rewatchables. Somebody betting on themselves. Darabon was like, fuck you, I'm directing this. This is mine. Two other casting what-ifs. John Favro auditioned for the role of fat ass.

He said it was the worst audition he ever did. He told Empire Magazine and it encouraged him to try to lose weight, which he did in time for swingers. Well, it was such a brief role in the movie. It would have been weird to have John Favro is fat us though. And then the other thing is Bob Gunton, who is the warden,

he, uh, the reason he got the role is he's six foot two. And Tim Robbins is six foot five. So they had to have somebody within at least two, three inches of Tim Robbins because he's got to wear his suit. Yeah. So if you can't have like Tom Cruise as the warden and, you know, Tim Robbins is wearing his size 38 jacket. He's like Chris Farley, fat guy and little coat.

You know, that's an interesting point because. That scene was way at the end of the movie. And they gave enough thought that they had to take account for an important scene in the last 30 minutes of the movie. Let's take one more break. Hey, when's the last time you refreshed your sock drawer? If you can't remember, it's probably time for an upgrade. Bomba socks made with comfort innovations like arch support, a seamless toe, and a cushioned footbed, which is all socks speak for super, super comfortable.

Come in hundreds of colors and styles, making them perfect for men, women, and kids. And what I like about them is what I love about any sock. If you're going to go get socks, get good ones. Get socks that have the thickness and are comfortable and you know aren't going to like get a hole in them within two weeks or two months or whatever. Bomas has a new line of marino wool socks that are made from soft warm and naturally moisture wicking marino wool designed with all Bomba's classic comfort features. They're ready to work as hard as you are, whether you're keeping cool, whether you're doing a morning run, whatever you want. They're ready for you. And with every pair of socks you buy, Bombas will donate a pair to someone in need.

Buy Bombas at Bombas.com slash rewatchables today. Get 20% off your first purchase. Bombas.com slash rewatchables, 20% off. There's some fun categories here for character, people. First one is the best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award. there's a lot of that guys in this movie. I think Red's entire crew feels like... It's unbelievable.

So we have... Just going through the... Well, the warden, Bob Gunton, I think, just becomes the warden. Nobody calls him Bob Gunton. You see him in another movie. It's like, oh, the warden. Like, that's just who he is. Hayward the stutterer.

I don't even know that guy's name. William Sadler. Yeah. Yeah. But he's been in a whole bunch of things, but his Hayward. Boggs. Boggs, you could argue.

Actually, this might have been a bad thing for him to be in this movie. Because if you saw him in other movies, he was an aliens. Yeah, he's been in some stuff, but he's kind of bogs. He's the guy who's like friends with Vasquez. Floyd,

who's in the crew, was also the killer in Silent Rage, one of my favorite bad movies from the 80s. And I remember me so excited to see him again. It's like, how the guy from Silent Rage? His name's Brian Libby. And then somebody who joins their crew in the last hour

also played Richie Appreel and the Sopranos. and I'm voting for him because I have no idea with that guy's name is. But he has dark hair and kind of like an evil-looking face. But he is an evil in this movie. So I would say that. And then the only other, that guy, I wanted to give a shout out to Boggs' right-hand co-rapist.

They got the muscle guy in the shower. When he goes over to Andy, he's like, does anybody come at you yet? And then there's another guy kind of wanders over. He's got the big barrel chest. He's kind of like, hey. That was his only scene, wasn't it? Yeah.

You like that? No, he comes in later. It's like strong performance. He has no lines. Yeah. But imagine that guy. He's like, so what are you working on? Yeah.

Yeah. So what are you working on? I'm making this prison movie. Who are you playing? Well, I don't have any lines, but there's three rapists. I'm the second best rapist. I would love to see Riscilla's breakdown of how that guy got his upper body tone. He's very like 1940s.

Yeah, a lot of free weights. Yeah. Dumbbell work. So who's the best that guy for you, Chris? I think I'm going to save Sadler for a different one So I'm going to go with the Sopranos guy Richie April Who do you have that?

I think the warden because He didn't jump out at me As being in many other movies that I watched Actor's name is David Provol by the way Richie Appreel What else was Bob Gunton in? He wasn't he in like what he was in an action movie That we like

I think he was in It was just funny seeing him in anything else He was in 24 I want to say too. And he was so terrific in this movie. He's great. He's to cast you down with the He's in Demolition Man. He's great. Demolition Man. Patch Adams.

Patch Adams. He's in a lot of stuff. He's like Dolores Claiborne. He's in Ace Ventura. But he's never had a better role. No. I don't think so. No. The Saul Rubenek They New Award

for worst Most Egregious case of overacting. For me, it's Elmo Blatch. He wakes up. Gives me shit. So I killed him. Him and this tasty bitch he was with.

It's the best part. She's fucking this pricksie. This golf probe. She's married some other guy. Some hot shot banker. And he's the one they've been dead on. He really dows it up with the laughing. You know what? That's a great call.

I didn't have him. in this copro She's packing It's like What's going on? What is this performance? He's described as a twitchy motherfucker The only thing I was going to throw out there

Would be Gil Bellows, Tommy When he finishes his GED He crumbles it up And he throws it in the trash can and storm off Brad Pitt might have played that a little differently The only other candidate would be Tim Robbins With the Zouatneo Telling him

There's a cornfield Little box You have to go there to see. But I think he has to play it that way. Add any other candidates? I don't think so. Elmo Blatch? Okay.

Dionne Waiters Award for the best heat check. Who do you have for this, Chris? I don't know if he qualifies because he's essentially a starting player, but I'm going to go Clancy Brown. I'm going to go Hadley. I'd have to look at his usage rate. I think he's actually only in six scenes, but he has such an like an oversized role.

He's in the background of a lot of scenes. That's a good call. I was going to say Boggs the rapist because he's only in like three scenes, but he's so evil. Yeah. It's just in those three scenes, he's putting up big stats.

But Hadley's got some of the best lines in the movie. Hadley's a good call. I was going to say Brooks when he, oh, Brooks. That scene where he has... My dad calling him for Brooks. He has the knife against Hayward's neck. It just seems incongruous

with everything else we know about Brooks and all those characters. All right. We all disagree. I say bugs. Half-ass internet research. Filming took place in Mansfield, Ohio. The Ohio State Reformatory served as the jail.

People go there now. Really? Oh, yeah. I'll take you there. Is it still open? Is it still open? Is it still open? Go to Shawshank, walk around?

I don't know if I want a 55-year-old man taking me there. That was a good one. Roger Deacons, we mentioned. The Susan Lucci of cinematography. nominated for like 12 Oscars. He eventually got one. Yeah, he eventually got one. King never cashed the $5,000 check from Darabant

for the rights to Shaw Shank Redemption. He framed it, returned it to Darabont, accompanied by a note, which said, in case you ever need bail money, love Steve. The filming on this, the filming for this movie was legendary tense. Yes. Why so?

the director they just made them do a lot of takes it was a little bit over his head the movie came out great but Freeman at that point had been in a bunch of movies he'd been in Unforgiven where Clintieswood likes to be done before 4 o'clock every day yeah one take Darabant was doing 15 hour days six days a week

so he said the filming was tense quote most of the time the tension was between the cast and the director this is from Freeman I remember having a bad moment with the director had a few of those. And then I mentioned the part when he threw out his arm and showed up with the sling.

But Freeman took a while to embrace this movie because I think the filming was really bad for him. By that time we got to the 20-year mark. It also came out and it was a dud. You probably thought he was never going to have to think about it again. Dad, what was Andy Dufrein's prison ID number? I do not remember. 37-9-27.

Okay. I tried to rearrange these numbers in a way that would somehow reflect a great Red Sox moment. I couldn't do it. I tried, though. How hard did you try? I tried. It's sad.

How much money did Andy steal from the warden? $35,000? $3,000. Oh, the warden. $375,000. Adjusted for inflation in 2019, it's about $3.7 million. So, good job by him.

You can get yourself a hotel. That's enough for a hotel. That's enough for Rita and Raquel's. There are only two women with speaking roles in the film. The customer who complains about Brooks's service of the grocery store. The bank. And the lady at the bank. Yeah.

And that's it. There was another woman in the movie. The one of the golf pro. No. I think on the board approving. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The parole board.

That's why I brought my dad. Pulls those out. The mug shots of a young red? Terrific. I thought. That's Morgan Freeman's younger son, Alfonso. did not know that. Who also played...

I thought it was... Morgan Freeman actually had a problem earlier. The fresh fish. There's that one black guy that walks to him and goes, Fresh Fish, gonna reel him in. That's also Alfonso. Mentioned the beach team was shot at St. Croix. So don't go to Zawatnao and wander around

looking for the exact spot. Reddney had the hut because it's in St. The hotel's not there? Yeah. Andy crawls through the sewer pipe. It's actually not shit. You're not going to. believe this, but Tim Robinson did not actually crawl

through shit. It's a mixture of water, chocolate syrup, and sawdust. So if you ever want to make your own sewage at home, those are three ingredients. There's a slight problem for me with that scene. So he crawls through five football fields. We're not at nitpics yet. Oh, I'm sorry.

The final cut is 142 minutes dedicated to Alan Green. Who was Alan Green? Deribon's agent? His agent who died of AIDS during the filming.

So he wanted to give him a shout out. But, you know, not knowing that until probably the 75th time I saw the movie, I always wondered who he was. It's an unbelievable solid that he did for Alan Green. Yeah, yeah. They're still zooming out. You're talking probably hundreds of millions of people at this point. It was like, oh, Alan Green.

I don't know who that is. I mentioned several scenes were cut of red post-incarceration. in the test screenings, the audience was restless as it was going. Original ending, I mentioned it's him riding on the bus. And then they added the other stuff. One of the producers, Glotzer, forget her. Liz Glotzer. Liz Glatzer.

It was the person who originally sort of did. Made the movie, yeah. If the movie had ended with him riding on the bus, I guess we would have all assumed that they got together. Or you leave it open. So, you know, you just don't know how. Shawshank, too. Yeah, you don't know what happened.

Did Red get to cross the board? Right. So she insisted that we have to see them reuniting. Darabon didn't want to do it. He thought it was too commercial, too sappy. So we filmed a couple different versions of it, hoping it wouldn't make it. And then it was obvious once they did the one they used.

Everybody's like, oh, my God, that's absolutely amazing. And they had to keep it. The oak tree, which attracted thousands of visitors annually, Really? Was partially destroyed in 2011 when it was split by lightning. And then completely knocked over in 2016 from Strong Winds. Cut down in 2017. The remains were turned into Shawshank memorabilia, including rockhammers and magnets made from the tree.

Did I get any of these rock hammers for my 50th birthday? Not yet. Oh, man. People don't give a shit. They said... I wish we had done this a couple weeks ago. You could have gotten it? Yeah.

Oh, we mentioned the jail before. They have the visitors. 18,000 visitors, 2013. And it drew over 3 million to the local economy. I think more and more people are going as this movie gets... So the wall's probably still there. No, I'm talking about the actual prison. I was curious about whether or not this movie still, like, resonates for younger people.

Like, if younger generations are finding this movie. I would say yes I would say yes certainly yeah right I would hope a couple more deleted scenes I didn't know about

which I never saw there was one where they find after Brooks leaves and he dies they find Jake the bird and he's dead and they give him a burial good cut

good cut smart cut yeah and then this bird was here by the way did you see how big Jake the bird got yeah

yeah Tommy's wife visits him in a deleted scene. Are you serious? Yeah. And she wants him to turn his life around and that leads him to trying to get his eaten. GED, that's cut. There's a scene after the escape, which I've actually seen where they send a guard through the tunnel to find out how Andy escaped and he gets down, sees the sewage pipe broken and the smell is so overwhelming. He just starts puking.

And Red hears it from his cell. and he's just like laughing hysterical. That got cut. And then mentioned the red stuff with him on the park. He has a panic attack at the grocery store. They cut all that stuff. So there you go. Apex Mountain.

Oh, I have one more half-ass internet research thing. Okay. They recorded Freeman's voiceover before they filmed the movie. And they would play it on the set when they were doing scenes. Oh. Really? Yeah. That's in the vanity.

Fair article from 14. So they recorded, he did his voiceover beforehand, and he would shoot it kind of accordingly. That must have been kind of weird. It was a little ass backwards, but it worked. Apex Mountain. This is where we decided this was the peak of somebody's career. Morgan Freeman. I say yes, because this is unforgiven this and seven.

So Morgan Freeman, late bloomer, and he was in a movie called Street Smart, which I actually remember seeing when it came out or rented or whatever, and he played a pimp. Is it streets of fire or street smart? Street smart. He plays kind of a semi-evil pimp, and he was just great. And he was a late bloomer who that movie became. And I think he might have gotten nominated. And then that took his career up.

But after this, it felt like once this movie hit and seven combo of that, he could do anything. Don't you think part of the irony here is what was referenced earlier? I don't think Freeman thought this was going to be a successful movie. Right. And obviously, The director is going to find that. Unforgiven was a terrific movie. And probably until this movie, that was the highlight movie of his career.

Glory and Unforgiven. Yeah. My dad loves Unforgiven. Rewatchable? Potentially, yeah. Oh, I hope so. Will Money? Now my dad's going to make plane tickets.

Tim Robbins, no question. Yeah. I don't even know what the other contender would be. Blown. Blown away. Blown away. No, he's in Arlington Road. Arlington Road.

Yeah, my bad. I was going to say Top Gun. He gets to ride with Cruz on the final scene. He's Merlin. I think this was the apex for prison movies. So what else is in contention here? So you could go late 70s. Escape from Alcatraz.

There was a brewbreaker, Brewerker, Escape from Alcatraz combo. And Jericho Mile, which was won the Emmy for TV, all like in the same 12-month span. Not in the same ballpark. I think this probably be. peaked. Any other Apex Mountain for you? I mean, all the that guys in this movie,

it's Apex Mountain for all of them. I guess it's Darabonts. I mean, you could make it it's either this or it's when he starts walking dead, but he's had a lot of stops and starts over the course of his career. I would say this would be for him. Yeah. Anybody else? This would be it. Rida Hayworth?

I think she has another apex. All right, it's time, Dad. Let's pick some Nets. Let's pick some Nets. Actually, let's take one more break and then we'll pick some Nets. Hey, let's talk about Luminary, the podcast subscription service with some of the best content around, including two ringer podcasts. We did Break Stuff, the story of Woodstock 99. We're doing rewatchables 1999. Right now we have For Love of the Game with me and Mally Rubin, which is one of the most complicated crazy sports movies, probably ever. We broke that down. That's coming later this week on rewatchables 99. We also have a new podcast called Sonic Boom, the story of how the sonics were stolen from Seattle. and brought to Oklahoma City that is launching in October. Luminary also gives you access

to a bunch of other original shows, including a narrative series about Ivanka Trump. All kinds of things. Trevor Noah has a podcast there, a whole bunch of great creators. The app is free to download in addition to the Can't Miss originals.

Use it to listen to thousands of podcasts, including this one. Music, TV, film, comedy, sports, sex, whatever. Luminary has the right show for you. Get your first two months of access to Luminary's premium. content for free when you sign up at Luminary.com slash rewatch. After that, it is 799 per month.

Luminary.com slash rewatch two months of free access. Cancel any time terms do apply. All right. So these picking nits, there's a lot, but it's out of love. Absolutely. When you've seen a movie 300 to 400 times, you're going to start picking some nits. It's better when there are nits to pick. Yeah. It's out of love. There's not a lot. There's more than you think. I have the biggest one. Go ahead.

I'll give you the floor. Okay. So what's the plan if there's not a thunderstorm that night? Presumably Andy read the weather report, but we're talking 1960s. It's not exactly acque weather time. You don't think he went on the internet and knew for sure there's to be lightning and thunder. Like a newspaper that's like or a farmer's almanac that says it's going to have a thunderstorm that night. And he had made the decision.

But he's pot committed. Yeah. He stole the guy's suit. Yeah. He's the shoes. He's got the shoes. He's switched the books. It's all basically dependent on him getting down to that sewage pipe and being able to crack that pipe.

I don't think he could have practiced yet. I mean, maybe he knows a lot about... Do you think he brought the rock? I think on a previous trip bought a rock. How does he know it's only going to take three or four hits to break that pipe? And if it doesn't, what's the plan? That's my biggest one. So I have a couple pipe-related picking nits.

Why doesn't he go further down the pipe? To break it. He goes dead middle. And it's like, I'm going to go dead middle here and give myself another extra 50 yards of crawling through shit. Or I could just go all the way to the end of the pipe. But we didn't see whether the pipe was constricted further down. They didn't show the other end of the pipe.

Yeah, but he goes that way anyway. And then when he goes down, how does he know which way to go? What if he went the wrong way? And he's like, fuck, dead end. Now he's got to crawl backwards. Like, a lot of had to go right here in the pipe. No, but it's a shit pipe. It had to go out away from the prison.

But he doesn't know where he is. He's in like pitch black. So he gets down, I think he knows which the direction is the big thing. I think the big thing is he's like he needs the amount of light of thunder and lightning to break through the pipe. Then he needs to not drown in sewage. which there's no guarantee that that's going to happen. But he gets in the pipe and he looks left and he looks right. Hey, Warden, funny story.

Here's your suit covered in shit. Sorry about that. Yeah, my bad. My bad. There's an accident in the dry thing. Accident in my one bunk hilton. It only took three swings with the rock, right? Yeah.

All right. Maybe nobody would have heard it. And he breaks a hole exactly the size of his body. Well, I think there were more. It was an old clay pipe. I think they were more rock thing. Once he did the hole. My question is, if he knew he had to go right, why not go way further down?

And cut out a couple yards. But it seemed like he didn't know which way to go. So he's basically 50-50 guess. So I think the implication is that he's dug this hole over the course of 20 years. And however long this hole has been open, he's reconned a little bit of where he's going to have to go over the course of this time. But I'm just saying like the specific moment where he seems to be acting a little bit out of emotion that he's been in the hole for two months. that the warden, you know, he hates the warden, he gets out and he's like, tonight's the night, I'm going to do it.

He needs the lighting. He does everything. He's got the letter. He's got the books. He's switched everything. If he doesn't do it that night, I don't know what the alternative is. Then the biggest one... Well, what about the irony of he needs the lightning to get out?

And then in real life, the lightning takes down the tree where he puts the note for red. That's fucking weird. Yeah. I also don't really understand... This is something that's bothered me for... since 1994. Yeah. How does he get the poster back up?

Each time. That's another nitpick that I want to get to. I have one more thing crawling through the pipe. Okay. 500 yards. Yeah. Not a short amount of distance. We did throw up a few times.

Yeah. Maybe he didn't eat that day. Think about when you've been on an airplane and somebody within five feet of you is farted. And it's been this overwhelmingly awful smell and you're just like, this is the worst 10 seconds of my life. Can this smell go away?

He's crawling through sewage for 500 yards and just stopping every couple seconds to throw up. But he's very lucky because the whole pipe isn't covered with sewage. He's very, he's lucky in that way. It's halfway. A, the pipe's hot. It's a hot pipe. How do you know?

It's a fucking sewage pipe. It's got to be, there's no air in there. There's no air. There's no air in there. Yeah. It's sewage. Yeah. And it's going on for 500 yards.

So he's going to hurl a bunch. No, I think there's a chance he actually might like pass out and black out. Like Shawshank ends with just him face down. He drowns to death. Not a rewatchable. Not a rewatchable. And that's just the end of the movie.

There's like, where Andy? Where's Andy? Yeah. Oh, he's dead. And the sewage pipe. He tried to crawl 500 yards. He didn't make it. That's the Paul Thomas Anderson version.

Yeah. He didn't make it. He's dead. The smell killed him. I just can't imagine how bad that was. And then to get out, like... But this is my nickname pick. Well, but how does he,

eight hours later, he doesn't just reek of shit? What kind of shower did he have to take? Well, he gets out of the pipe into a stream or a lake. It's unclear. Which is where all the sewage is being done.

And he's washing himself with soap. he does have the bar of soap but maybe he might have gone way down where there was less shit I don't think there's a bar of soap on the planet in the 1960s that could have washed 500 yards of sewage smell off him just my guess

it begs the issue of when he went into the bank whether they were all wondering why he smelled so yeah so the suit I had this and answerable questions but we might as well just do it here.

That's middle of the night, right? He escapes probably like 11. He's got to go to the banks the next morning. He's in the middle of nowhere. He smells like a sewage pipe. But he had soap. Yeah, but like that takes a couple of showers to get off. So where does it?

Where does it go? What do those eight hours look like for Andy? Let's just even stipulate that. It's pouring rain. The rain help. A bus station bathroom. Like there's probably in the early 60s in Maine So he's got to walk all the way He's got to find a bathroom

Whatever he's a guy with a suit His car broke down He gets a lift I don't know Because he looks pretty good The next morning He looks great And the suit looks pressed In a morning in like 10 years

The suit looks pressed He's got like gel Which leads me to the second nipig That is just kind of unconscionable Have you ever had a Ziploc bag in your life That worked better than that zip lock bag Ever? in the history of mankind.

It's fitting his suit. It's fitting the stuff. He's got a mail to the newspapers. His chest pieces. It's got his chest pieces. It has stuff to write a letter to read. I think in 1966, they made much better zip block bags. He's got his IDs to be Randall Stevens.

Yeah. All he needs to be hanging on to his phone. Because once he gets out, he starts getting cashier's checks. You know, they cut a scene where he goes, Red, you're a man who can get. things, right? I need you to get the greatest Ziplag bag everyone's ever made. Just whatever the price is, I don't care.

Can it be something that I can drag through 500 yards of a sewage pipe? And it would and nothing would get on it. Only hypothetically, though. Don't worry that otherwise. And then he pulls the crucial mistake he gets out. And then he just starts running in the lake in the pouring rain, dragging the

Ziploc bag. I guess he has a lot of confidence in American engineering. He really trusted that Ziploc bag. Yeah. Unbelievable. You mentioned the poster. I've had a lot of posters in my day. All of them would fall down, a side would come off. I don't know what kind of stick them he had in the 1960s that not only could keep that poster up perfectly,

at no point does one of the corners fall down and there's just this giant gaping hole. Yeah. And then on top of it, how does he get it to stick? Each time. And once he goes through the hole, how do you get it so that it's perfect? strictly back up.

Tweezers? I don't, like, they don't, I know that seems like a little thing, but how would a guy, and also that hole is literally Tim Robin sized. So it's not like he's like, got a lot of room to kind of move his arms around

once he gets in there. They never show. We're really doing this for my dad. You know, my dad is shell-shacked. No, I've thought of some of these things, but like obviously every night he's in that hole that's getting longer. And,

what's in his bed when they do the bed check and he's in the hole. Yeah. Other prison movies, you see them make. Yeah, the dummy. So he probably at some point gets a dummy, puts that dummy in the hole. But the dummy wasn't in the bed when the warden went in to see what happened to. I think that they're supposed to be like if they do a bed check, Dufrein is the last guy in his cell.

So they see him come in. The guy follows him out when he walks in. They don't see his shoes. And they clearly slacked. And he sits down on the bed. And I think everybody thinks Andy is the warden's guy. So we don't really have to worry about him that much. Kind of like you at the ringer.

You're my guy. That's right. Nobody worries about you. You mean when you got a huge hole in your office. When I'm like polishing your Nikes and you're just like, it's good to have you back. It's not to see him without you. Great to have you back, Chris. All right, here's another nitpick.

Are we done with all the nitpicks from the escape? Yes, I have another nitpicked as well, though. Go ahead. Escape related? No, this prison in general. So he plays the opera. I don't like this. section.

This is what we do. It's a lot of love. Plays the opera for the prisoners. This is a late 1940s prison sound system. It's just not going to sound good. I'm sorry. The opera is not going to sound beautifully.

But if you have it, I think that that's supposed to be a moment where that's a subjective perspective of the other prisoners. So if you haven't heard music ever or since 1905 or whatever, I mean, some of those guys are in from before records were around. Brooks was there in 05?

Yeah. Right. So if you're hearing that, it could sound like an AM radio at the bottom of a well. It would probably sound pretty good. Would the state have really given Andy all that prison? Like, oh, my God, this guy's mailing us letters. This is so overwhelming. Let's give them the money.

It's like, how about just throw the letters in the garbage? Why is he intimidated you? It's just a letter. Throw it away. I think so I think people wanted to think that there was something happening rehabilitative behavior happening $500 a year

Not a tremendous amount of money So you support that He's getting guys their GEDs My dad's on the defensive more than I think I've ever seen He hates the section Are we sure Andy would have fit in the pipe Not sure I think a couple of times I'm like

I don't know if the dimensions are right here For a 6 foot 5 guy to squeeze through Is that why we they wanted to screen Tom Cruise. Yeah, Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise, I would believe. Is there a possibility Red doesn't find the cornfield in Buxton? I was worried about that.

A lot of cornfields in Buxton. Gets this ride from some guy who clearly seems to know the cornfield. So Red goes to the guy, hey man, there's this cornfield with a stone wall. Can you drop me off near there? Also, just like, why not, if that's what you're sending him, why not just be like go to this post office or go to this hotel and just say my name is

Jimmy Banks and they're going to give you an envelope like why is it have to be hidden out in Buxton like that well it was where he asked his wife to marry him that's not like a photographic memory for Red no he's like walking through the forest Red seemed to indicate a new Buxton yeah that's true

so I believe them almost my dad's age at this point Andy tells him this offhandedly, like eight months earlier. And he's like, all right. So I got Zawahnao. I got the Cornfield and Buxton with the long stone wall. My wife has some issues with Red actually being able to find the rock. Okay.

It's a really long wall. My counter would be Andy told him it's near the tree. Yeah. It's a rock that's out of place. It's a volcanic rock. It was out of place once he dug. It probably took a little longer But I'm not I think that part's okay

I go with that The one thing I don't go with So this movie takes place over the course of what 20 years? Yeah 19 years 19 years There's no other bad guys in this prison

But the sisters Well Andy who had protection at that point But we never see anybody else Who is in any way threatening in this movie Like the guys who they hang out with It's just the dozen of them are basically like grown-up guys and dolls characters. They just got their hats on.

They're like, I love just talking about, I love telling stories about Andy and eating corn. Yeah. That's just what they do. There's no other bad stuff happening in this prison. But the word it insinuates, there's some Sodomites in there because he's going to cast Andy down with them. So who's protecting him, Hadley?

I think once Hadley kills Boggs because Boggs fucked with Andy. Right. And they know Andy's helping the guards. Andy was doing everybody's taxes. Yeah. I think it was like Andy's hands off. It's a choice. Yeah.

I had a little nitpick, though. Yeah. There we go. He's giving it to the dark side. Finally. Well, why did it, well, why did it take two years for Andy to get some protection? That's a great question. You know, I mean, he was already forming a friendship with Red.

Red had a lot of connections in that prison, well respected. Why didn't Red say get some help for Andy? Are we sure Red was good? No. Red, overrated. Coming up next. Coming up next. That first take.

I'll tell you why Red is actually the bad guy in Shawshank. No, no, no, no, no, no. Coming up next! I didn't come on here to have this whole thing ruined in my mind. Why the warden is misunderstood. Coming up next, did Andy leave Shawshank because Red let him down? And then my last nitpick, I just thought the Alan Green.

shoutout, which I totally respect, was just two seconds too early. That's it for nitpicks, right? Yeah, that's it for nipix. Best quote. There's a million. We've mentioned a lot of them. I think my favorite quote in this movie is

a... Name's red. Red. Why do they call you that? Maybe it's because I'm Irish. So you got that. I like when the security, the prison guard says,

he's congratulating Andy on the library money and he's like all right I'm going to go pinch a loaf and then he just leaves favorite line in the shot I'm going to go pitch a loaf I've never heard that in a movie

before since I love how much do you trust your wife I love Red speech at the end there's not a day goes by I don't feel regret there's not a day goes by I don't feel regret not because I'm in here because you think I should.

I look back on the way I was then. A young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime on the way things are. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I mean, the movie's loaded with quotes. I don't even know how we pick one. Next category, could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Mm-hmm.

I would not support it. I wouldn't support it, but I think that you could do a lot of other stories the way that they have it structured. So you could have like a Tommy episode. You could have a... Hayward Conquering or Stuttering? A stuttering episode? Yeah.

Not something I would watch. Hadley, what his home life was like? Yeah. Hadley and his new Cadillac with his wife, not hamstringing him. Hadley is an overbaric sports dad. He wants his... son to play with the concussion. Are these guys all Red Sox fans?

Because they're in Maine. Oh, they're in Maine. Yeah. Why weren't the Red Sox more prominently mentioned? They could have thrown a Red Sox in there. How were the Red Sox over this 20-year stretch? Well, you could have fixed the season so that, does he escape in 66 or 67? Sixty-six.

So they could have nudged it to 67, the Impossible Dream and Yaz. But they had no radio. They had no newspaper. True. They had no knowledge of anything on the outside. That's true. Unanswerable questions. We've covered everything.

There's one piece I wanted to mention, there's like a Christian mythicism. Yeah, the allegorical. Yeah. That Darabon is just like, I think it's cool that people see all this stuff, but that wasn't our intent. But basically, the angles are,

Andy is a Christ-like figure, which does this at the end, which is a nod to that. The prison roof. is like the last supper with all those guys having the beer. Red calls them the lords of all creation at some point. Andy does, I mentioned the Christ pose. The warden, the Bible, all that stuff.

He quotes Jesus. He says, I am the light of the world. He's Andy's savior. Zawatneo is heaven, paradise, whatever you want to say with that. Andy says it's a place with no memory. He forgets your sins. They're washed away by the ocean. and the director says that's cool

but that's not what we're going for with any of that. But I think it speaks to the movie. People have seen this so many times they kind of see what they want to see with this movie. I have to say, I never thought of it that way until you just laid out all those different references. But there's a piece there to think about. Yeah.

There is a little bit of a religious hope thing. When you have like a story that's as sort of universal as this one, which is essentially just about perseverance and hope, triumphing over hopelessness. You're going to be able to draw a lot of connections between that and some of the sort of good over evil. Foundational texts of Western civilization, you know?

And I really did use this for various Red Sox columns. And it really is various. And it really is like, it's a sports movie in a lot of ways where it's like... The last game is Andy's Escape. Yeah, you're just, you're believing in something.

You're just grinding it out season after season and you shouldn't have hope, especially when, like, fantasy right now, rooting for the Jets. Like, that dude's Andy and Shawshank. He shouldn't have any hope. He's fucking in the hole right now. Right.

And he's just no escape. And then, like, Sam Darno comes in. He's like, Tommy. Yeah. And then Sam Darno gets gone down. He's just got that glaze look, walk around the chest pieces. But this is a parallel to fans with fan bases

of franchises that, are just screwed. And there's no way out. And there's, you know, there's some fan bit like the Lions right now. If you're a Lions fan, you watch this movie. You're like, it's kind of like my life is Lions fan. And who are the sisters in that sports? Just every bad season.

Okay. Who won the movie? Freeman. Yeah, Freeman. Although, I was surprised how easy. I love Dandy too. I was surprised how easy the Freeman answer was for this. He's the soul of the movie.

There's a, because the mixed bits with the great balance this movie strikes is between sentimentality and cynicism. There's like a certain, there's like, you know, he'll say two or three extra lines to kind of sweeten it up a little bit and really lay it on thick. But then the movie also has like a really kind of nice pragmatic, realistic, hey, you know, this is the way it was and that's just too bad kind of tone to it. And he's the perfect narrator for that. He's the perfect avatar for that. And that last scene before the parole board when he totally changes what he says, I think of. epitomizes what you just referenced.

Yeah, I don't give a shit. Yeah. So we have a Facebook group for the rewatchables, and we have a Twitter feed at the rewatchables. If anybody can explain the sewage pipe part better, some of the holes in that one, I'd love to hear it. I thought it was a pretty big sewage pipe. I'm positive I would have gone 100 yards further down.

If anybody wants to dig up a farmer's almanac and tell me what the weather was in Maine. The lightning that year? Yeah. And if anyone has any ideas of, what Andy did for that eight hours. Check it in shirtless and to the Bucksden Hilton. And how he doesn't walk into the first name

Matt Maine National Bank smelling like he's been in a suit. Where did he get that suit pressed after he put it out of the Zipluck bag? They could have done a better job of making this suit seem a little tighter on him since he was definitely taller in the Lord. Yeah. Something like that.

I guess my last question is Shawshank 2. those guys hanging out in Tulum, just sort of running a money-a-laundering business? Like, 1990? They're in a hotel. Yeah. Like, if Netflix was just like,

Ted Sarandos is just going. All right, Shoshang, too. Who do you have playing these two roles? No, it's got to be Morgan Freeman and Andy. And it's set in like 1984 in Mexico, and now the cops are after them

or 1978 in Mexico. But they've gone bad. They've broken bad, and now they're laundering money for cartels. Yeah, yeah. The Mexican car is. I would watch the first 20 minutes. I forgot to mention in the nipicks.

I just feel like they paint over that Brooks was here. I thought the carving told you everything. He hangs himself right under where he carves Brooks is here. So then they're getting that room ready for the next person and somebody's like, should we maybe paint over the guy who hung himself in the room and wrote Brooks was here? No, keep it. SRO place. I don't know if they're doing a lot of minutes on that place.

I don't think they cared. They would have cared about what happened in that room. The people who own that. What are the ads that red gets the exact same room? Let me say five to one. I think everybody who gets out gets that room. They get the Brooks suite? Yeah.

The Brooks Hadlin Memorial Suite. Yeah. God. I think so. You think the warden would have let them name the library after Brooks? That seemed like a stretch. The warden really let Andy get away with a lot. The warden's taking kickbacks from everybody.

He's got 12 to 15 guys sitting around. filing books and listening to Hank Williams all day. It doesn't seem that hard. What a great library. But the warden's pumping money everywhere. 12 different banks. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. He's not complaining. Randall Stevens. Would you watch a, that would be one of the Netflix episodes, Randall Stevens? Yeah. I would watch a whole breakdown of how Robbins gets through that and then gets down to Fort Hancock and crosses the border. Well, what a movie. The Shawshank Redemption.

What a birthday president of me. Dr. Bill. For Chris Ryan and Dr. Bill. Thank you for including me. Yeah. It was a pleasure. Thank you. 25th anniversary.

The rewatchables is coming back in October. Thanks to Hotel Tonight, summer is over. That doesn't mean vacation has to end with Hotel Tonight's Daily Drop feature. Save money on a spontaneous trip in most cities. Maybe even go to Zwananayo and stay at Rita and Raquel's. Use DailyDrop to unlock a special deal once unlocked. You have 50 minutes to book. Unlock a new deal just for you every day, whether you're searching for tonight or a few weeks away.

DailyDrop, an awesome way to save big. Hotel Tonight.com. go there or download the app to unlock a getaway today.