Just what I thought of Green Mile

Rating: Null/10 (25 June 2000)

I must have watched a hell of a lot of movies since my first, but I will never see one that will leave as clear and lasting a memory as The Green Mile.
I'll spare you a re-cap of the story; it was a simple one. And it really SHOULD have been a boring one! After all, how much of a story can you make out of what amounts to be a more confined "Shawshank Redemption". I was definitely amazed.
Never, during the three hours, did I wonder when it was going to end. The acting, the scenery, the music, and some kind of intangible, unrecognizable atmosphere draws you in, and literally makes you feel as if you're there, back in the 1930's in an unairconditioned death-row. During the three hours, you see Paul Edgecomb so profoundly affected and changed by a man who was, initially, just another rapist and murderer. And as he explains the story to his friend, you can understand his fear and anguish, because you were there with him as he got to know John Coffey and killed him. When the movie finishes, it's almost as if you're suddenly thrown back into your own life, wondering how you got from 1933 to the present, and wondering what will happen to Paul Edgecomb.
The acting was spectacular, the directing was spectacular, the music (Thomas Newman is an expert) was spectacular, and the story was, although a simple one, a very meaningful one that makes you wish it were a reality to which you could go back in time and change its outcome.
Quite frankly, the Oscars were a farce. American Beauty was a more trendy, cliche "let's-criticize-Americans" movie. The acting was mediocre, the story, although original and entertaining, was vastly less absorbing than that of The Green Mile. Two emphatic thumbs up for The Green Mile, and two emphatic thumbs down for the Academy Awards.