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Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'Masterpiece' film hailed 'greatest of all time' returns to screens after three decades
A 90s classic that was once dubbed the "greatest movie of all time" is now making its way back to screens - and fans can't wait 90s Hollywood"masterpiece" The Shawshank Redemption was once hailed as the "greatest movie of all time" and fans will be pleased to learn is back in the limelight after landing on streaming service Peacock. The film that stars Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins, has made a triumphant return to screens nearly three decades after its initial release, with fans hailing it as a masterpiece once more. Despite being a box office disappointment in 1994, earning just $16 million against a $25 million budget, the prison drama has since become a cult favourite and now proudly sits at the top of IMDb's Top 250 list with an impressive 9.3 rating. This prestigious list includes cinematic gems like The Godfather Part II, The Dark Knight, and 12 Angry Men, but Shawshank has claimed the throne. The plot centres around Andy Dufresne, a mild-mannered banker wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and her lover. Sentenced to life in the harsh Shawshank State Penitentiary, Andy battles corruption, forms a profound friendship with fellow inmate Red, and secretly plans his escape. Over two decades, Andy must navigate the treacherous waters of prison politics, endure brutal abuse, and assist the warden in money laundering - all while covertly chiselling a hole in his cell wall with a rock hammer, reports the Express. His determination culminates in a dramatic twist that continues to stun first-time viewers. Despite receiving seven Oscar nominations, the film left the 1995 Academy Awards empty-handed. However, the voice of the fans has proven louder than any critic. Despite flopping initially at the box office, the movie gained traction through positive word-of-mouth and frequent television broadcasts. It transformed into a sleeper success, with reviewers subsequently praising it as amongst the most re-watchable pictures ever created. Its premier position on IMDb has stayed practically uncontested for more than twenty years. On Rotten Tomatoes, it achieves 89% on the Tomatometer and an almost flawless 98% audience rating. Viewer acclaim has been pouring in online since the picture returned to the streaming platform once more. One admirer penned: "One of the best movie I've ever seen. The movie is soooooooooooooo good. Definitely a must watch." Another contributed: "The Shawshank Redemption is one of those rare movies that just never loses its impact, no matter how many times you watch it. "It's not flashy or packed with action, but it hits on such a deep emotional level that you can't help but be moved." A third proclaimed: "Absolute masterpiece. Perfect in every way." And one spectator simply remarked: "I am watched it three times and ready to see it again. So many twists and turns and a surprising ending. Great acting by all" The picture's enduring appeal is frequently attributed to its compelling performances, particularly Morgan's legendary voice-over, which one enthusiast claimed "adds so "much soul to the story." Featuring Clancy Brown, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, Robbins and Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption has evolved into an enduring story of hope, justice, and survival. You can watch The Shawshank Redemption on the streaming platform Peacock.
Edmonton Journal
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Edmonton Journal
Fringe Review: Lousy Parents gets the fur flying
Article content Article content 4 stars out of 5 Article content Article content Stage 4 — Walterdale Theatre (10322 83 Ave.) Article content Hell is other people, the old saying goes — but that phrase doesn't get quite specific enough sometimes, especially when children are in the mix. Kristen Peters stars as Carly Davenport, who runs Sunshine Daycare Home. 'I've always liked kids, even when I was one,' she explains at the onset, making it clear the tension muscling through this theatrical collision of worldviews isn't going to be the kids, who have sadly come down with the rather common modern affliction of head lice. Enter the parents. Well-off Sharon and Tim Callahan (Jill Gamez and Ed Picard) are an asymmetrical pair of hard workers — she on her yuppie career, he on maintaining the household. Meanwhile, Dan and Fiona Whitmore-Murray (Jeremy Schick and Sara Rossman) are exhausting, outfits-matching helicopter parents who follow every trend for the sake of appearances. And Ricky and Raven Frankenstein (Mark Facundo and Marissa Tordof) are those cool rock and roll parents you see now and then, all in black and pretty good-natured, but certainly with their own defensiveness, judginess and hangups. In a classic speed-dating, 12 Angry Men sort of way, all these diverse voices are smashed together by Davenport via the head lice crisis in hopes of transparency and communication, but of course the fur flies. 'Lice is treated with medicine, combing and patience,' the caregiver explains, immediately bashing up against resistance via the Frankensteins' budget concerns, Fiona's fear of chemicals and Sharon's base-level impatience, things quickly getting out of hand as the inevitable blame game gets going across cultural borders and Fiona accuses the Frankensteins — last names changed to buck the patriarchy — of being Satanists. As heads are butted and fights threatened, necks start to get itchy which leads to a satisfying conclusion where the person who deals with children all the time has to step up. You may see yourself in this play, and that's the point — be brave and grow! Article content Article content
Spectator
02-08-2025
- Spectator
Confessions of a juror
When the jury service summons landed on my doormat, I cursed my luck. The nag of civic responsibility was just strong enough to stop me trying to wriggle out. Down to the Crown Court I trudged, praying that I wouldn't be lumbered with – and impoverished by – a six-month trial. Mercifully, the case was done in seven days. But it should have been over long before. Why did it take as much time as it did? It turns out that a day in court is no such thing. Sometimes it's not even half a day. Three of our seven days began at 10am, two at 10.30am. One day didn't get going till 11am. Only once were we told to be in court for 9am – on the first day, before the trial had started. When it did, there were more breaks than at the cricket. Barely an hour into each day, the judge let us out for a 15-minute breather. Didn't the custom of the morning interval end when we left school? The phrase 'lunch hour' lies to us. Most people wolf down a sandwich in ten minutes then get back to work. Not in court, where the lunch hour lives up to its name – and then some. Most days we stopped well before 1pm and didn't resume till 2pm. On Thursday, the judge rewarded our two-hour morning sitting with an equivalent lunch break. We returned refuelled for a long afternoon in court. Fat chance. Only once did the day stretch to 4.30pm. Otherwise we clocked off before 4pm. The standard working day in Britain is seven-to-eight hours. For many it's over ten. In court, if you're a juror at least, you're unlucky if it's three or four. Technical glitches added a flavour of farce. One day the microphone in the witness box broke. 'Can the jury step out while we fix it?' Another 20 minutes lost. 'We're now going to watch some video evidence on the screen,' announced the defence barrister. Not so fast, big man. The telly didn't work. Of course it didn't. That was the excuse the judge needed to grant us another early lunch. When we returned an hour and-a-half later, he told us not to get too comfortable: the TV was still kaput, so he was sending us home for the day. What's the difference between eloquence and concision? A barrister. 'I apologise for repeating this…' was uttered in court so often, I couldn't help but think: are you sorry, or do you just like to go on a bit? There's a point of justice here too: long and slow proceedings are harder for juries to follow. Nowhere was repetition more soporific than with written character statements. Fourteen mini-essays, all saying the same thing as the character witnesses we'd just heard in the stand. Yet every word from every statement was read aloud. Even a barrister fond of his own voice struggled with this recital, losing his place and mispronouncing his words. In 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda's character asks, 'It's possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, isn't it?' In the middle of 14 back-to-back statements, it's a certainty. A summary would've saved us an hour and the barrister's blushes. This exhibition in inefficiency was by now comic, a source of eye-rolling and piss-taking among the jurors. The biggest laugh of all came on the third day. After yet another delay, the judge told us not to worry: 'We're running ahead of schedule.' Wow. What does behind schedule look like? Sir Brian Leveson, the retired High Court judge, suggested last month that one way to save the justice system from collapsing would be to cut the number of trials involving juries. I'm no judge, but I do have a more mundane solution: an eight-hour day in court. By doubling the time for cases each day, the growing backlog would rapidly start to shrink. My argument isn't a swipe at the state. If you work in the private sector, you'll know that time-wasting isn't the preserve of the public one. But given the crisis in our courts, it's hardly unreasonable to ask for a little more from them. Trial by jury in Britain has lasted for 800 years. Us jurors can give eight hours to help preserve it.
Hindustan Times
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
‘GAIA' by Abhay Kapoor
How can political gamesmanship — the dog-eat-dog kind that is routine in coalition politics — be a mirror to romantic love? Both are seemingly antithetical to each other. In GAIA, a film written, directed and co-produced by 34-year-old, Delhi-based writer and director Abhay Kapoor, politics and love are in a parasitic coil, revealing not just fantasies of heterosexual men for political power and female subjugation and attention, but how technology irreversibly alters these fantasies. A still from 'GAIA'. With a running time of 45 minutes, Kapoor's taut screenplay, unfolds at the home of a seasoned, ageing politician Vivek Shukla (Atul Tiwari) who heads the ruling government. On a stormy night, Arindam Sehgal (Lakshya Goel), leader of the Labour Party, visits Shukla to negotiate ministries and alliances. Arindam seems to be key in keeping the coalition afloat, but tensions escalate as Arindam's arch nemesis Maitreyi Sodhi (Preeti Sharma) unexpectedly arrives. As the night progresses, Vivek and Maitreyi start poaching MPs from Arindam's party, and blackmails Arindam into showing his support for an Artificial Intelligence Bill and save his party from falling apart. The twist in the narrative arrives when Arindam begins talking to Jenna (Komal Munshi), the young lover of Vivek. Power games spiral intro threats, which then devolves into an existential crisis about the nature of love, commitment, love on demand or subjugated love, and the nature of human existence itself. A still from 'GAIA'. Kapoor has earlier written and directed An Act of Violence (2019), a short film about a man who reincarnates in different time periods of human history, every time involved in a violent act. It was an experimental film — in form and theme. The narrative of GAIA is more linear. Shot in an unused home of his aunt, GAIA is inspired in form by David Fincher's 12 Angry Men. 'I've always been interested in sci-fi fiction that it not action-oriented. Blade Runner and Ex Machina kind of storytelling is an influence in my writing,' says Kapoor, who is now at work on a script titled Ek Mard Ka Janam, themed around a modern-day masculinity crisis. 'An empathetic, edgy thriller,' explains Kapoor. In GAIA too, the dark side of male fantasies is a propeller to the story. Kapoor says moral questions such as the ebbing away of how humanity perceives and experiences death and separation were on his mind while writing the screenplay. 'I wanted it to be intriguing, and very cinema-like,' Kapoor says, emphasizing his belief in a more mainstream and commercial way of storytelling to reach audiences. 'I find the communal aspect of film screenings, with people sharing the experience in a dark room, deeply moving,' the writer-director says. With an educational background at the Indian Institute of Mass Communications, Delhi, in radio and television production, Kapoor has worked as a copy writer in advertising and producing and directing social impact films for NGOs before beginning to write fiction. The film has had several screenings so far in India including at Alliance Francaise, Delhi, and at the Aravali International Film Festival this year. The visual language in GAIA, shaped by a very classic-cinematic language by cinematographer Debesh Mehrotra. 'GAIA belongs to the universe of David Fincher, Alfred Hitchcock, Dennis Villeneuve and Michael Mann films,' says Kapoor. The film has enough intrigue and cinematic style to keep audiences engaged — and leave its last frame with a sense of resignation to and fascination about a world we don't yet understand. Short Stream is a monthly curated section, in which we present an Indian short film that hasn't been seen before or not widely seen before but are making the right buzz in the film industry and film festival circles. We stream the film for a month on HT Premium, the subscription-only section in Sanjukta Sharma is a Mumbai-based writer and film critic. Write to her at
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
5 new Prime Video movies with over 91% on Rotten Tomatoes to stream in June
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. There are over 50 new movies coming to Prime Video in June 2025, so you're in for a treat if Prime Video is your go-to streaming service. After scouring through its list of new titles, I've done my best to select five new movies with over 91% on Rotten Tomatoes you should watch over the next few weeks. Kicking off the list with a Hollywood classic crime drama, this is followed by two more crime movies, made up of a legal drama from the '90s and a crime comedy starring Marilyn Monroe. Additionally, there's a sports drama from director Bennett Miller and a Clint Eastwood war movie joining one of the best streaming services, all of which will be fighting for a place in our selection of best Prime Video movies. As mentioned in our full list of new Prime Video titles for this month, while the Prime Video Movie and TV Originals are released worldwide, it could be the case that many of the third-party films Amazon has licensed for June will only be available to stream in the US. With that said, you should bear this in mind when scouring through our list. RT score: 100%Age rating: N/ARuntime: 95 minutesDirector: Sidney LumetArriving on: June 1 Though it's been nearly 70 years since Sidney Lumet's masterpiece was released, it has truly stood the test of time, becoming a landmark courtroom drama and one of the greatest movies ever made. Starring Hollywood legend Henry Fonda, 12 Angry Men is set in the backdrop of New York City and offers commentary on the complex nature of the American justice system, bringing the tension of classic American theater to the screen. During a murder trial, 12 jurors must argue whether the teenage suspect in question is responsible for the death of his father. Their attempt to reach a unanimous decision proves to be more difficult than expected when Juror No.8 (Fonda) expresses his uncertainty on different parts of the case, resulting in a courtroom battle where personal issues arise and conflict between the jurors makes them question each other's morals and preconceptions about the trial. RT score: 95%Age rating: RRuntime: 122 minutesDirector: Tim RobbinsArriving on: June 1 Director Tim Robbins had established himself in show business as a successful actor in movies The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Top Gun (1986), prior to taking a seat in the director's chair. Dead Man Walking is the second legal drama in this month's Prime Video recommendations roundup, adapted from the non-fiction book of the same name. As death row inmate Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn) gets closer to his execution date, he enlists the help of Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon) for one last appeal. In the time leading up to his execution, Prejean visits Poncelet's family as well as the loved ones of the victims to understand the case better. In the process, she acts as a spiritual counsellor for him, and the two form a special bond. RT score: 94%Age rating: PG-13Runtime: 133 minutesDirector: Bennett Miller Arriving on: June 1 Moneyball is one of those movies that seems to yo-yo between streaming platforms whenever a new monthly schedule is announced. It was added to Paramount+ back in April, and now it's available to stream on Prime Video this month. Miller's sports drama was adapted from Michael Lewis' book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin - who had previously served as writers on movies such as Schindler's List (1993) and The Social Network (2010), respectively. The premise is: Manager of the Oakland A baseball team, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), hatches a plan to outsmart wealthier baseball clubs by reinventing his team with only a fraction of the budget other clubs receive. To get his plan up and running, he enlists Ivy League graduate Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), whom he tasks with going through the major leagues to scout undervalued talent - an old sports analytics method. RT score: 95%Age rating: N/ARuntime: 120 minutesDirector: Billy Wilder Arriving on: June 1 Hollywood veterans Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon star alongside legend Marilyn Monroe in this crime comedy flick from Billy Wilder - the master director behind some of the greatest movies from Hollywood's Golden Age including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), and The Seven Year Itch (1955), which also stars Monroe. Some Like It Hot is a campy balance between drama, crime, and comedy. Set during the Prohibition era, saxophone player Joe (Tony Curtis) and his friend Jerry (Jack Lemmon) bear witness to a Mafia murder. Worried for their lives, they devise a plan to escape Chicago, disguising themselves as women. RT score: 91%Age rating: RRuntime: 141 minutesDirector: Clint Eastwood Arriving on: June 1 Taking a departure from the crime movies and sports drama in this list, Clint Eastwood's Japanese-language American war movie (which was also co-produced by Steven Spielberg) takes the fifth spot with a score of 91%. Set during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II, the movie portrays the conflict from the perspective of Japanese troops who are defending the island - serving as a companion movie to Eastwood's 2006 war drama Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same conflict from the American viewpoint. Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya), Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara), and Shimizu (Ryô Kase) are just some of the Japanese troops preparing for an attack from the American soldiers. With their diminishing supplies and poor conditions in the tunnels, seasoned veteran Lt. Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) uses his skills to hold off the opposition for as long as he can, knowing that his side has almost zero chance at survival. Prime Video's Carrie TV remake cast has been revealed, and it marks the latest lap of the Matthew Lillard renaissance tour Prime Video reveals Gen V season 2 release date, and its first trailer reveals how it might set the stage for The Boys season 5 7 tense thrillers on Prime Video with 100% Rotten Tomatoes scores you can't miss
