Free Republic

Frank Darabont, the director of The Shawshank Redemption, has words for the millions of people who believe his 1994 prison drama is the greatest film of all time. “I think that’s a little crackers, to be honest, especially when you think of the other films on the list.” He means films such as The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Lolita, Vertigo and foreign-language contenders like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist, Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de jour or Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.

Stop Worrying about the Election Daily Article by Isaac M. Morehouse As the presidential election nears, I hear more people voicing their fear over the prospect of the other candidate winning. People from both major parties express genuine trepidation at the thought of a world without their candidate as commander in chief. Both sides believe we will lose our freedom if the wrong party wins. Perhaps surprisingly, I think there's a lesson to be learned in all this from Hollywood. The 1994 movie Shawshank Redemption is the fictional story of Andy Dufresne, a prisoner at the infamous Shawshank Penitentiary. One...

Domestic Hypocrisy: Martha Stewart’s “Apprentice” Lie March 16, 2005 By Debbie Schlussel Amidst the Second Coming of Martha Stewart, the Domestic Diva told another big lie. But not a single member of the pandering media has taken note. Remember the empathetic Martha’s exhortations from prison about poor treatment of convicts when they’re released from prison? Stewart decried the lack of employment for convicts. No-one will hire them, she complained. No-one, including Martha. Even before she was released from Camp Cupcake in Alderson, West Virginia, Stewart’s production partner, reality TV king Mark Burnett, was holding auditions for Martha’s version of “The...