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Jabroni looks at THE GREEN MILE
Hey folks, Harry here, and it seems that ol Frank Darabont has been sneaking THE GREEN MILE in the land of smog and sunshine. And much to my utter shock, people actually... believe it or not... LOVED the movie. This is shocking (not) to me. Heh heh. I tell ya, I love AMERICAN BEAUTY. But I'm still pulling for this movie to be the one that ropes that dang statuette. However, I have begun to see some folks pulling for THE MESSENGER in Talk Back... and of course there is Tim Robbins' THE CRADLE WILL ROCK has had whispers since February or so, and would have a wonderful sense of Irony if that happened to be nominated alongside Darabont's THE GREEN MILE. So if you saw THE GREEN MILE last night... let's hear from ya... I'm curious to see how the opening and closing segments feel now that Frank has performed a bit of plastic surgery on them. Anyway... here's our johnny on the spot...
I want to be one of the first to report on a film that is so great that it
is a shoe in for Best Picture come Oscar time.
The movie is speak of is the new Tom Hanks vehicle "The Green Mile".
I had a ticket to a special screening of the film in LA tonight. I new very
little of this movie going into it. I am a huge fan of Tom Hanks and I much
like so many others enjoyed "The Shawshank Redemption", so that was enough,
also including that I don't have a job so really what else am I gonna do?
The movie is about a prison guard in 1935 that discovers something amazing
about one of it's new inmates. The movie is perhaps one of the most powerful
films I have seen in a long time, and definetly the best film of the year,
although "American Beauty" comes in pretty close.
With a running time close to 3 hours this movie does things and addresses
issues about the human spirit. I seldom get emotional about films anymore as
much of the stuff Hollywood dishes out is often worse than crap. This movie
made me, a 27 year old guy cry. Yes ladies a sensitive man not afraid to
show his emotion. Tom Hanks can do no wrong and this movie reinforces that.
He is so believable in what he does you forgive him for mindless dribble
like "You've Got Mail" and still leaves you with hope of doing Bachelor Pary
2.
Everyone in this film is excellent from James Cromwell to several familar
film faces, but whose names escape me at the moment. This movie is so
powerful, so moving, it makes you wish the wold was truly a better place. On
Christmas Day when you are drying your eyes and praying for a better world,
be sure to remember I told you so.
-Jabroni
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If this is any where near as good as the book, it's going to make me cry as well.
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I could be totally wrong here, but do you know what this reminds me of?? In Altman's "the Player", Richard E. Grant is trying to make a movie about a woman who is put on death row and it turns out she is innocent and the struggle to prove it and so on. This was meant to be a big epic tear-jerker that would have no major stars and a non-commercial ending where the woman is gassed just as the hero is coming forward with the evidence to prove her innocence. When the 'movie' was eventually made the studio had changed the ending to where big star Bruce Willis saved julia roberts just before she was gassed. We see that this version is a massive success and Richard E is delighted that he sold out his artistic vision to make money. Now we have the green mile which seems to be very similar in storyline, and
****MAJOR SPOILER**** seem to have even gone with Richard E's original ending. As I believe that in the Green Mile the guy on death row dies at the end after endearing himself to the audience and Tom Hanks with his healing abilities.
****SPOILERS OVER****
Also I could be wrong but didn't the film in the player win a load of 'oscars'? So it would be incredibly ironic to me if the Green Mile also won a few 'real' oscars. What does anybody else think? BTW I know TGM is based on a book so I'm not accusing of ripping off other's ideas.
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This post contains plot information about the Green Mile, read at your own risk......
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As I recall, from reading the books, the fact that the death row inmate in question, John Coffey, is innocent is more of a subplot. Tom Hanks character discovers his innocence, but the option of trying to get him off death row is not taken. The guards of the Green Mile put Coffey to death knowing he is inncocent, and deliberately decide not to try and free him. This has a lot to do with the framing and moral backbone of the story. The main plot elements revolve around the guards, and especially Hanks and how he is affected by Coffey's amazing abilities. It sounds to me like the plot similarities between The Green Mile and The Player are incidental. -
I knew there had to be more to it, especially if it's 3 hours long. But I still think its funny that a joke film, which was created to take the piss out of hollywood, and a serious, oscar-hopeful drama would have the same (albeit only basic) plotline. Just my opinion.
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The Green Mile and American Beauty will probably be serious contenders for the statue, but I have a hard time believing that Cradle Will Rock will even be given consideration for any academy awards. The word round the campfire has been lukewarm at best, and the concept doesn't look like it'll appeal to the jagoff academy members. Don't get me wrong, I want to see Tim Robbins hit another grand slam (the first being Dead Man Walking) but I have a sneaking suspicion (the same feeling I had with movies like The Ice Storm) that the film will be completely ignored by mainstream audiences. The Messenger could be great, but oscar worthy? I'll wait until I see the full trailer to make that judgement. The teaser was great, but the text was pretty lame. When all the words starting popping up on the screen to describe Joan (Lunatic, Heretic, Saint, Sinner) it instantly reminded me of the poster for Elizabeth. Milla Jovovich has yet to prove herself as a dramatic actress. I guess the main thing it has going for it is Luc Besson, who is a respectable filmmaker. The Braveheart esque battle sequences won't hurt either!
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. . . to hear that they didn't fuck up this one. I had high, high hopes for this film, as the books were some of my favourite King works, up there with the Stand. It'll be a contender, all right. The MEssenger, I hope will be good, although a previous poster was right - with the exceeption of decent work in He Got Game, Milla has much to prove to us. Long live the spirit of Coffey.
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is what I have to say about the green mile. tom wanks, sheeyet, bachelor party was one of his best movies. call me a cynic, but this'll be another one of his heavy handed, honey dripping, tear jerking, oscar begging, high falootin', "I'm such a serious actor" type of film. would've been a lot more intriguing if he would have played one of the asshole guards. as it his, he's taping a shoe horn to his ass that says "easy in for oscar". the guy really does take no chances. wanker.
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Obviously a planted review!!!!!! Harry, just because you loved it that much by seeing a few scenes being shot on the set does not necessarily mean that it is going to be the absolute greatest movie, and by this paragraph it seems like Warner Bros is taking advantage of you for it! PLANT!
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A plant wouldn't mention Bachelor Party in the same sentence as You've Got Mail. Plus, they would spew forth something about his "wonderful performances in" every single Oscar nominated or winning movie.
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Coffey ain't no punkass ho! To be honest, I love King, but thought the Green Mile was
sluggish, no real payoff, no real scares. He's been writing this human interest shit for
a while now, Bag of Bones, Tom Gordon, Atlantis. WTF, throw some scaryass shit
at us, something with tiny flesheating bugs or a continuation of The Mist (that
would rock.) Anyway, Green Mile should be amusing, but I'm waiting for Fight Club to bust
out and take some names. -
As far as I remember from the books, Coffey does indeed get freed by the guards after assisting the wife of the judge. It has been a long time since I read the books, but I am pretty sure that of the three executions, Coffey is not one of them.
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...but coffey did indeed die. king elaborately describes the execution at that. i can't believe you wouldn't remember it, if you had actually read the book(s). coffey's was the third execution.
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Sep 23, 1999 11:13:51 AM CDT
The Diceman Cometh to the wrong conclusion(ALL Spoilers)
by akdov telmig
I've not read the King novel series, "The Green Mile", but I have both read Frank Darabont's brilliant shooting script(imho Darabont has King Midas's touch, turning Stephen King's paginated shit into Gold), and seen the final cut of the film.
(Spoilers Begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
John Coffey(Michael Clarke Duncan), unfortunately is one of the three prisoners to die in the electric chair. He has one of the less graphic executions, but it pulls at your heartstrings more than the first foreshadowing execution, and the immensely graphic frying of the Louisianan. Can you say, "Cajun style"?
You were correct that he saves the life of a cancer deteriorating woman(great special effects here, the healing light and black flies). The guards, in this case, do not attempt to rescue Coffey by way of freeing him. Coffey ruins his chances for freedom by having Percy shoot the real killer in a state of hypnosis. We do feel a sense of justice, the antitheses of the film both meeting their fates simultaneously. It also seems that Coffey WANTS to die. He's lived for so long with his healing gift, seemingly for hundreds of years, and he just wants to be in peace, out of this world where a demon of a man uses the loving bond between twin sisters to rape and murder them. Come execution time, Hanks shows biting sympathy and extreme guilt in a less-than-subtle expression. Coffey seems more depressed about the witnesses in the viewing room, hissing at him in hatred, than he does about his own demise.
(SPOILERS END!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Just a little side note, if you want to prepare for your Oscar prediction bets...
So far this year, Michael Clarke Duncan, Haley Joel Osment, and Tom Cruise(For Magnolia) seem to be the frontrunners in the Best Supporting Actor category.
My money is on Clarke for the performance he was born for. Now, let's see him in a romantic lead. :)
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and, YES, it does sound like a plant. There was not a single thing mentioned in this trite run-down that could not be gleaned from reading any cinema web site's news section. It just reads like somebody's lame attempt at having their Net handle mentioned on Harry's site. Cripes, Harry, be a little more discerning in the future about what kinds of submissions warrant posting. It sort of devalues the other more news-worthy scoops that do come along. Better luck next time. :)
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From the review down to the name of the reviewer, Jabroni (a studio plant trying too hard to think of a "hip" pop culture reference to use as an alias so nobody will suspect him), this reeks of plant. However, I don't think he is lying and this film sounds like it will be close to if not just as good as Shawshank Redemption (to be better seems impossible but I guess it could be done). Its King's best book and a great role for Hanks. Can't wait for the trailer!
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It is I, the scourge of Talkbalks and Grand Champion of JOA! Joan of Arc, this is. The reason why Green Mile won't win is simple. It involves magic. No Best Picture (that I can think of) has ever involved supernatural powers. Ok, ONE. Ben Hur, but that was Jesus, so it was different. DON'T GET ME WRONG I will go see Green Mile, no doubt! But Oscars go to war movies, and JOA is definately a war film! Nonwithstanding that JOA will probably be a better movie, as well. I read The Green Mile, and it was pretty decent, but, again, that magic stuff, and the evil present-day nursing home guy, and the trained mouse. Hollywood won't give a statue to a movie with a trained animatronic mouse in it, if they would, Chris Noonan's fireplace would have a bust of Oscar above it. BTW, this review doesn't seem as 'planty' as all the Blair Witch reviews, which I think were ALL plants. Chow!
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Notice all the lame-ass spelling mistakes in the above post. I counted at least 3, usually involving just leaving a letter off. Notice how they don't know anyone's names in it. Notice how they are unemployed. Notice the spelling mistakes, but perfect paragraphs. Notice the stupid spelling mistakes in an otherwise written-like-a-press-release email. They leave the K off 'knew'? But, notice the TERRIBLE sentence construction. Try saying them aloud! I live in Wisconsin, and I've never heard the dumbest hick talk that stupid! Oh! And they call You've Got Mail 'mindless dribble'. From the same studio, whoa! That'll throw us off. I never really heard anyone speak ill of You've Got Mail. This is faker that Lara Croft's boobs! BTW. Carrie-Anne-Moss would make a good Lara Croft.
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If you are going to post spoilers, at least have the common sense to say you are ahead of time! Some of you "Talkbackers" do, and I thank you, but others don't. Not everybody likes spoilers, you know! Thanks to this talkback, I've had the ending of the book and the movie ruined. Way to go, guys...now, I'm sure someone is going to say that the books have been out for sometime, and if I had read them when they first came out, I wouldn't have had any problem, right? Well, my local library finally had all 6 of them in at the same time, and I eagerly got them a few days ago. I guess I don't have to read the last one now.
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ha ha ha ha ha...
But I'm not laughing at those who call this review a plant.
I'm laughing at those who say this movie will be a top contender for an oscar.
As I said before, oscar buzz before a movie is even released to the theaters has a tendency to destroy its chances of winning best picture. Let's not forget Saving Private Ryan, the movie that arguably lost all its respect and integrity virtually overnight. -
Ok, it will never happen but i would love for The Iron Giant to get an Oscar nod for Best Pic. Oh ya, Jar Jar sucks.
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Are you kidding me? Do all of these people ACTUALLY think that this is a plant? As Jerry Seinfeld would say, "Who ARRRRE these people?" Goodness, by your people's standards, every friggin' review is a damned plant. Why bother reading anything anymore...it's probably a damn plant! Geez...give Harry SOME credit for crissakes.
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Corleone, I agree with you and others who say these people who post positive reviews are not plants. I think it's ten times more likely that studios would plant someone to say bad things about the movies of other studios rather than rant on and on about their own. Also, like I've said before, I think the damage is not done in the reviews, but in these TalkBacks and in movie chat rooms. So now that we've narrowed it down to both good and bad movie reviews as well as TalkBacks, we can all become paranoid, accuse each other of being plants and not enjoy our time here at AICN. OR...we can trust Harry. You make the call.
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Sep 23, 1999 11:32:26 PM CDT
A 27 year old man who cries, and likes Tom Hanks. HE'S GAY!
by clockwork taxi
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Or think it's a plant? I didn't say it was a plant from a STUDIO -- I said it was some web surfer trying to get his name mentioned on Harry's site. Hey, I've seen sadder things done on this site. Let's face it (and no disrepect, Harry, because I check out your site every day) but you will post pretty much ANYTHING that gets sent to you. I just can't forget all those "see right through you" stories you've run before to think this poster really saw The Green Mile: the Ewan McGregor in a Chicago pub talking SW2 and Leo story (when he was in ireland making a film & he hates Leo; read up on The Beach if y'all don't get my meaning) or the infamous "I heard Maria Bello was Jean Grey while dining in a restaurant" story that popped up a month or two ago. Sad thing is not even the major (real) news publications (online or print) fact check anymore; I noticed that most of them ran the Maria Bello and Jim Caviezel stories as fact. Cripes, doesn't anybody call people's agents anymore?! Oh, yeah, Cinescape does.
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