I wish Jason Patric (Downloading Nancy, Sleepers) would have landed a leading role on a gritty premium cable detective show (think of a darker True Detective that spanned multiple seasons with the same cast). His two best roles are that of an undercover narcotics officer willing to bend the law for the greater good. The first is the underrated Narc, a 2002 film that paired him opposite Ray Liotta. Eleven years earlier, Lili Fini Zanuck’s Rush further defined him as one of the most talented up-and-coming actors, following leading roles in movies like The Lost Boys, The Beast, and After Dark, My Sweet.
Category Archives: William Sadler
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
Wrongly accused of murdering his wife and her lover, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins – Jacobs Ladder, Mystic River), a young, successful vice president of a major bank, is sentenced to serve back-to-back life sentences in Shawshank State Penitentiary never gets too down in his circumstances, even though he will spend out his days behind bars. In contrast, his wife’s killer roams the streets free. The legendary fiction horror writer Steven King (The Shining, The Mist) introduced himself to a new kind of audience with this quiet and underrated (at its release) The Shawshank Redemption, a film that is nothing like Pet Semetary, IT, Cujo, Misery, Needful Things, Christine, Thinner, Carrie, Firestarter, Children of the Corn or a host of his other adapted horror novels adapted for film. The Shawshank Redemption is the complete opposite of a horror film. It is the crowning achievement of director Frank Darabont’s (The Green Mile, The Mist) career. This movie has been the highest-rated movie on the International Movie Database (IMDB) in the history of its website.
The Mist (2007)
The best film adaptation of a Stephen King horror novel since the 1980s, The Shining, is not classics like Misery, Cujo, Pet Sematary, 1408, Christine, Firestarter, Thinner, or even IT (who seemingly everyone not named me seemed to love). Instead, it is the 2007 Frank Darabont’s (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) The Mist, a creepy dark tale that haunts your mind as much after its viewing as it does during it. King’s adaptations are either hit or miss, and all of the ones mentioned above (except for IT) are ones I enjoyed and would watch on multiple occasions. But there is both a plot and a suspense factor with The Mist that is like nothing I’ve seen before. I will also say that The Mist is the best Stephen King book I’ve ever read (granted, I’ve only read five or six), and it is one of the best adaptations of a film made from a book that I’ve read before (again, granted there had not been many of those). Recently, I started watching the Netflix show based on the book/movie. While not nearly as good as the book or the movie, Netflix did the show right. I don’t know if there was a need for the show, but I’m glad that they did it right since they went that route. Everything about The Mist is fantastic. I wish I could say the same about a movie like The Fog, one of the worst horror films I’ve ever seen. But I digress.