Cinema Experts

Castle Rock Entertainment is a film and television studio founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andy Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn, with Columbia Pictures as a strategic partner. Columbia invested at formation but shortly thereafter had to re-invest with a substantial change in terms when accumulated losses exhausted its initial funding. Originally an independent company, today, it is a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which in turn is a unit of Time Warner.
Reiner named the company in honor of a fictional town from the book The Dead Zone written by Stephen King, after the success of the film Stand by Me (produced by Norman Lear's Act III Communications), which was based on a novella by King. The first Castle Rock release was When Harry Met Sally…, which was co-produced with Nelson Entertainment (whose holdings were sold in part to now-corporate sibling New Line Cinema) and Columbia Pictures. Columbia handled Castle Rock films' distribution up until 1999. Despite the company's history of being sold and acquired, it never turned in a profit until its 2004 computer-animated production of The Polar Express, which is now in perpetual holiday theatrical release. Absent the films directed by Rob Reiner, which are developed by Reiner's own company, Castle Rock has never produced a successful slate of movies.
In 1994, Castle Rock was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System, which was eventually merged into Time Warner. In 1999, Warner Bros. and Universal assumed distribution rights beginning with The Green Mile (Warner Bros handled domestic distribution, while Universal handled the foreign rights). In 2003, Warner Bros assumed full distribution of all Castle Rock films worldwide.
The worldwide home video and European theatrical rights to all Castle Rock films up to 1994 (with the exception of co-productions with Columbia such as In the Line of Fire and A Few Good Men) are now owned by MGM (having inherited some holdings from Nelson Entertainment), while the remaining rights as well as post-1994 Castle Rock films (except the US rights to The Story of Us and The Last Days of Disco, along with the international rights to The American President, all of which are held by Universal) are now part of Warner Bros' library.
Castle Rock's most recent productions are the aforementioned The Polar Express (2004), Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005), and Music and Lyrics (2007).

"I'm not intimidated by lead roles. I'm better in them. I don't feel pressure - I feel released at times like that. That's what I'm born to do.”
Freeman made his acting debut at age eight, playing the lead role in a school play. At age twelve he won a statewide drama competition, and while in high school he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, he turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, opting to work as a mechanic in the United States Air Force.
Freeman moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s and worked as a transcript clerk at Los Angeles Community College. During this period, he also lived in New York City working as a dancer at the 1964 World's Fair and in San Francisco where he was a member of the Opera Ring music group. Freeman made his acting debut in a touring company version of The Royal Hunt of the Sun, and also appeared as an extra in the 1965 film, The Pawnbroker. He made his off-Broadway debut in 1967, opposite Viveca Lindfors in The Nigger Lovers, before debuting on Broadway in 1968's all-black version of Hello, Dolly!.
Although his first credited film appearance was in 1971's Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow?, Freeman first became known in the American media through roles on the soap opera Another World and the PBS kids' show The Electric Company, (notably as Easy Reader and Vincent the Vegetable Vampire) which he claimed he should have left earlier than planned.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Freeman began playing prominent supporting roles in many feature films, earning him a reputation for depicting wise and fatherly characters. As he gained fame, he went on to bigger roles in films such as the chauffeur Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy, and Sergeant Major Rawlins in Glory (both in 1989). In 1994 he portrayed Red, the redeemed convict in the acclaimed The Shawshank Redemption. His star power was already confirmed as he starred in some of the biggest films of the 1990s, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Se7en, and Deep Impact. In 1997, Freeman, together with Lori McCreary, founded the movie production company Revelations Entertainment.
Freeman is recognized for his distinctive voice, making him a frequent choice for narration. In 2005 alone, he provided narration for two of the most successful films of the year, War of the Worlds and the Academy Award-winning documentary film, March of the Penguins. After three previous nominations (a supporting actor nomination for Street Smart, 1987, and leading actor nominations for Driving Miss Daisy, 1989, and The Shawshank Redemption, 1994), he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Million Dollar Baby.
In 2006, Freeman began filming Rob Reiner's The Bucket List, opposite Jack Nicholson, playing terminal cancer patients who must fulfill their lists of goals. The film is scheduled to be released in 2007.

“The first night's the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell... and those bars slam home... that's when you know it's for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it.”
The story begins with the trial of a young banker, Andy Dufresne, victimized by circumstantial evidence, resulting in a conviction for the murder of his wife and her lover. After a quick conviction, Andy finds himself serving a life sentence at Shawshank prison, with no hope of parole. He exists in this prison only in appearance, keeping his mind free from the drab walls around him. His ability to do this results in the gaining of respect from his fellow inmates, but most of all from Ellis Redding. Ellis, commonly referred to as Red, finds gainful use of his entrepreneurial spirit within the drab walls of Shawshank by dealing in contraband and commodities rare to the confines of prison. Andy's demeanor and undeniable sense of hope causes Red to take a deeper look at himself, and the world around him. Andy proves to Red and the other inmates that in the conventional walls of Shawshank prison convention will find no home in his lifestyle.

By creating the film's firm foundation, the meticulously chiseled screenplay paved the way for this film's success. Frank Darabont outdoes himself with the phenomenal adaptation of Stephen King's equally noteworthy novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. In this novella, King demonstrates that he can break free from the genre he dominates and still create a marvelous piece of modern literature. Though the film mirrors the novella in many ways, Darabont illustrates a focused objective of improving upon the areas where the novella came up short, resulting in one of the best book to film transitions ever.
With all of the aesthetic touches and attention to cinematic detail, the most beautiful part of the film lies within its thematic material, such as its focus on the human desires for the most abstract concepts, like hope and freedom. These themes, which concern things the human spirit undoubtedly yearns for, seem so intricately woven into the plot that it easily draws its audience in to its story. Though full of hardened criminals, your heart will go out to these men as they display the most basic of human emotions, and deliver some of the most quotable lines in a film to date. Like a great novel, this film manages to succeed at greater things than simply entertaining an audience. Darabont tells his story most masterfully, illustrating principles and inspiring his audience to think. He leaves us a poignant film with a powerful message of hope, and redemption, something we all seek.
I believe that one reason that this movie is under-appreciated is that people have not seen it multiple times. On first viewing it is the story of Andy Dufresne and his struggle to maintain hope despite his circumstances. However, this is really a movie about Red and his struggle to find meaning and purpose. The final segment of the movie testifies to the fact that the final resolution of the story comes about only when Red is faced with the same fearful situation as Brooks. Because of Andy, Red can find a different path-the path of freedom that is lit by hope. Who is your Andy Dufresne? 10/10