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I'm back on my movie critic grind.
This time reviewing a film everyone reading this has already seen, but I am new to this profession so bear with me.
The Shawshank Redemption.
This quickly jumped into a top 5 film consideration after throwing it on during my flight out to Colorado last week (the snow was horrible, what a shame).
BUT WHAT A FILM.
No, I am not here to explain the satisfying plot and grade character development.
If you haven't seen the film, just ask ChatGPT or Claude or whatever other robot is taking over. Here's a good online summary from GradeSaver TBT.
But there's one message from this film that I loved (BTW I realized as a new "film critic" it's better to say film over movie, so this was a film)…
That one message that has me ready to run through a wall on this gorgeous Friday morning is (shoutout global warming and early Spring weather)…
"GET BUSY LIVING or GET BUSY DYING."
A repeated message throughout the film was the idea that the greatest thing you can have in life is hope.
The ability to create opportunities for yourself is an absolute honor. People in prison don't typically get those, and for good reason (most of the time) lol.
But you really just have to keep trying new things in life in general.
That's ultimately how the main character Andy eventually escapes prison after serving 20 years of a life sentence for being wrongly convicted of murder.
He kept taking chances that came his way — whether it was working for the warden to get closer to understanding how the systems work, doing financial services for the guards to win their trust, or asking prison mates to get him a rock hammer from the outside.
Just keep hope alive.
Hope will continue to have you staying motivated and pushing forward.
Even when he broke into the Warden's office and played a beautiful Italian instrumental on the loudspeakers for the prison mates to enjoy for two minutes. Andy gave them all a sense of hope.
You don't need to have these big lofty goals all the time.
Hope can be that the sun comes up tomorrow.
Hope can be that the Patriots trade for AJ Brown.
So whether you are reading this from a prison cell and trying to escape or need motivation to grind through the day job on this beautiful Friday morning…
GET BUSY LIVING or GET BUSY DYING!
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