Written by Scott Graveline (guest blogger):

When it comes to great movies, word of mouth is a good thing—maybe the best of things.  

“We couldn’t pay people to see The Shawshank Redemption in theaters,” director/screenwriter Frank Darabont once confessed. I had the pleasure of meeting Darabont, and I didn’t even care that he sparked up a cigarette-or-clove-or-whatever-it-was indoors while we talked. I almost boasted to him that I actually saw Shawshank on the big screen, but that would be like winning the “last one awake” contest at a sixth-grade sleepover—a solitary celebration indeed. However, his box office bomb miraculously went on to become one of the highest-grossing rentals of all time. This anomaly has fascinated me for years.

Shawshank: Warming the Cockles of Countless Souls
The Shawshank Redemption ranks among my top three film experiences of all time, rubbing elbows with Casablanca and The Godfather saga. I’m not the only one. It’s hailed as a heartfelt favorite by scores of casual and serious moviegoers. A high percentage of people I meet—guys especially—have carved out a special place for this film. A few years back, my former roommate and I were under its spell weekly. Most twentysomethings who choose the couch over life’s responsibilities do so because of the hippie lettuce; we only had TNT and its steady rotation of the addictive prison saga to blame.

Even actor Tim Robbins claims that fans talk Shawshank with him more than anything else in his body of work. Some have called the film life changing. The critics are also on board; the gripping drama is ranked in numerous greatest films of all time lists and was nominated for seven Academy Awards.

Sneaky Powerful, Sneaky Unconventional
Seeing Shawshank for the first time is like going to the DMV and meeting your future spouse; you’re completely ill-prepared for such a momentous occasion. I can rave about the film’s message of hope, deliverance, restitution, and freedom for days, but I’m more impressed with its subtle escape from predictable movie formulas. The film ranks among the greats despite:

• No present female love interests, save for a poster of “fuzzy britches”
• Two lead male characters who develop an authentic friendship and seldom quarrel
• All that screen time in one dismal location
• A covert 20-year escape plot of which the audience is not aware
• Prison rape (never fun)

So Where Was the Box Office Love?
Let’s take an inventory: Critical acclaim? Check. Joe Moviefan acclaim? Check. Recognizable actors? Check. Released in a theater near you? Check. Then why did this now-beloved film take in a box office gross so paltry that it barely covered its $25 million budget? Let’s get busy hypothesizing…

Pulp Gumption
Turns out, 1994 churned out some fine movies. Juggernauts such as Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump boxed out Shawshank for Oscars nods. The Lion King, True Lies, and Speed were also killing it in theaters that year. Is a crowded box office reason enough to completely disregard a brilliant movie offering? If anything, I’m fired up to see more movies after I view something gripping or thought-provoking.

Even though a film’s marketing budget is always a factor, I’m not focusing on that here because: a) Exceptional low budget independents like Pulp Fiction get seen and b) I’m entirely too lazy to research it. Get this: some of the inferior films that out-earned Shawshank in ’94 include: In the Army Now, Richie Rich, Timecop, Street Fighter, and, gulp, A Low Down Dirty Shame. Indeed it was a shame. 

Share of blame: 5% 

The Stephen King Non-Horror Scare
Hey, Robert Mondavi is experimenting with beer now; eager to spend your hard-earned cash on it? This is the best analogy I could come up with to explain the Stephen King brand being attached to a non-horror movie in 1994. King’s hope-driven prison novella was without bloody prom queens, resurrected rabid pets, or psycho killer clowns.

However, after Shawshank grew astounding rental and cable legs—and the world accepted King in such a genre—Darabont adapted King’s The Green Mile and it generated over $136 million. It was solid, but can it make you at one with your couch this weekend? I don’t dare put too much weight on the King factor contributing to Shawshank’s maiden failure; nobody goes to movies for the writers, except the writer’s mom. 

Share of blame: 10% 

The Poster Featuring Morgan Freeman’s Rerun Beret
The primary Shawshank movie poster displayed a rain-soaked, quasi-homoerotic close-up of Robbins and Freeman. And Freeman was modeling a backwards beret that played much cooler in the movie than the poster. The title and poster gave us no hint of incarceration, tribulation, corruption, escape, or general awesomeness. Instead, it gave us an all-male cast of Singin’ in the Rain 2. Was a studio insider sabotaging this thing? When men—the demographic that would later make the movie famous—saw this poster, it didn’t have a prayer. 

Share of blame 30% 

Worst Title Ever
When I first fell in love with the film in ‘94, I quickly devoured the Stephen King novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The good news is that Darabont and company dropped the lengthy, confusing title for the movie adaptation. The bad news is they replaced it with an abridged version that was equally repulsive and perplexing. Absolute box office poison. If I cut a dog crap sandwich in half, is it any more appealing to you? Don’t get me wrong, this title plays after you’ve seen the film, but it sucks on a movie marquee that features 19 better-titled films.  

I was a teenager working at Blockbuster at the time Shawshank found its remarkable second life in the rental market. Its resurgence was insane—all word of mouth. Droves of customers would request the film, and less than half could pronounce it. Shank-shaw Redemption was the most common error. My porn-minded associate called it Schlongspank Redemption, but I think he had his own thing going on. 

Share of blame: 55% 

Conclusion
Much like Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption was set up for failure. Some good films survive weak titles or minor marketing gaffes, but this campaign had numerous somebody-better-be-fired blunders and paid for it in theaters. Just imagine if a picture of this caliber was released before rental and cable—only astute film professors would reference it in passing. One thing’s for sure: The Shawshank Redemption crawled through a river of box office excrement and came out clean on the other side.

"It works like this: if you use Flickr, go to the sixth page of your photostream and pick the sixth picture there, then post it to your blog."

 This picture was taken on the Road to Hana in Maui.

My inner narcissist has won out.  For the last few years I've googled my name, "Brett Jones," just to see what comes up.  There are currently 57,100 hits for my name and I have yet to find one about me.  There are football players, Dr's and even a memorial for a very young Brett Jones (sad) but, nothing about this geek.

I've been very surprised about how many of my articles on this blog get ranked so high on google rankings.  I don't do any SEO and I really don't try to do anything to drive traffic.  So, I will remain doing nothing (I'm lazy) and will start the Brett Jones Experiment.  I want to see if one day I can actually find something about me on google. 

To my loyal readers (both of you): Please don't take this as a challenge to post something mean or damaging.  This is all in good fun.

Here we go:
To read about Brett Jones, please check out his blog.

**Update 12/4/2008: Progress update is here.

Every once in a while, Cherish and I challenge each other to a push up contest.  One of us will look at the other, say "challenge" and it's on like Donkey Kong.  Cherish is not allowed to do "girl push ups" and in the past I have always beat her.  Well, the little firecracker has started to do push ups on her own just to beat me.  Tonight, she gave me that look and with gusto said, "Challenge... tuby!" [I added the tuby in there].  She did 5 more than me and like a good sport gave me a high five and said "good job".... Ha!  Since I'm full of testosterone, I can't have my wife give me a condescending "good job" and I'm certainly not a good sport.  So, today I start the One Hundred Push Up Challenge.

I'll update each week on progress to see if I've really stuck to it.  Just so you know, I am proud of her for doing so many - she just didn't have to do more than me!  :D

Below is a map of our trip onboard the msy Wind Surf.   This Caribbean cruise started in sunny Barbados and took us to Nevis, St. Martin (St. Marteen), St. Bathelemy (St. Barts), Iles des Saintes and finally Pigeon Island.  It was a very luxurious cruise and I have to say that it would be very difficult for me to get back on a large ship.  The Wind Surf is one of three ships of the luxury cruise line, Windstar Cruises.  The other ships are the msy Wind Star and msy Wind Spirit.  The Wind Surf is the largest of the three.  The next one I would like to go on is their Greek Isles Cruise.

And now for the map:

I've always thought of Wikipedia as a good source of information.  I feel it becomes more accurate over time as more people contribute and ideas evolve unhindered.  I learned today that I have been wrong.

My city, Lake Forest, California, has a very informative page on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Forest,_California. Well, informative up to the point of "Notable Residents."  Two people, Dan Huard and Armando Alvarez seem to be very proud of themselves.  Dan Huard feels he is notable because he works at Digg and Armando feels he is notable because he won an award for design.  Neither of them are any more notable than me or you to the public at large.  As a small protest about the stupidity of having these "Notable Residents," I decided to edit the page and add a friend of mine that I feel is Notable.  Some of his qualifications are as follows:

• Good person
• Hard worker
• Has a great family that he supports
• Has a beautiful daughter
• He bought a house in Foothill Ranch a year ago
• College graduate
• Winner of Red Robin's Valentine Day Engagement Story Competition
• As he jokingly says, "A friend first, entertainer second and father third".

More...

Watch this map below to see pictures get updated while we are on vacation.

Cherish and I are taking a week off to go to Maui.  We're staying 5 nights at the Grand Wailea. I will post some pictures while we are there. Watch the blog for a cool map of the pictures.

In December of 2007 Cherish and I went on a caribbean cruise on the msy Wind Surf (of Windstar Cruises).  We work for the company and had a project we were completing so Neil (another IT employee of Windstar) and I took our wives for a week in Barbados.  Below are a few pictures Neil took that he geotagged.  This post is actually just to test out a way to display a single flickr set on a map.

In the last year I've traveled quite about to our Seattle office.  I love the big city life but I still wouldn't trade our weather for it!  I took this picture of the Seattle Space Needle in 2007 with the clouds starting to roll in.  On the left is the Experimental Music Project - so far I've only walked inside to the gift shop.

My brother-in-law keeps talking about a brunch he had at the top of the needle.  One of these days I'll try to make it up there and see what all the fuss is about.  But for now, my feet are happy on the ground in Seattle.