At midnight comes the point of balance. Of danger. The instang of utter stillness when between two beats of the heart, an alternative reality can slip through, like a blade between the ribs, and swithc you into a new and terrifying world.Four Past Midnight: four heart-stopping accounts of that moment when the familiar world fractures beyond sense, the fragments spinning away from the desperate, clutching reach of sanity...(back cover)

This needs to be said in capital letters so that it will grab people's attention and hopefully stop them from rating this book what they would have given King's novella:THIS BOOK IS NOT KING'S NOVELLA (RITA HAYWORTH AND SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), WHICH THE MOVIE WAS BASED ON. IT IS A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE FILM WRITTEN BY MARK KERMODE AND RELEASED BY BFI MODERN CLASSICS.With that said, on with my actual review. This is well written, in terms of actual writing style and readability, but ultimately lacking. Mark Kermode basically goes through the movie from beginning to end and attempts to translate a lot of the scenes and actions into symbols and themes. A lot of the conclusions he draws seem like a bit of a stretch to me. For example, Kermode writes, "Although Darabont has subsequently informed me that no such parallels were intended, it is possible (should one so wish) to find powerful echoes of the Last Supper in [the roof-tarring scene:]...a head-count of the inmates depicted in this sequence clearly reveals thirteen prisoners on the roof...More strikingly still, both King's source and Darabont's adaptation make it clear that, having provided the blessed beer, 'Only Andy didn't drink', a detail which fits neatly with the biblical descriptions of Jesus blessing, giving, but crucially not partaking of the wine..." (32). It seems to me that these two, what more likely are coincidences, don't provide enough substantial evidence to open up this scene to any necessary parallels between it and the last supper. I understand that Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is, I guess in some way -- maybe time and effort -- sacrificing himself to do the paperwork to get the beers that he hands out. And that because of his sacrifice they are all able to celebrate and enjoy the reward together, ultimately giving hope that there is life amongst the death of the prison. And that that event leads to the beginning of him being seen as a sort of legend that lives on through the passing of his story from one person to another (or as Kermode would say, from one disciple to another). However, when you study this scene in terms of the bigger-picture impact it has on the course of the film in comparison to what the last supper meant, and how it impacted the bigger-picture ministry of Jesus Christ, the parallels break down (and to be noted, some of the parallels that I listed above Kermode doesn't even go into.) Excuse me for getting theological, but some clarification on the first communion need to be made. The last supper was about Jesus Christ breaking bread and taking wine as a symbol for the giving over of His body and blood (meaning his death on the cross) for the disciples, and essentially the world, and the promise that we too would have to go to this cross if we were to believe in Him. As Christ's blood bound together the disciples in that moment, so would Christ's blood, shed through the giving of his follower's lives by way of the cross, bind together the Church in the future. None of this is evident in the roof-tarring scene. Andy's sacrifice is merely a way through which he can work the system in order for him and a couple guys to feel more human again. His sacrifice doesn't provide the way through which the other disciples will learn to live: other prisoners don't start trying to subvert the system and undermine authority because of him. And also, Kermode's second claim that Jesus didn't drink from the cup at first communion isn't as clearly stated in the gospels as he would have you believe. A lot of the gospels give slightly different accounts of this event, and even the gospels that he cites, Matthew and Mark, don't clearly state that Jesus didn't drink from the cup. Jesus's language about not drinking from the wine again until his second coming, leads me to believe that he drank from the cup the first time. There is the possibility that he drank wine during the meal, and then didn't drink wine during communion, being that some gospels list him saying he passed the cup after the meal, but there is no way of really telling. At best, we could say that it isn't conclusive whether he did or didn't. I don't mean to get overly religious, but I wanted to give an in-depth critique of one of his claims to show what I meant when I said many of his claims are a stretch. Much of the book gives analysis in the same way: concentrating on very specific, seemingly correct, but ultimately superficial connections between the movie and the Christian worldview. Kermode never really connects the dots between a lot of his claims which leaves the reader with great things to throw out at someone if your citing off references as to what this movie is "really" about, but leaves them paralyzed to offer any serious, well-thought out and congruent arguments. It's as if Kermode didn't have an all encompassing thesis for the book, but instead decided to analyze each scene individually and make connections where he could. If one knows a little something of the bible and what's in it, it becomes more obvious that Kermode's argument is lacking. I don't want to act like religious parallels cannot be made. I do believe there are some religious themes in the movie (an innocent man, condemned for a crime he didn't commit, is placed into a world he never belonged in, and helps the other guilty prisoners, through what he does and how he lives, see that humanity and another life are still possible if we learn to subvert the system and always continue to have hope.) However, Kermode doesn't do a great job of presenting these themes. Also, I don't want to act like there is nothing I took from this book (I did give it three stars, not one). Kermode gives an interesting interpretation having to do with the church of cinema and how Dufresne escapes through that and also gives a lot of little interesting tidbits about the movie along the way. Overall, the book is a short read, and a pretty easy one at that, and even with it's problems it might be worth reading just to get thinking more critically about the movie. However, if you're looking for a thorough and insightful analysis of this movie, especially in terms of why it worked, you might have to look elsewhere.

George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.  When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

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