My boyfriend had never seen the excellent Frank Darabonte directed adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Green Mile.  I couldn’t believe this since he was an employee of Hollywood video for years in college and seemed to have seen every movie that was out during that stretch, and this happened to be one of the movies released to video during that time.  He said he meant to watch it but never did, partly because of the three hour run time.

This movie is three hours long, but it is needed to tell the story and endear the characters to you.  It is not your typical Stephen King novel, and that is why it’s so good.  It has some of the grittiness and realness of a typical Stephen King writing, but it also has the sentimentality and identifiability of his other great book that was adapted for film “Stand By Me” (actually I think that was adapted from a short story).

The Green Mile actually also earned Michale Clark Duncan an Oscar for his performance as John Coffey.  Everyone in the movie does a superb job, perhaps most notably the hated character Percy, played by a guy who definitely didn’t get anough credit for his role, Doug Hutchison.  You haven’t really even seen him in much since this movie, which is a shame because he has a knack for making you hate him and simultaneously feel just a tiny bit sorry for him, while snatching it all away in an instant when he turns back into his repulsive self. 

By the way, he apparently is also in lost as Horace Goodspeed, a hippie doctor for the Dharma Initiative who I would have had no idea was the same actor with his long hair. 

The Green Mile is about a man convicted of killing two young girls and raping them, John Coffey, who also happens to be black during a time when racism was still rampant.  Tom Hanks, who also turns in a great performance, is working at the death row “green mile” named because the floors are green, where he must supervise men who are on death row until they meet their maker through the electric chair. 

Through a series of happenings, it is found that Coffey may actually be a healer who can take infections, illness and even death away. This faces the men who work the Green Mile with an ethical dilemma when they also suspect he is not the killer of the two girls as he has been convicted of.  You really must see this movie if you haven’t already.  It will move you, make you think, and also intrigue you.  It’s a movie that you’ll think about and ponder for days after you see it – even the second time. 

My boyfriend and I are HUGE Wire fans, so much so that we once watched three episodes back to back during season 2 and season 3, so you know that takes some serious dedication to a series!  The Wire has not only excellent, top of the line acting from it’s talents, but it also offers a riveting script that is just gritty enough to remain real even if the subject matter or plot lines take somewhat far fetched turns (which they rarely did during seasons 1-4). 

However, now, with season 5, there is a bit of hackiness coming into the writing and the story line.  For example, Lester and Jimmy Mcnulty come up with a far fetched scheme to get the feds to pay attention again to their wire tap of the new gangster extraordinaire, Marlo Stanfield, who has a lot of bodies on him and who also seems like the biggest sociopath since Tony Soprano in any series, only he doesn’t even seem to like animals.

Some of the actual dialogue is also a bit weak in season five, which really disappointed me.  I keep thinking, well, maybe the next episode will be back to normal, but we’ve watched six episodes so far and each episode has been good, yes, but still below par for the previous 4 seasons high precedent. 

In season five of the Wire, we see Jimmy McNulty screwing up his life again after meeting a wonderful woman who in season 4 he seemed to be enjoying a domestically blissful life with by going out and getting drunk and womanizing again.  We follow his self destruction again as we say to ourselves, ooh, Jimmy no, and that part is also a little hard to watch, although true to his character, so kudos to the writers on not writing a fair tale into this season I guess.

I miss the characters that really made us love them in previous seasons, like Bunny, Randy, Prezbo the teacher/cop, and others that we either haven’t glimpsed in this season or see very little of.  My boyfriend also mentioned that the story line of Omar, the renegade Robin Hood of drug dealers and thugs, isn’t really fulfilling and I have to agree so far.  Could season five get a lot better still?  Sure, but I’m not going to count my chickens til they hatch, and if there’s any indication so far, it looks like it will definitely be the weakest season of the Wire so far.  I’ll keep you Wire fans posted!