PlanJam!From your screen to the scene

The Graduate (1967 – DRAMA – Dustin Hoffman & Anne Bancroft): Listed at #7 on AFI’s prestigious Top 100 films of all time, The Graduate depicts the life of Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman), a twenty-something college graduate who has affair with the wife of his father’s business partner – Mrs. Robinson (Bancroft). The affair eventually ends and we soon learn that Benjamin has fallen in love with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter – Elaine. Will Benjamin and Elaine live happily ever after or will his volatile affair with Mrs. Robinson come back to haunt him?

The Shawshank Redemption (1994 – DRAMA – Tim Robbins & Morgan Freeman): After being convicted for the murder of his wife and her lover, Andy Dufresne is sentenced to life in prison at Shawshank, a maximum security prison in Maine during the 1940’s. A successful banker on the outside, Andy must learn how to cope with the daily struggles of prison life while trying to keep his hopes alive. The Shawshank Redemption does a fantastic job of emphasizing the importance of having dreams – regardless of how bad things may seem. You can lose a lot of yourself prison – freedom, companionship, self-esteem…but the one thing that nobody can take away from you is hope.

In the end, it really comes down to whether you’re going to get busy living, or get busy dying.