The Green Mile (5 Stars)

Sometimes the Green Mile seems so long.

This is a slow, meandering film. The action scenes are few and far between. And yet it's perfect as it is. If things moved faster the film would lose its effect.

I've seen the film a few times, and its three hours never seem like wasted time. The first time I saw it was when I was in hospital in 2000. One of the nurses had it on video and brought it into the hospital. I think she showed it twice within a week. I loved the film from the first time I saw it. I would have bought it when I got home, but I was lucky enough to be able to record it on videotape when it was shown on television. I taped a lot of films from 2001 till 2003. After I got my first DVD player in 2003 I began to lose interest in videotapes. After all, DVD quality was far better. I watched DVD's and videotapes in parallel until 2007, but I was slowly buying all my favourite films on DVD, and after moving house in 2008 I didn't bother connecting my VCR. Until last week I had six boxes of videotapes in my bedroom, but now I've finally thrown them away. Gone forever.

I bought my first Blu-ray player in 2010. I now only buy Blu-ray discs, if I have the choice, but there are still films that are only available on DVD. I've re-bought a few of my favourite films that I already had on DVD, but in general it's not worth it. The quality increase from DVD to Blu-ray isn't as drastic as from videotape to DVD.

I've hardly written anything about the film itself in this post. So what? Isn't my five star rating enough to tell you what I think about it?