It's a bro-centric year for movies added to the prestigious National Film Registry.
Two of the most popular male-bonding movies of all time — "Top Gun" and "The Shawshank Redemption" — are being added to the collection of films preserved by the Library of Congress, the library announced Wednesday.
They'll be joined by an all-male quartet that's about to get an all-female reboot — the gang from "Ghostbusters."
Each year, the library picks 25 movies to preserve for their cultural, historic or artistic importance. The list is always eclectic and, as usual, includes titles that are older, experimental or otherwise obscure.
And then there are the crowd-pleasers. "The Shawshank Redemption" is a mainstay atop the Internet Movie Database poll of the top 250 movies of all time.
Its exalted ranking — "The Godfather" places second — is somewhat curious. "Shawshank," a deliberately paced, well-crafted prison drama about the friendship between a wrongly convicted man (Tim Robbins) and a savvy fellow inmate (Morgan Freeman), was considered a box-office disappointment upon its 1994 release. It was the first feature for director Frank Darabont, who adapted the screenplay from a novella by Stephen King. Nominated for seven Oscars, it won zero.
But its popularity increased thanks to home video and countless airings on cable television, where viewers came to appreciate the elaborate plot, poignant score by Thomas Newman and Freeman's soothing voice-over narration.
Two of the most popular male-bonding movies of all time — "Top Gun" and "The Shawshank Redemption" — are being added to the collection of films preserved by the Library of Congress, the library announced Wednesday.
They'll be joined by an all-male quartet that's about to get an all-female reboot — the gang from "Ghostbusters."
Each year, the library picks 25 movies to preserve for their cultural, historic or artistic importance. The list is always eclectic and, as usual, includes titles that are older, experimental or otherwise obscure.
And then there are the crowd-pleasers. "The Shawshank Redemption" is a mainstay atop the Internet Movie Database poll of the top 250 movies of all time.
Its exalted ranking — "The Godfather" places second — is somewhat curious. "Shawshank," a deliberately paced, well-crafted prison drama about the friendship between a wrongly convicted man (Tim Robbins) and a savvy fellow inmate (Morgan Freeman), was considered a box-office disappointment upon its 1994 release. It was the first feature for director Frank Darabont, who adapted the screenplay from a novella by Stephen King. Nominated for seven Oscars, it won zero.
But its popularity increased thanks to home video and countless airings on cable television, where viewers came to appreciate the elaborate plot, poignant score by Thomas Newman and Freeman's soothing voice-over narration.
