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Forrest Gump is the best movie.
- Thread starter JettDash
- Start date
Of course you can enjoy that film, just like people can not enjoy it.
What you probably shouldn't do though is whine about the fact that the people who didn't are willing to articulate what they didn't like about the movie.
It feels like a fake ass movie. I do agree that it is well executed but in the end it feels like an empty shell. All show and no substance underneath.
I loved it when I was a teenager and it came out. But I was also a dumb mofo who thought Ace Ventura was possibly the greatest movie of all time and 2001 was some boring ass shit at the time.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
This is such over-thought dreck I can't even believe I'm reading it. You're implying that meaning exists where it simply doesn't. The whole point of the movie is there's a world out there with a bunch of hostile bullshit that means nothing (like your post),and then there's Forrest, a simple guy with love in his heart who wanders into crazy success just because it's funny and interesting. That's it. You're focusing on the wrong stuff, dude.
The Black Panthers weren't realized very well in the movie I'll give you that, but Jenny's boyfriend was the antagonist in that scene, the rest was kind of just background noise.
Edit: and Jenny is portrayed as a confused girl, born into abuse, resulting in bad decisions. The movie doesn't intend to make her or counterculture look bad, if anything Forest also falls under that category...he doesn't know whats happening in the war and does nothing but help people after he's thrown in the shit. He's as peace loving as the hippies.
No one is saying stop thinking. You are overreacting again here like a lot of the people that are getting their opinions dissected. What people have basically said is that the movie is too tame to even have this crazy ultra conservative slant people are trying to demonize it with.
Zemeckis is also a known liberal.
http://screenprism.com/insights/article/can-forrest-gump-be-viewed-as-conservative-propaganda
Here you go: basically quotes from all major parties saying this movie has nothing to do any of this shit brought up in this thread. Wow, should I trust over eager analysts that want to bring racism into everything, or the actual filmmakers who are very liberal?
I do agree the counter culture is not presented in a great light in SOME instances, but whatever it's a tame film that just wants to show people some snazzy effects and great acting.
I highly recommend reading this article.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
This thread is plagued with such classic over-analysis that I feel like everyone here is just playing a joke on everyone else. It's a straight up entertainment critic parody in here.
Boogie9IGN
Member
Rewatched again and man, all the Mom/Jenny stuff in the last half still hits me hard ):
The fact that people are seriously getting angry over FG is preposterous lol. I mean, you all really need to put your passion into something else that matters. And stop believing every damn viewpoint that you read.
uncelestial
Member
This is such a piece of shit post, breh. Let people who actually care about these things talk about the political messages and you can just enjoy your maudlin, conservative, historical whitewash fantasy over there somewhere. If you really don't get how characters stand in for the cultures they come from in a movie where all these various groups are flashing by, then maybe you shouldn't be commenting on things like what the subtexts or implications are when you make the black resistance look like violent thugs, anti-war protestors into woman-beaters, hippies into drug addicts, and on and on. I really don't care what you think about how "overthought" these observations are, particularly when conservative groups agree that the messages are there and applaud the movie for having them.
Just look at the YouTube comments on this, everybody cheering him beating up hippies. Look at the shiny gun and the intimidating look of the Panthers when he's leaving. Even "Black Panther party" was a laugh-line -- haha, what an oxymoron right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMzk89bYjiQ
Here's some great commentary for you, while you type another shitty post about how none of this is happening:
^ All from the first page, I didn't even hit the "Load More" button.
You don't want this subtext to be there? Tough shit.
gutter_trash
Banned
To iterate
I found it sanctimonious and lazy.
Lazy because they just mishmashed together major historical and cultural events where by coincidence Forrest happened to be there in a Baby Boomer's wet dream.
The AIDS part and the kid made no sense. How? Who? What?
I found it sanctimonious and lazy.
Lazy because they just mishmashed together major historical and cultural events where by coincidence Forrest happened to be there in a Baby Boomer's wet dream.
The AIDS part and the kid made no sense. How? Who? What?
uncelestial
Member
Forrest! Language??
He's not overanalyzing anything, Forrest Gump has a subtext and it's pretty clear, that doesn't mean Zemeckis and co. are bad and racist people, but they probably made the movie without even realizing its political undertones. If conservatives praise the movie for its conservatives values there's a reason, even if celebrating conservative's values wasn't the author's intention.
Sergio Leone said his movie Duck, You Sucker! wasn't meant to be political, but then you have a Mao's quote at the beginning of the movie (cut from the American release) and there are plenty of political messages and scenes about class struggle.
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
It's baby boomer nostalgia wrapped in a saccharine package buuuut the ending makes me cry so I cannot hate it too much.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
It's boomer nostalgia trash and is only good for the occasional RUN FOREST RUN pull.
EDIT i totally didn't read the above before posting
EDIT i totally didn't read the above before posting
That or Pulp Fiction. Both are better films (and more memorable)
andythinkpad
Member
"Dumb guy being successful by accident" not only was the running gag in the movie, it was practically its selling premise. How do you mistake that as a morality the movie trying to pass on to you. The only morality the movie sell was "life is like a box of chocolate, you never know what you are going to get."
mariachi507
Member
Goddamnit Gump, you're a goddamn genius!
Well you ain't got no legs Lieutenant Dan.
Well you ain't got no legs Lieutenant Dan.
That scene toward the end when Gump says "Is he smart ... Or is he... " Looking down with the implied "like me" just hanging there, and Jenny jumping in before he can give voice to the thought.
In that instant, you can see Forest, having come to terms with his own inabilities, yet realizing their difficulty and hoping against all hope his child doesn't have to live through them. The knowledge of a lack of knowledge and how it haunts an entire life. Forest is often "lucky" but seen from his own confused perspective, life might be a struggle to understand the basics. He relies on lessons from his mom and friends, almost rigidly so, to help make sense to a world that is largely chaotic. We think of this as cute or adorable, because we understand the events and context, but he's holding onto these things like a life raft in an uncertain sea. In that single scene, even as a much more confident cheerful adult, we suddenly see how vulnerable Gump is.
That scene sends shivers up my spine and I think it is perhaps some of the best acting I have ever seen. That Hanks conveyed so much in just mere seconds, I can never forget.
In that instant, you can see Forest, having come to terms with his own inabilities, yet realizing their difficulty and hoping against all hope his child doesn't have to live through them. The knowledge of a lack of knowledge and how it haunts an entire life. Forest is often "lucky" but seen from his own confused perspective, life might be a struggle to understand the basics. He relies on lessons from his mom and friends, almost rigidly so, to help make sense to a world that is largely chaotic. We think of this as cute or adorable, because we understand the events and context, but he's holding onto these things like a life raft in an uncertain sea. In that single scene, even as a much more confident cheerful adult, we suddenly see how vulnerable Gump is.
That scene sends shivers up my spine and I think it is perhaps some of the best acting I have ever seen. That Hanks conveyed so much in just mere seconds, I can never forget.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
Good post
I mean, there's certainly problematic shit in there, but it can't really be the ultimate "bootstraps!" fantasy because Forrest never had those goals. He just did what he was told.
His only goal, a life with Jenny, was never realized.
It's a dumb movie filled with references for you to get.
I'll give Zemeckis the benefit of the doubt.
Edit: Okay, he did have some time with Jenny.
His only goal, a life with Jenny, was never realized.
It's a dumb movie filled with references for you to get.
I'll give Zemeckis the benefit of the doubt.
Then again, he did have Marty invent rock and roll...
Edit: Okay, he did have some time with Jenny.
I like it fine. I'd agree Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption are better movies, but I certainly don't hate it. I always thought of Forrest Gump as a well done movie version of Where's Waldo? and Mr. Magoo. He just bumbles his way from one historically significant event to another while staying mostly in the background in the most asinine, yet entertaining, fashion.
Pretty much this. I'll defer to Ebert's review (obviously liberal) on this.
"And yet this is not a heartwarming story about a mentally retarded man. That cubbyhole is much too small and limiting for Forrest Gump. The movie is more of a meditation on our times, as seen through the eyes of a man who lacks cynicism and takes things for exactly what they are. Watch him carefully and you will understand why some people are criticized for being "too clever by half." Forrest is clever by just exactly enough."
"As Forrest's life becomes a guided tour of straight-arrow America, Jenny (played by Robin Wright) goes on a parallel tour of the counterculture. She goes to California, of course, and drops out, tunes in, and turns on. She's into psychedelics and flower power, antiwar rallies and love-ins, drugs and needles. Eventually it becomes clear that between them Forrest and Jenny have covered all of the landmarks of our recent cultural history, and the accommodation they arrive at in the end is like a dream of reconciliation for our society. What a magical movie."
That's really all the movie is.
Magic Mushroom
Member
Pulp Fiction should have.
I mean, maybe that's fair, but then you have posts like this.
Like, if we enjoy the movie for what it is, we shouldn't speak on social issues or have ideas or opinions because "we don't care about these things".
I mean, go through my post history, I'm pretty left leaning, and can certainly see the concern with Gino's white washing of history and sanitization of a lot o difficult times in America's history...but it's also just a fantasy film that's so absurd no one should take it that seriously (at least not to this degree of hatred).
IMO?
bengraven
Member
We were so obsessed with this movie when he came out. We would listen to the soundtrack all day long. And if I might even had a separate VHS just with two or three hours of behind the scenes stuff.
Edit: oh we're talking about the controversy.
I am in here I am having a positive memory about something from my past.
"Fuck me, right?"
Edit: oh we're talking about the controversy.
I am in here I am having a positive memory about something from my past.
"Fuck me, right?"
Could've gone either way, but having FG get BP and PF best screenplay is fair enough.
Seems both me and Ebert took note of forests taking things as they are approach to life. Forest is a very Zen fellow and there is a really positive message in aspects of his persona that can create a much more fufilled and happy life just by "being". The fact some conservatives embrace the movie so much for all the wrong reasons sucks to me. There's such a better message if you're actually "watching" Forest, stupid is stupid does style.
Its also well made from a film stand point in regards to structural elements, story flow, the way emotion is triggered and used, etc. dig it man !