"Forrest Gump" (1994), Directed by Robert Zemeckis and Starring Tom Hanks

[DonRocks]

I actually just watched Forrest Gump again because leleboo said she hated it - I can see why she hated it, but in a very Hollywood way, there's certainly a charm to it, although it is maximally contrived.

One thing's for sure: It made a lot of money.

[DonRocks]

On 8/22/2014 at 7:35 PM, DonRocks said:

I actually just watched Forrest Gump again because leleboo said she hated it - I can see why she hated it, but in a very Hollywood way, there's certainly a charm to it, although it is maximally contrived.

One thing's for sure: It made a lot of money.

Porcupine,

I vaguely remember you saying you detested Forrest Gump, and I'm wondering, in all seriousness, if you're too smart to see through the stupidity of this film, which I think is very good at the core, and intentionally designed to be presented as stupid.

[porcupine]

8 hours ago, DonRocks said:

Porcupine,

I vaguely remember you saying you detested Forrest Gump, and I'm wondering, in all seriousness, if you're too smart to see through the stupidity of this film, which I think is very good at the core, and intentionally designed to be presented as stupid.

I don't remember it well enough to explain or defend my opinion. All I remember was the gut feeling of really not liking it.

[DanielK]

My problem with the film was this: most of the audience calls it a "feel good" film. That's how it was marketed. Gump himself lives a fairly magical life, with the world seeming to revolve around him, and he always comes up aces.

But nearly everyone he is close to is worse off for that relationship. He is inadvertently toxic to all who come into his orbit. He's a black hole.

It's a profoundly cynical movie, that was poorly marketed and directed to adjust your sympathies.

[dracisk]

2 hours ago, porcupine said:

I don't remember it well enough to explain or defend my opinion. All I remember was the gut feeling of really not liking it.

Same. I haven't seen it in 20+ years, but I DESPISED that movie, which has unfortunately also led me to despise Tom Hanks, who seems to be a lovely person (but who mostly plays the same everyman character over and over except for his character in "Philadelphia"*). 1995 was the year I realized the Oscars are a farce, because "Forrest Gump" won over "Pulp Fiction" (I was in college at the time). It's been a very long time since I've seen "Pulp Fiction," too, so maybe it's not as good as I remember, but at least it's not totally conventional and mainstream like "Forrest Gump." (That being said, @DanielK's comment is making me wonder if I should rewatch it.)

*I've seen very few movies in the last 3 years, so if Tom Hanks has taken some edgier roles in that time please forgive me.

[DonRocks]

8 hours ago, DanielK said:

But nearly everyone he is close to is worse off for that relationship. He is inadvertently toxic to all who come into his orbit. He's a black hole.

Hmm, my initial thought was that I don't agree with this:

* Jenny is worse off for *not* having a relationship with him - in fact, she dies because of it. Nevertheless, Gump, faithful to the end, is there to bury her and take care of their son.

* Gump's mother died happily of cancer at a normally old age, with Gump by her side the entire time.

* Bubba was shot and killed in Vietnam along with the rest of the platoon - Gump rescued his corpse, brought it home to bury, and made his entire family multi-millionaires.

* Lieutenant Dan was also shot and maimed in Vietnam - Gump rescued him, too, despite his protests, and he ended up rich, and lived a happy, married life.

* In that Vietnam raid, Gump ran back into enemy fire for as long as he could, rescuing everybody he could find *while being shot in the buttocks*.

* Gump improved relations with China via Ping Pong Diplomacy.

* Nixon was worse off, although I wouldn't define calling a hotel to complain about flashlights a "relationship."

* For every Kennedy that was shot (which had nothing to do with Gump), an inventor became a multi-millionaire by inventing a bumper sticker or a t-shirt.

* His run around the country inspired thousands of people.

Hanks' acting is, of course, entirely over-the-top, as it was scripted to be, and if you can't overlook that, then you pretty much hate the movie by definition. I think he played the part about as well as he could have, considering it was intended to be a "It's a Wonderful Life" / "Wizard of Oz" type of feel-good movie. I thought all the other actors were excellent - scroll through the list above and pick them all out (don't forget Halley Joel Osmont also played Forrest Gump, Jr., and Sally Field played Mrs. Gump). Gary Sinese has, by dint of incredible amounts of time participating in charitable work, become a military hero because of this role. Robin Wright was just about perfect in her role as Gump's wayward girlfriend.

6 hours ago, dracisk said:

Same. I haven't seen it in 20+ years, but I DESPISED that movie, which has unfortunately also led me to despise Tom Hanks, who seems to be a lovely person (but who mostly plays the same everyman character over and over except for his character in "Philadelphia"*). 1995 was the year I realized the Oscars are a farce, because "Forrest Gump" won over "Pulp Fiction" (I was in college at the time). It's been a very long time since I've seen "Pulp Fiction," too, so maybe it's not as good as I remember, but at least it's not totally conventional and mainstream like "Forrest Gump." (That being said, @DanielK's comment is making me wonder if I should rewatch it.)

*I've seen very few movies in the last 3 years, so if Tom Hanks has taken some edgier roles in that time please forgive me.

I can tell I'm older than you because you just realized the Academy Awards were a travesty in 1995.

If you look back at the 80s, 70s, and before, you realize just how bad it has been, and just how long it was going on. I think it first *really* hit me in 1989 with "Driving Miss Daisy," followed by "Dances with Wolves."

"Forrest Gump" was a picture "designed" to win an Academy Award (then again, it sounds like "La La Land" was also - likewise "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (did that *really* lose to "Chariots of Fire?!").

The best picture almost never wins Best Picture - this year might just be an exception.

Psst - the James Beard Awards are every bit as much of a travesty as the Academy Awards, probably even more so.

[Ericandblueboy]

20 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

* In that Vietnam raid, Gump ran back into enemy fire for as long as he could, rescuing everybody he could find *while being shot in the buttocks*.

That's the reason why I thought Hacksaw Ridge was comparable to Forest Gump.

[dracisk]

1 hour ago, DonRocks said:

I can tell I'm older than you because you just realized the Academy Awards were a travesty in 1995.

I specified that I was in college at the time so no one would think I was 40 when I figured it out. ;-)

[porcupine]

16 hours ago, DonRocks said:

The best picture almost never wins Best Picture - this year might just be an exception.

Psst - the James Beard Awards are every bit as much of a travesty as the Academy Awards, probably even more so.

The problem with awards for "Best" of anything is that they are subjective, and thus become little more than popularity contests. How can you define "best" objectively? What exactly does it mean to have the "best" cinematography or "best" hamburger, other than a majority of people agree that they like it the most?

Nonetheless "best" lists are useful. The list of nominated movies is likely to include ones that were in several ways superior to most releases in that year. The list of best restaurants is likely to include most of the better ones. Useful as guidelines, but after that, who cares what some other body of voters thinks?

It isn't as clear cut as, say, a foot race: first one to cross the finish line wins.

[DonRocks]

12 hours ago, porcupine said:

The problem with awards for "Best" of anything is that they are subjective, and thus become little more than popularity contests. How can you define "best" objectively? What exactly does it mean to have the "best" cinematography or "best" hamburger, other than a majority of people agree that they like it the most?

Nonetheless "best" lists are useful. The list of nominated movies is likely to include ones that were in several ways superior to most releases in that year. The list of best restaurants is likely to include most of the better ones. Useful as guidelines, but after that, who cares what some other body of voters thinks?

It isn't as clear cut as, say, a foot race: first one to cross the finish line wins.

You are correct about the foot race, but i have to disagree with one thing you say; If you think "best" boils down to the voters being so inept that it's a popularity contest, then "best' lists *aren't* useful - Yelp, for example, is something close in level to the general population (they might eat out more, but they're very young and inexperienced - thus, their 'Best Of" lists are often worthless and include things like Chipotle Grill). I think if you can limit the pool of judges to true experts - or people who try their *absolute hardest* to be honest and transparent, often with pictures to augment their writing skills - then you up the chances of truly compelling things winning awards. 

If the Academy and the JBF have judges who are more qualified than the general population, then the awards will have more credence than "highest grossing motion picture" or "highest grossing restaurant" (and in fact, they do). But the more elite and (sorry Daniel) "untouchable" you make the judges, the better the results will be, and I don't consider either of those pools of judges elite, ethical, or unbiased, or the rules for judging fair (don't forget, bribery, cronyism, and promotion enter as factors also). The largest awards programs usually *are* something close to popularity contests, and that popularity is often not justified.

As a counterexample, I sometimes disagree with Roger Ebert (occasionally vehemently), but he became a legitimate film expert (his first year was 1967, and he displayed plenty of talent even then) - thus, his *individual* list has more credence to me than the Academy Awards. I believe he was both an expert and an honest man. I think he missed occasionally, but he's only human, and in a lot of his "missed" reviews, he didn't have the luxury of the passage of time to witness a controversial film become a classic over the decades, since he often reviewed the film right when it came out, and didn't live long enough to update his review.

"Roger Ebert's Worst Reviews" on rogersworst.wordpress.com

Even with these (and he really whiffed on some of these), he still did better as a whole than just about anyone else could have. Plus, Ebert usually admitted his mistakes, which is *incredibly* important in a critic - some critics issue a review about something that's over their heads, and either stick by it forever (no names, no names!) or say "something drastic has changed," when nothing really drastic has changed at all except that every other competent critic has disagreed with them, and they've finally seen what they missed.

BTW, I'm not talking to "you" here, since you already know this; I'm just having a public discussion.

[porcupine]

On 4/8/2017 at 11:33 AM, DonRocks said:

... i have to disagree with one thing you say; If you think "best" boils down to the voters being so inept that it's a popularity contest,

But I didn't say that, and apologize if I implied it. My point was that unless "best" has an objective definition, it will necessarily become subjective, and that leads to popularity contest. It really doesn't have to do with whether the people judging are inept. It has to with the fact that they are not judging on a consistent set of objective standards.

What defines "best cinematography"? How well the camera stays in focus? Proportion of close-in shots to sweeping view shots? Nice effects? How well the action is followed? Beats me. If I were a judge, I would define it as "how well it illuminates or contributes to the point of the story", but is that what every single judge is considering? If not, what are they considering, and why should their collective opinions be considered authoritative?

I mean really, it's the same reason why this is such a good food review site, and why I tried to argue that you shouldn't use a rating system for restaurants. Reading each diner's considered opinion gives valuable information (even if you have to sift through or read between the lines). An aggregate "people on this site call X the best" is a pointer. It's devoid of information.

BTW the cinematography example follows my fascination with the movie Whiplash. Consider watching that one. I love films where the cinematography helps further the story. It doesn't happen often enough.

[DonRocks]

1 hour ago, porcupine said:

But I didn't say that, and apologize if I implied it. My point was that unless "best" has an objective definition, it will necessarily become subjective, and that leads to popularity contest. It really doesn't have to do with whether the people judging are inept. It has to with the fact that they are not judging on a consistent set of objective standards.

What defines "best cinematography"? How well the camera stays in focus? Proportion of close-in shots to sweeping view shots? Nice effects? How well the action is followed? Beats me. If I were a judge, I would define it as "how well it illuminates or contributes to the point of the story", but is that what every single judge is considering? If not, what are they considering, and why should their collective opinions be considered authoritative?

I mean really, it's the same reason why this is such a good food review site, and why I tried to argue that you shouldn't use a rating system for restaurants. Reading each diner's considered opinion gives valuable information (even if you have to sift through or read between the lines). An aggregate "people on this site call X the best" is a pointer. It's devoid of information.

BTW the cinematography example follows my fascination with the movie Whiplash. Consider watching that one. I love films where the cinematography helps further the story. It doesn't happen often enough.

Nothing more to add to this except to say, "Great post."

And you're the first person who has told me this is a good food review site in years, so thank you for that.

[DonRocks]

“Forrest Gump” is the most underrated overrated movie in Hollywood history.

[zgast]

4 hours ago, DonRocks said:

“Forrest Gump” is the most underrated overrated movie in Hollywood history.

And still one I have never seen.