Forrest Gump: Love it or Hate it? (1 Viewer)

[Superfan]

It is a big strokefest movie. It involves 1960's theme's and movements that Hollywood and the Hippie generation loves. Add the music that generation loves and you get Forrest Gump.

Look at commercials and clothes today. It is all 1980's styles because people of Generation X are in control. This can be applied to Forrest Gump. It has all the themes for people in 1994. Vietnam, Watergate, Protest...etc... Add in a "Being There" feel and you got the formula. I like all the actors in the movie but I dislike the forced agenda in the movie.

 

[LafourcheSaint]

It is a big strokefest movie. It involves 1960's theme's and movements that Hollywood and the Hippie generation loves. Add the music that generation loves and you get Forrest Gump.

Look at commercials and clothes today. It is all 1980's styles because people of Generation X are in control. This can be applied to Forrest Gump. It has all the themes for people in 1994. Vietnam, Watergate, Protest...etc... Add in a "Being There" feel and you got the formula. I like all the actors in the movie but I dislike the forced agenda in the movie.

Exactly.

It's everything you said.....but it's still a good movie.....at least as far as I'm concerned.

I think Tom Hanks is a very enjoyable actor. I would choose Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me if You Can over this movie though.

 

[PayOrPlay]

Love it or hate it?

Both.

It's an extremely well made movie, compulsively watchable, very funny, and full of quotable lines. When I am flipping through the channels and it comes on, I have difficulty turning it off

At the same time, I agree with St. Widge's complaints about the film's point of view; these issues bothered me at the time and they still do.

 

[ghetto saint]

When I first saw Forrest Gump I loved it, I thought that it was one of the best movies I'd seen in a long time.

Afterwards the movie seemed to get longer and longer each time I watched it.

It was on last night and I watched a good bit of it in the first time in years. I loved it all over and forgot how funny it was and how good Tom Hanks was in it.

I know alot of people hate it now, hated it then, hated Tom Hanks perfomance, hated the digital historical manipulation etc.

Your thoughts?

I just read "The Conquest of Cool" by Thomas Frank, which was an alright view of the Creative Revolution via the counter culture. What stuck out most was his animosity towards Forest Gump and the south. He picked up many things I would have never thought about. I love the movie. It exposed me to a lot of American Culture that my generation missed out on. The movie is mostly about Alabama too, so being loyal to the Crimson Tide makes me a sucker for the movie. But I could see how it enrages people with the ultimate slur being when Forrest rears his *** at Lyndon Johnson.

 

[redlandssaintsson]

Saw it, didn't care about it one way or another.

 

[DCSaints_Fan]

It didn't really have a plot. I would echo Superfan's comments about it being a "stroke fest". Sort of like those "reminiscing" TV shows that seem to come out every few years. (Freaks and Geeks, American Dreams, though "The Wonder Years" may be an exception) Its just a cheap way to grab an audience.

 

[Krewe of Clyde's]

I still think it was one of the most innovative and entertaining movies of it's era.

 

[The Mongoose]

:17:

One of the worst pieces of fluff propaganda anyone has ever made. It's incidious in it's stupidity. It implies that "be nice" is all you need to be successful in life and devalues education and intelligence. Beyond that, Tom Hanks makes any movie worse than it could have been and this one was going to be bad either way.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if people didn't keep quoting lines from it like they were sage advice. I mean, "stupid is as stupid does", what does that even mean? Stupid people act stupid. Really? I had no idea.

I slightly disagree. If you think of the Gump character as a metaphor for America, combine that with the settings and events, the theme of the movie is revealed: that America in that period of time was a bumbling, stumbling idiot that eventually lucked into getting things right, somehow surviving where it was ill equipped to do so. And it was wildly successful through no real talent of its own but through happenstance.

I don't think that is quite the hack job you portray it as, but it disgusts me for other reasons. It's totally a skewed baby boomer manifesto born from their bloated sense of themselves and erroneous morality. It's an attempt to process the guilt they feel from abandoning their own political agenda when they turned into yuppies.

So I agree that is fairly repugnant. I'm weary of that generation's fascination with itself.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy some parts of it. I still say "Lieutenant Dan, ice cream!!! Ice cream, Lieutenant Dan!!" all the time. I also say "little bit of stinging-rain..." sometimes. They just worked their way into my lexicon somehow.

 

[St. Widge]

While I respect your opinion that it's not a good movie, your reasoning here is not very accurate. Not all successful people are intelligent, educated individuals. Some people ARE in the right place at the right time. Luck has a lot to do with success.

As for Hanks, he's OK as an actor. Better than some, not nearly as good as others.

Sure, sometimes those things happen. I'm not saying that luck doesn't happen and I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to be nice. All I'm saying is that it's not something to strive for and this movie glorifies and promotes those ideas as though it happens all the time and it's the way it should be. But, Mongoose is probably more correct in his interpretation.

As for Hanks, I agree he's okay. He's not terrible, but I really don't think there is a role he has played that could not have been played better by someone else. The possible exception to that is Big.

 

[wnelson]

"But Lieutenant Dan, you ain't got no legs"

 

[St. Widge]

i really think you're reading too much into it; the movie doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as you take it.

It's wouldn't be the first time I read too much into something. But, I really think those things, along with the stuff Mongoose talked about are there. Zemeckis clearly has a political agenda in that movie that he is pushing. And, to go deeper, what I think he is really pushing is Gerald Dworkin's concept that success is purely a result of winning the genetic/social lottery and that a world like ours, which is run by intelligent people, who have no right to take pride in that success because it was just luck of the draw and are, therefore, obligated to help those who did not have the same luck.

 

[LafourcheSaint]

It's no Battlefield Earth.................

You are entitled to your opinion though, just don't make the mistake of saying you didn't love Crash. People seriously frown upon other people's dislike of that movie.

But I like Forrest Gump. A good movie is a good movie.

 

[Danchrism]

You are entitled to your opinion though, just don't make the mistake of saying you didn't love Crash. People seriously frown upon other people's dislike of that movie.

Just say "Crash" to a Brokeback Mountain fan. One of my favorite guilty pleasures ever.

Focus: "Sometimes, you just run out of rocks" is my favorite thing to tell people to break awkward silence. If they were looking to create a mini-lexicon of quotables, they got it.

 

[saintmdterps]

My second favorite movie behind The Shawshank Redemption

IIRC, those two were out the same year. I like Forrest Gump, but Shawshank is one of my top 5 all-time.

Forrest Gump does have a good soundtrack.

 

[saintmdterps]

:17:

One of the worst pieces of fluff propaganda anyone has ever made. It's incidious in it's stupidity. It implies that "be nice" is all you need to be successful in life and devalues education and intelligence. Beyond that, Tom Hanks makes any movie worse than it could have been and this one was going to be bad either way.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if people didn't keep quoting lines from it like they were sage advice. I mean, "stupid is as stupid does", what does that even mean? Stupid people act stupid. Really? I had no idea.

Maybe "be nice" IS all you need to be successful if you define success as giving back something of which you have an excess. Too many people define success in the standard fashion--money, houses, cars, promotions etc.

Many people in this world can benefit more from a kind word now and then as opposed to material gifts. As a parent, I can tell you my son's "Daddy, I love you" at the end of a trying day will undo all of the crap endured to that point.