comment #1

hcat says ...

I have the same problem with Gump. While it flows well and is quite funny throughout, I hate the way it continually rewards Forrest for his stupididty and punishes Jenny for her exploration.

What especially irks me is the fact that it criticizes the counter culture and the hippies, but cues up their music everytime they need a quick nostalgia hit. Gump is a country boy and the soundtrack should have been wall to wall Oak Ridge Boys. But then I can't imagine it being anywhere near the hit it was.

comment #2

BurmaShave says ...

FORREST GUMP is very conservative, it's also pretty good. I really don't get these vibes from BUTTON though. If anything Pitt's voiceover brought to mind Louis in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

comment #3

JaySmire says ...

And to think it beat out Pulp Fiction for best picture and director. That is a shame that calls for a "do over".

comment #4

iamwhoiam says ...

Forrest Gump is still one of the most moving films i ever saw. Not everything is about politics and not everything should be so over-analyzed (And this comes from someone who's as lefty as you can imagine). It's was just a beautiful human story, beautifuly shot and acted. That's all there is to it. Benjamin Button should be lucky to be that touching.

comment #5

D.Z. says ...

"Every secondary hippie or protestor character in that film was a selfish loutish asshole and every man and woman in the military was modest, decent and considerate."

Well, in defense of Zemeckis, the hippies *did* give us AIDS, and the Unholy Trinity of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II, so...As for the military people, well the guy training Gump wasn't exactly nice; and the guy in the wheelchair became a drunk. So I'm not sure how that can be considered a positive view of the organization.

And the way the military exploited people with lower IQs to fight their wars, and the way that Gump just threw whatever so-called honor he had out the door-by mooning Nixon-would be considered a subversive political statement, if Michael Moore made the movie.

"These and other aspects convinced me that the film was basically reactionary Republican horseshit, "

That's how I felt about Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. [I.E. a guy who kills gets a get-out-of-responsibility card by using the Bible. And a guy who hates quotas gets a get-out-of-racist-label card by liking Motown.]

comment #6

D.Z. says ...

hcat: "I hate the way it continually rewards Forrest for his stupididty and punishes Jenny for her exploration."

Um, she ditches school, poses for nude magazines, and sleeps with men who have nasty diseases. Who's really the stupid one here?

comment #7

DavidF says ...

DZ's take on Tarantino actually made me laugh for a change. I'll never look at Jules without thinking of W again.

I basically agree with iamwhoiam. Forrest Gump is a good movie. I think a bit of over-thinking goes into spinning it as some kind of conservative morality tale though I guess there' a bit of that in there. I mean, it's also a movie in which Elvis learns his hip moves from Forrest, so are we really supposed to take it so seriously?

Sometimes we need to remember that Oscar Movies win Oscars. Nothing will ever challenge Pulp Fiction's stature (except maybe DZ) but it was never going to win Best Picture over something like Forrest Gump - generation spanning epic with innovative effects and a performance that perfectly exemplifies how not to go full retard. It's a great movie, backlashers be damned.

comment #8

DavidF says ...

p.s. Isn't a bit hypocritical to talk about the pre-Oscar buzz for Button and then to say you hope it isn't Forrest Gump, as if it could be a superficially similar story that wins Best Picture for entirely different reasons? We want the same thing, but for the blue states this time?

comment #9

D.Z. says ...

Also, I really hate playing the Full Metal Jacket card again, but that film probably whitewashes the military in Vietnam more than Gump ever could. The recruits are never drafted; the war is only depicted in terms of gun combat; the villagers are happy to see the soldiers; no mention of Agent Orange; and the fat, smart guy is considered a liability, while everyone who follows orders with no questions asked is considered heroic.

comment #10

drbob says ...

While I am no fan of Forrest Gump, I have to say (for me at least) Pulp Fiction has not held up that well. And, I was a BIG fan when I first saw it 14 years ago. There is no real substance to the movie. Just a lot of banal dialogue. When I first saw the movie, I was blown away by Sam the Man. But, on repeat viewings, you realize that Sam is barely in the movie.

comment #11

The Playlist says ...

The Benjamin Button script does have some Gump-isms to it that are kind of troubling. The rule of threes thing and every side character having some tiny little flashback becomes annoying and predictable.

for those that don't know: http://www.dramatica.com/theory/theory_book/dtb_ch_36_p8.html

comment #12

lazespud says ...

Gump was lumped in with Titanic as one of those big, well-loved movies that no one seems to admit to liking shortly after it left theaters. I saw Gump again a few weeks ago and I about cringed; it's failed reputation is pretty deserved and Wells' initial take was right on.

Titanic on the other hand is a pretty good movie; almost all of the knocks against the film were deserved to some extent, but that movie sure packed a wallop when it came out and still does if you watch it all the way through...

comment #13

huntermdaniels says ...

Not a big fan of Gump (mostly for the reasons stated above) but I'll be damned if "I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is" doesn't do something for me, spiritually.

I have been describing Button as "Forrest Gump through the eyes of Luis Buñuel."

comment #14

Rich S. says ...

I didn't have any trouble with Gump, as such. I just thought it ran on too long and ended up trying too hard to fit Forrest into everything.

When he wiped the mud on the guy's shirt and created the smiley face (which I believe had actually already been around for several years), that's when the movie jumped the shark for me and screamed "stunt!"

That, for me, is going to be the biggest obstacle for Button to overcome. The short story is surprisingly moving, but it's going to be difficult for the film to capture that without appearing too cute for its own good.

comment #15

Monument says ...

"punishes Jenny for her exploration."

Really? I always thought that was a fairly accurate depiction of the long term damage that can result from childhood sexual abuse.

comment #16

JaySmire says ...

I think...think...DZ was joking in terms of Full Metal Jacket, right? One of the greatest anti-war films of all time.

Marines are not drafted, you enlist for that duty. The idea that men sign up to become robot killing machines to face a faceless enemy for no real purpose is pretty powerful anti conservative stuff if you ask me. To think that is a pro-military film is pretty bizarre. But again, I think, think, DZ was kidding.

As for Gump--saw an advance preview at the time. Thought it was good, not great. Was surprised to see it become such a hit.

comment #17

hcat says ...

D.Z., Monument, perhaps I typed that out too quickly and exploration was not the correct word. Jenny is practically Job throughout the entire movie. First the sexual abuse, then getting kicked out of college (she didn't ditch school, she was removed for posing for playboy for some cash, remember she was dirt poor), then stripping, drug abuse, a string of abusive boyfriends and then she gets aids and dies (damn the movie is a country song).

Monument you may be right that she would be drawn to abusive men and drugs due to the history of sexual abuse but there was not a single decent or kind counter culture person in the entire movie.

"Um, she ditches school, poses for nude magazines, and sleeps with men who have nasty diseases. Who's really the stupid one here?"

Unless I have the timeline of the movie wrong, she dies in the mid eighties meaning she contracted the disease early on. At that time she would have contracted it no one knew there was a fatal STD and throughout most of the eighties it was thought to be only prevalent in the gay community so this I wouldn't call someone who failed to protect themselves from a disease they didn't know that they could contract stupid. It completly stacks the deck against her.

I would rather someone make a movie that showed the REAL consequences of excessive drinking, recreational drug use, and carefree sex- countless, countless orgasims.

comment #18

lazarus says ...

Exactly, hcat. It's not fair to say that Jenny isn't innocent because she plays in traffic and is somehow "asking for it". It's that, as you said, there are no counter culture people in the film who use good judgment, are just about peace and love, want to make the world a better place, etc. It's pretty much saying that if you don't go with the flow, you're doomed to be reckless, go too far, and get what's coming to you--the opposite of what Forrest does and what his fate winds up being.

If the filmmakers wanted to paint those people as buffoons and self-absorbed jerks, fine. But it's the insipid use of the boomers' music to make them forget it's criticizing them that I find reprehensible.

And before we're so quick to give Zemeckis a pass, let's not forget what he did with Contact.

comment #19

huntermdaniels says ...

Rich, the film is NOTHING like the book.

comment #20

GKLondon says ...

I had heard from a director friend that Zemeckis initially intended the film as a critique of America, as in, it is a country where the least enlightened individual can become an icon in many areas just by going along to get along. Has anyone else heard similar? I just seems to naive a conceit to have this hero actually be emblematic of someone's love for their country. At least the Robin Wright Penn character took hold and actually tried to do something with her life, however misguided those choices may have been.

comment #21

JeffGP says ...

Also, Zemeckis portrays Gump as teaching Elvis how to dance, not unlike he had Marty McFly teaching Chuck Berry how to play guitar. He also portrays the white black panther member as a total asshole and fool. And come on, Bubba's name is Bubba and he has big fat lips. So, conclusion: Robert Zemeckis hates black people.

He also made a little movie called The Polar Express. Which is even WORSE than Gump.

But hey, Used Cars and Roger Rabbit are crazy good.

comment #22

dangovich says ...

Probably the movie's worst offense occurred when that dude unplugged the mike just as Gump was about to give his opinion on the war. A classic case of the screenwriter and director choosing to punt rather than deal with contentious issue.

comment #23

arturobandini2 says ...

Exactly right, dangovich. In the book, Forrest didn't mince words about 'Nam: "It's a bunch of shit." The biggest problem I had with Forrest Gump was how much it advanced the anti-intellectual agenda. As Frank Rich said rather presciently at the time, "If a Presidential election were held today, the winner would be Forrest Gump."

Though I love I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars, everything Zemeckis has done since leaves me cold. Maybe it's because when I saw a list of his 20 favorite movies, there wasn't a single foreign or "art" film on it.

comment #24

sumo-pop says ...

There are few movies that I have more philosophical hate for. I used to take a lot of heat from friends when I used to state that Forrest Gump is way more evil than Natural Born Killers. When Hanks states that "I don't know why anyone would want to kill that nice man" in reference to the assassination of MLK my head almost exploded. It is an the most extraordinary oversimplification of every significant historical event over a roughly 40 year period ever committed to celluloid. It's one of those things that while your watching may seem ok but then the devil wouldn't write a song you couldn't dance to. As I used to say to my friends "Natural Born Killers is about evil, Forrest Gump is evil."

comment #25

D.Z. says ...

spud: Gump's overrated, but Titanic is just obnoxious and preachy and manipulative. At least with Gump, Zemeckis could do a feel-good movie without aping the worst of Spielberg.

Jay: "Marines are not drafted, you enlist for that duty. "

They were drafted in Vietnam, though. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080301111442AABcQqE

"The idea that men sign up to become robot killing machines to face a faceless enemy for no real purpose is pretty powerful anti conservative stuff if you ask me."

Well, yeah, if the men actually suffer real casualties and
consequences, sure.

"To think that is a pro-military film is pretty bizarre."

I knew a few military nuts who quoted that sucker in a positive light, so...

hcat: "she didn't ditch school, she was removed for posing for playboy for some cash, remember she was dirt poor"

She posed for Playboy for the adulation, not the money.

"At that time she would have contracted it no one knew there was a fatal STD and throughout most of the eighties it was thought to be only prevalent in the gay community so this I wouldn't call someone who failed to protect themselves from a disease they didn't know that they could contract stupid."

They still had other nasty STDs back then which they did know more about, so that's not really an excuse.

lazarus: "It's that, as you said, there are no counter culture people in the film who use good judgment, are just about peace and love, want to make the world a better place, etc."

Again, they voted for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II.

JeffGP: "Also, Zemeckis portrays Gump as teaching Elvis how to dance, not unlike he had Marty McFly teaching Chuck Berry how to play guitar. He also portrays the white black panther member as a total asshole and fool. And come on, Bubba's name is Bubba and he has big fat lips. So, conclusion: Robert Zemeckis hates black people."

Wouldn't the scene with Elvis be an indictment of the singer's "talent", and how he only got his style from imitating others? [I.E. black performers.] Been a while since I saw Back to the Future, but Berry didn't really get started as early as other R+B singers, so it's not entirely implausible that he met white performers along the way. As for Bubba, well, that was probably a birth defect. [Though I guess you could argue racism in the Zwick-style "white guy saves minority guy" way in the war. Or maybe you could argue that Zemeckis was making a statement about who the real casualties are during wartime.]

dangovich: I thought that was part of the joke myself. The guy could've said anything, and the hippies would follow him, simply, because they were the conformists of that time. But maybe I'm reading too much into that...

arturo: "The biggest problem I had with Forrest Gump was how much it advanced the anti-intellectual agenda."

So how are people who throw rocks at retards, people who contract STDs, and people who are for segregation
"intellectual"?

comment #26

D.Z. says ...

sumo: "When Hanks states that "I don't know why anyone would want to kill that nice man" in reference to the assassination of MLK my head almost exploded. It is an the most extraordinary oversimplification of every significant historical event over a roughly 40 year period ever committed to celluloid."

It's no worse an oversimplification than when one of King's speeches was randomly inserted into a Cosby episode about eating broccoli...

comment #27

frankbooth says ...

He's back --- crazier than ever! The all-new adventures of D.Z.!

comment #28

hcat says ...

Even with these problems I have to admit that I love the scene where Forrest and Jenny meet in the reflecting pool.

And I wish Zemeckis would go back to directing live action movies, this foray into animation seems like a waste of time and talent. I miss the controlled anarchy of Back to the Future, Roger Rabbit and even Death Becomes Her.

comment #29

T. S. Idiot says ...

Thanks to Dangovich for commenting on the stupidest part of the stupidest movie ever made. The first and definitely last time I saw it, I thought something was wrong with the theater's sound system. This scene makes no sense and is therefore a metaphor (or should I say synecdoche?) for the movie as a whole.

comment #30

TVMCCA says ...

arturobandini2 wrote:
Though I love I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars, everything Zemeckis has done since leaves me cold. Maybe it's because when I saw a list of his 20 favorite movies, there wasn't a single foreign or "art" film on it.

Though I'm not being objective (since I worked as a stand-in on it), THE PUBLIC EYE, which Zemeckis exec-produced, was an honorable attempt at fusing film noir with a fictionalized version of Arthur "Weegee" Fellig's life and times. Wish Universal would consider a DVD release.

comment #31

sumo-pop says ...

D.Z.

I don't remember the Cos' being that gassed up on his own self-importance in the 80s. Nice line tho'

comment #32

dd says ...

"These and other aspects convinced me that the film was basically reactionary Republican horseshit, "

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comment #34

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