Month: April 2017

(On DVD, April 2017) Mmm mmm, mmm, delicious crow. I’ve long been an immature know-it-all, but now that I’m undeniably middle-aged, it’s time to atone and repent—part of it being recognizing Forrest Gump’s greatness. For, alas, dear readers, I have been boycotting Forrest Gump since it came out, since I was a mid-nineties neckbeard taking Bruce Sterling’s opinion as gospel. (True story: I was the guy who, while standing in line to see True Lies, sarcastically said “Awww, noooo” when they announced that Forrest Gump was sold-out.) Now, it’s true that I’ve never been a fan of holy fool stories. It’s also a given that I didn’t know enough about recent American history in 1994 to fully appreciate Forrest Gump’s little jokes and subtle inferences. It’s particularly true that my taste in movies has expanded quite a bit since then. All of which to say that while I’m late to the Forrest Gump party (to partly exonerate myself, I have read the novel a decade ago), I’m more than ready to cover it with praise. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about the movie is that it’s actually dealing with very clever matters under the guise of telling how a simple-minded man made his way through thirty tumultuous years of American history. At this stage in my life, I’m seeing it as a parable about how being good is better than being smart. But it’s also about the advantages of letting go, the synthesis of different views (Forrest vs Jenny) about life and history, the strengths of expressionist filmmaking and just how good Tom Hanks can be at incarnating the spirit of the United States in its multifaceted quality. Robert Zemeckis pushes the envelope of filmmaking so well that the special effects remain convincing even twenty-some years later—the use of “invisible” special effects to heighten reality remains close to the gold standard even today. Hanks is terrific as the lead character, finding a tricky balance between simple dialogue and complex acting while the film also has good turns for Robin Wright and Gary Sinise. The various nods and jokes at 1950s–1980s American history are hilarious (I’m sure I missed a few) while the film does manage to escape its episodic nature by weaving a few subplots in and out of the episodes. It’s a weirdly compelling film, with short comic bits combining with an overall story to make for sustained watching pleasure. A smart movie about a not-so-smart (but admirable) man, Forrest Gump has since ascended to the status of a modern classic, and I now see why. I may not wholly embrace it as five-star perfection, but I concede happily that I should have seen it earlier.