Comments on: Every Robert Zemeckis Movie Ranked

By: Dan S

Dan S — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 02:34:58 +0000

I feel like Nate and Hunter are the devil and angel on my shoulder whispering their sage wisdom about Forrest Gump. (I’m not sure who is which.) This is an exact parallel to why I have such a hard time with this film!

By: Nate

Nate — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 04:59:37 +0000

I can’t stand Forrest Gump, so I definitely agree with the flaws you’ve identified, both here and in your review of it. In addition to those, it also strikes me as pretty boring, a 2.5-hour drama without a protagonist who merits that much time. The movie highlights and celebrates a host of attributes – extreme conformity/obedience, mindlessness, general blandness – that I find to be neither endearing in a person nor dramatically interesting. I always remember a description from critic Janet Maslin of the New York Times, who lamented that Forrest was “warmly embraced as the embodiment of absolutely nothing.”

Cast Away still makes me cry every time, though. I know it’s flawed, and I’m not sure how many more times I’d need to sit through his entire stint on the island, but when he’s back at Helen Hunt’s house, it gets me. (I’m always a sucker for doomed relationships.) I hear what you’re saying about the ending though – I’m not sure we need Hanks’s monologue about what spurred him to try to get off the island, and closing on that ‘smile at the crossroads’ image feels a bit forced. Still, this would be a very difficult story to end satisfactorily.

By: Hunter Allen

Hunter Allen — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 08:42:45 +0000

Solid list! I look forward to catching up with the podcast at work later today. Specifics–

Allied: I ought to give it another chance. Maybe being deeper into 40s films now would make me appreciate it more, though I just remember it being draggy and Pitt giving an unusually wooden performance.

Forrest Gump: I do not like Tucker Carlson. <_<

Marwen: funny that you put it in touch with The Fabelmans, at the time, I was blown down by how much it resembled an even-more-curdled, what-if-Parzival-was-45? version of Ready Player One. (They both even have the Delorean, which is WAY weirder in Marwen.)

Cast Away: we're all still all on our own islands, maaaaan.

Contact: feel like the coda to this is more of "whoa!" than it is, in the fullness of consideration, a good idea. I really ought to read Sagan's book one of these days. (I miss Jodie Foster being in things. Hell, I was talking to my girlfriend last night about how irritating the current crop of "upper-middle-class-at-least bozos sell your class resentment back to you" "satires" made me miss the anti-smug seriousness of Money Monster, and how much I miss Jodie Foster directing things.)