Flipping through channels tonight we landed on Spike TV and Forrest Gump. It had been years since I had seen it. I remember seeing it at the theater when I was fourteen. I went with a friend. The only seats available were to on the aisle in the very front row. (This was before stadium seating.)
Forrest and Jenny
My friend wasn’t really into it. He kept blabbing, “Man, he’s so retarded.” He was fourteen. I was fourteen but I didn’t giggle with my friend. I was moved by Forrest’s story. Forrest Gump seems to be the perfect hero. He’s like Superman really: flawless. He does what’s right all the time.
I never read the book. However, I did read Gump and Co., the novel that came out in 1995. It was a sequel to Forrest Gump. Okay, I didn’t read it. My dad had a friend that was a truck driver and he gave me his book on tape after he was done.
I remember very little about it, but I do recall the guy reading the book did the worst Tom Hanks impression.
So back to tonight. I thought early on that I needed to add Forrest Gump to my queue so that I could watch it again, unedited, uninterrupted at home. I just knew I wouldn’t be able to watch it all tonight but I sat there with my girlfriend and her family and we watched the entire film.
It’s amazing how well it holds up. Despite the fact that I knew everything that was going to happen. I still felt myself tearing up when Forrest asks Jenny if their son was like Forrest or if he was smart. When I was fourteen I cried. I tried my best to hide it from my friend and I’m pretty sure I was successful. I hid it tonight too. I didn’t want my girlfriend’s family to know what a wuss I was. (Wait, maybe I shouldn’t write that here then. They just might read it. I guess I’m not the smartest man either.)
It’s been so long since I’ve seen a film like Forrest Gump. I think The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons was really the last movie to really try their hardest to be a Forrest-Gump-film but they didn’t quite make it. Benjamin Button was weighed down by too many visual effects and it’s difficult to make an emotional connection with a computer generated image.
It’s so weird. I feel like I’m becoming an old man. I’m barely 29 and I’m already looking back at the films of my youth and thinking, “Well they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.”
Pingback: WeHaveBeards