Plot: What’s it about?
It’s been just over seven years since I first saw this movie. I had read reviews of it and it being a hot Summer day, I went with my family to see this movie about a man named Forrest. I had seen previews, but the general jist of what I thought the story to be about was that he had braces on his feet and he wasn’t that smart. I was prepared for a sad movie…A mere two and half hours later, I walked out of the theater having seen one of the greatest movies in my entire life. Forrest Gump is a movie about a man who is stupid, yet he never does anything stupid at all. This was Tom Hanks’ follow-up to his Academy Award winning role in “Philadelphia”, and it’s no surprise that he won back to back Oscars for his role as Forrest Gump. So what is so special about Forrest Gump? Aside from the fact that he seemed to have a brush with most every major political event of the last half century, it was an approach to making a movie that we had never seen before. You could go and say that someone met JFK, but this movie actually shows the character shaking his hand and interacting with him. Unreal. Or real? While Forrest Gump has received it’s share of acclaim, there are those out there who don’t like it. That’s fine. With a movie as popular and as commercially successful as this, it’s bound to garner acclaim as well as criticism. Many feel that Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” should have received the Best Picture nod instead of this. But once the votes were cast, it was a man named Gump who stood triumphant.
As the computer-generated feather falls across the skyline of Savannah, Georgia, we can barely make out a figure of a man sitting on a park bench. He is dressed in a suit, dirty old Nike’s and carries a briefcase. This is Forrest Gump. Once you get past his accent and listen to what he says, it makes the story a lot more enjoyable. Forrest is telling his life story on a park bench, to almost anyone who will listen. But, as it turns out, Forrest has led quite the life so far. Forrest’s mother, played by Sally Field (who ironically plays Tom Hanks’ love interest in “Punchline”) is trying to get Forrest into school. But the “Progressive” system of Alabama doesn’t let people with an IQ lower than that of 80 into the system (Forrest has an IQ of approximately 75), but after a little coercing by Ms. Gump, Forrest is enrolled. It’s about this time that he meets the one person who influences him the most, Jenny. Jenny has had the cards stacked against her for a long time. Her alcoholic dad beats her and her siblings leading Jenny to pray to find some escape from her tortured life. We then flash forward a ways when Jenny and Forrest are in high school. It’s the same story, but when Hanks takes over, the movie really doesn’t go downhill. Jenny’s advice to Forrest has and always will be “RUN, FORREST RUN”. The movie follows Forrest through his journeys. He graduates from high school, and as he’s running away from the local hicks, gets recruited to play football at the University of Alabama (under Bear Bryant no less), manages to make national headlines when he is involved in the integration of the University and that’s just while he’s in college.
The movie takes on a different tone when Forrest joins the Army. Being a buck private, Forrest fits in the Army “like one of those square pegs, or somethin’…”. And it’s not long after that he meets his best friend, Benjamin Bufurd Blue (aka “Bubba”) played by Mykelti Wiliamson. Bubba comes from a long line of shrimp boat captains and his only dream is to own and operate a shrimp boat business after he gets out of the Army. But Vietnam changes all of that. Throughout Forrest’s journeys in the army, he meets another friend by the name of Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise), who is another influence on Forrest’s life. Though Forrest has received the Congressional Medal of Honor, been in China to represent the United States in Ping Pong and spoke at the reflecting pool in Washington to some 50,000 people, his life is still just starting…As we marvel at the life of Forrest Gump, we can’t help but wince when we see Jenny. Jenny has moved from town to town, been kicked out of her college for posing for Playboy and is heavily involved in the “Sex, Drugs Rock N’ Roll” scene of the 1970’s. It’s only after she comes home to Alabama and to Forrest that they start a life together.
The life of Forrest Gump, just like the movie, is almost too unbelievable to explain. It’s humorous to see how many key events Forrest was part of (though it’s all fiction), and how the movie seems to make it work. It’s a testament to Zemeckis’ great direction as well as another great performance by Tom Hanks and a great supporting cast. Without a doubt, Forrest Gump is one of the best movies that I’ve ever seen. It’s one of those rare treats that Hollywood can’t seem to crank out much anymore, but this little gem should find a good place in your DVD library. And always remember…”Life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get.”
Video: How does it look?
Unlike a box of chocolates, we know exactly what we’re in for when it comes to how Forrest Gump looks. Presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, Gump has never looked better. A new high-definition transfer was made for the DVD release and for the most part it looks splendid. Colors are sharp and the level of detail in some scenes is right off the scale. There are some scenes, though, that left a bit to the imagination. The opening sequence with the feather has some spots and a bit of artifacting, which is never a good way to start out a movie. But some scenes, particularly in the Vietnam sequence, look ravishing. The greens give a new level of depth that I have never noticed before in this movie. There is just the slightest bit of edge enhancement in a few scenes, but not to worry, it comes and goes before you notice what was wrong. On the whole, Gump has never looked better (I think I said that already), and odds are that another version will surface in the future, but this is today and it’s the way it was meant to be seen.
Audio: How does it sound?
Forrest Gump was one of the few Laserdiscs that I owned and it was encoded with the “AC-3” (don’t hear that much anymore, do we?) track. AC-3 is another term for 5.1 Dolby Digital. As we can expect, the new DVD is encoded with a Dolby Digital track, but this one sounds a lot more livlier than the old LaserDisc. At times, there is only dialogue, but during some war scenes and throughout the plethora of great-sounding music, we are treated to a very rich-sounding track here. Dialogue is clear and free of any distortion that I could tell and the surrounds, used often, do more than their part to make this a very dynamic soundtrack. I’d give it a reference quality score, but the action was too far between for me. I always used to use the Vietnam scene as a demo for my LaserDisc, but then again…that was before Saving Private Ryan came out! Still, you won’t be disappointed with the way this sounds. Gump happens!
Supplements: What are the extras?
This marks Paramount’s venture into the “2 Disc Special Edition” market, but stupid is as stupid does…there’s not as much here as you might think. I look at discs like Fight Club and Independence Day where it takes you about an hour to go through all the material, this is just the movie with two commentary tracks on the first disc. The second disc contains some trailers, a documentary, four featurettes, a photo gallery and some screen tests. A lot of extras, yes, but compared to what’s out there…well, let’s not count a Forrest Gump: Ultimate Edition out just yet (Oh wait…wrong studio). Anyway, here’s what to expect: Disc One:
This features the movie, presented in anamorphic widescreen along with two audio commentaries. The first is by director Robert Zemeckis (recorded earlier this year) along with Steve Starkey and Production Designer Rick Carter. The track is by far the better of the two, and the three (independetly) have tons of information to offer into the picture, especially Carter, who is featured on several segments on disc two. The second track might as well not exist. Wendy Friedman is the sole commentator here and I do sympathize with her in the regard that it does take a lot of effort to talk for two and a half hours, and I feel she should have been mixed in with the “guys” on the first track. However, a second audio commentary is probably more of a selling point for this disc (not like it needs it) and it’s full of some useful little tidbits (and some very loooooooooooong pauses in between).
Disc Two:
Disc two is the “goodies” disc. In it we find “Through the Eyes of Forrest Gump”, which was also included on the Laserdisc and some “Special Edition” VHS copies several years ago. This is the same thing recycled, but it’s always a nice addition to see any and all available material put onto a DVD. This is like most other “Making of Documentaries” with interviews with the cast and crew and how the whole story came to be, etc…and how this person just “had to work” with Bob Zemeckis…still, it’s very intersting if only to see how much planning went into this movie. There are also four featurettes that show the various techniques and tricks that were used to make Forrest Gump the magical CGI fest that it is. First up is “The Magic of Makeup”. This segment concentrates on, you guessed it, makeup. While the only character that ages noticeably is Sally Field, we see how the makeup is used throughout the entire movie and the effect it had. T”hrough the Ears of Forrest Gump” concentrates on sound design and how it was used in the movie. They talk about the Vietnam sequence, the gun fire and the different methods used for all of the array of sounds found in the movie. “Buliding the World of Gump” shows how they started, literally from a blank palette, to build the movie around Winston Groom’s novel. It shows how they sketched the Gump house so it would fit in the shot to some of the key scenes in the movie. Lastly there is “Seeing is Believing”, a featurette that is broken down into eleven different parts that show how some of the special effects were manufactured. I found this to be the most interesting as a lot of the things in the movie are an effect (i.e. Forrest running from the redneck kids). This includes a few deleted scenes, a favorite of mine being Forrest playing ping pong with George Bush Sr. (when he was our diplomat to China). Interesting stuff indeed. Some screen tests are shown, but you’ll get more enjoyment out of the featurettes. A couple of trailers are shown as well. Overall, Forrest Gump is a movie that I would consider a “Must Own” DVD. This movie has such wide appeal to so many people, and now we have another Best Picture winner in Special Edition format to own. Run to get it!
