Monday, April 2, 2007 | by nathan

“You never know which STD you’re going to get…”

Okay, so Brian and I just wasted 30 minutes watching the end of Forrest Gump. I hate this movie. Truth be told, I hate almost any movie starring Tom Hanks - with the possible exception of A League of Their Own and Philadelphia, and especially anything starring Tom Hanks and having anything at all to do with Robert Zemeckis.

I never could put my finger on why, exactly, I hated this movie that so many other people seem to love. I mean, okay - it’s got more than its share of suck. Like the whole thing where he runs for 3 years? And especially the part with the yellow t-shirt? Come on, don’t tell me that wasn’t some old bullshit. It has something to do with the fact that I hate movies that seem set out from the beginning to make me cry, which Forrest Gump clearly was. 

Here’s what I realized tonight. Here’s what I hate about Forrest Gump:

Jenny.

We are given Jenny very early in the film, and from moment one until the end - when she dies of AIDS - oh, whoops, sorry: SPOILER ALERT - she’s just a big, rollocking, whoring-whore, sleeping with anything that moves, performing at one point in a nudie bar, snorting lines and lines of coke in a disco, leaving man after man, and especially our obsequious but more-or-less likable titular hero. Yes, okay, so I admit that Forrest as a character is likable, but Jenny? How in the hell are we supposed to believe that any man, even a man as stupid as Forrest, would spend his ENTIRE.LIFE putting up with her bullshit? I mean, really? And then to marry her at the end, after she reveals that, oh, by the way, I got pregnant by you - you know, before I ran off on you the last time, leaving you to spend three years running away from your own horrible depression - and I’ve been keeping this kid from you for four or five years, and now I have AIDS because I’m such a whore, but do you think you could marry me real quick before I up and die? Thanks, you’re a peach.

As far as I can tell, Jenny has not one single redeeming quality, and the fact that Forrest keeps on taking her back makes me hate him - and the movie that is named after him - even more. Just thinking about how I just spend 30 minutes of my life, which should’ve been spent writing my thesis, on watching this tripe makes me want to go punch Robert Zemeckis in the face.

Okay, so - comments are open. What movies drive you up the wall? 

Movies

5 Comments »

  1. Comment by Nikki

    I LOVE Philadelphia,btw. But I’m banned from watching it, because I cry for hours afterward.

    I don’t like alot of movies, but I hate one movie, and one movie only. That movie is Vanilla Sky. I used to really like Cameron Crowe, and I halfway like Tom Cruise, until this movie. Maybe I’m just ignorant, but I STILL do NOT get this movie. Was he in a dream? Did he kill him self? What the hell is tech support? Why would someone care about these things? I totally didn’t, and that’s why I walked out at the end of the movie and told the manager that I wanted my money back. And I didn’t leave until I did.

    Grrrr.

    3 April 2007  2:33 am

  2. Comment by Aaron

    Perhaps I’m being a bit too religious, or reading into this too much, or acting on the subliminal messages that were no doubt implanted in my brain at Covenant, but isn’t Jenny’s relationship to Forrest, for the exact reasons that you don’t like her, like our relationship to God?

    3 April 2007  12:16 pm

  3. Comment by Nate

    You know, I thought about it. And you have a valid point, Aaron.

    But I still hate her. From a writer’s standpoint, we as viewers/readers of the text have to have some reason to understand Forrest’s motivation. That motivation is almost entirely given to us in the form of Jenny: why he survives Vietnam, why he works so hard fishing, why he spends three years running. From a writing standpoint, Jenny has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and it just doesn’t work for me. The way it comes off is that Forrest is too stupid to know any better, and I think that’s kinda condescending.

    3 April 2007  12:27 pm

  4. Comment by Amanda

    Only because you asked - mine is Being John Malkovich. Every moment was annoying to me, yet I’m the only one who hates it.

    6 April 2007  8:50 pm

  5. Comment by Nate

    You’re not the only one, Amanda. I hated that movie too. I can’t stand pretentious bullcrap like that.

    7 April 2007  8:25 am

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