Amen!

I appreciate that, mate. Cheers.

Awesome, thank you Jerry Malachi and Brennan Chandler

Just for now

It’s up there. Still less than 40,000 subs. Through made with the same quality of many other huge channels on films.

Well said.

“You can’t put your arms around a memory” -Johnny Thunders

I hope you dig it. This video came from me rewatching the movie for the first time since my freshman year of high school and being blown away by how much I still really loved it.

If you love forrest gump you will love that movie too!!!

I did not like Forrest Gump. Stupid Hollywood movie.

I had a similar response to Benjamin Button at first. It was the first Fincher movie I saw when I was a teenager and while I enjoyed it a lot I quickly lost interest after seeing movies like Seven and Fight Club. It was only when I finally went back to Benjamin Button this summer (which led to this video) that I realized just how I deeply I loved this movie.

Every aspect of Dune's creative team provokes an "Oh wow that's interesting"

Eyebrow Cinema In a good way or bad way?

@@BugVlogs Good I think! They're all talented and interesting people who each increase my optimism and hope for the film.

Paul struggle to relate to his peers, especially in adolescence.

Can't wait for the trailer supposedly releasing this month

But...But it has to take a stance! We can't accept that historical events often don't touch normal people.

@@MacSmithVideo it really doesnt for the average person

You're not misguided or amoral if you take a stance, instead of settling as a housewife with the sweet idiot. Forrest Gump's apolitical obedience makes the movie very political.

@@lakrids-pibe The guy obviously had a learning disability, so what do you expect? This movie is quite realistic. Forrest Gump was never meant to be a hippie. (I'm not saying that conservatives are semi-retarded. In fact, most leftists clearly are in the double digit IQ crowd. But mentally limited people strongly tend to not view events of their lives in some grand political compass.)

"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing have no place in it." - vs naipaul

I'm glad someone recognizes it haha!

Garth Marenghi! Indeed, totally unexpected but very welcome :)))

Cheers, mate.

Cheers, Mouse!

Have you read the book? It’s darker...

Like Austin Powers before me I like to live dangerously.

Glad you liked it Mouse. Your support means the world.

Thank you!

Curious case of Benjamin Button..CLASSIC?Really.🤔

We obviously disagree in our readings, but this is very well-written and I appreciate your contribution. Thanks for commenting.

Forrest was not empty and alone through all of his experiences he specifically states she was with him the entire time

@@EyebrowCinema thanks Forrest Gump is my favorite movie I would recommend rewatching it with what I have written in mind look for the parallels in Jenny and Forrest stories look for the 2’s when they are together Jenny doesn’t feel unhappy because she is separated from Forrest she is unhappy because a part of her went to heaven when she was a child she was trying to reunite herself but only Forrest can do that she tells the taxi driver specifically I am not running the next scene has Forrest start running for her Cause running is healing in the movie lt Dan can only heal when he gets new legs What was Jenny’s advice when he was going to Vietnam? To run from danger-she saved Forrest like he saved her You may have some valid points about the conservative nature of the film though I would argue that any politics are secondary or tertiary Jenny reconnected with Forrest because she knew she was going to die and needed a father/home for their child Again she was still not complete even after Forrest ran for her so she couldn’t/wasn’t coming home to be a mother But she was still with Forrest and Forrest jr even after death-the feather

Good luck! I hope you'll report back here to let us know what you think :)

That's a great idea. I rewatched Gladiator for the first time in ages and thought it held up really well and would definitely be curious to rewatch Braveheart.

Eyebrow Cinema Considering that's it been 20 since Gladiator came out, and 25 years since Braveheart came out.

It is a beautiful piece! I spent like a day going through the FMA looking for music for video essays and it was one of the best songs I came across. Wonderful work. Thank you for making it accessible.

Truly my most profound flash of insight.

So weird. I watched THIS video today, BEFORE finally watching episode 6 of Darkplace for the first time only a few hours later... only to hear one track lover THERE. Again.

Hope this scratches that itch for you!

Renegade Cut's video was actually a reference for this one! Makes sense you saw those parallels.

@@EyebrowCinema Yeah, I was wondering if there was something like that going on. :-)

@@EyebrowCinema Yeah, I was wondering if there was something like that going on. :-)

Thank you! Glad you liked it.

It warms my heart to see so many Garth Marenghi fans commenting.

The "is Gump satirical question" is a rich one. Those elements are there, but the film plays its emotional drama with such sincerity that I find it difficult to read that way. Thanks for sharing.

Fantastic point regarding where both men have gone moving forward. Especially since Zemeckis first followed Gump with more character-based work like Contact and Cast Away before becoming obsessed with tech. I admitedly haven't seen Welcome to Marwen, but everything I've heard about it suggests it is the culmination of his path.

The Walk is awesome

He didn't say Katrina was in 2008; he said that, for audiences watching Benjamin Button in 2008 (the year the film was released), the memories of Katrina were still very fresh and painful.

Thanks for sharing, Alex! I haven't read the source material so your insights are appreciated.

honestly the fact that forrest gump stay away from politics is what made it mostly timeless, any one can relate with forrest trying to live a happy life in the 20st century not matter what kind of political stance are you. Where benjamin due to his condition he was forced to do things he didn't want to do to keep foward not matter if people agree with him or not, i mean in one hand you have dorothy gale learning the importance of home and the other hand you have mr smith fighting the incompetence and corruption from the senate in the 30's. It dosn't matter how much mature and complex mr smith sounds you will always relate to dorothy and remember that theres no place like home. PS: benjamin outside from his condition, he is motly a boring character at least when he becomes younger and its basically any brad pitt dramatic performance. He was more interesting when he was "older" with 8 years old.

All art is political. If you don’t see this reality, then you’re lacking in the intellect department. Go back to school.

I think what will help Gump's legacy is that it does work as an escapist entertainment a lot more effectively than movies like Crash or Green Book. Plus, the core filmmaking is extremely good, even if its substance is lacking. And it's so lovely to see people recognize the Garth Marenghi reference!

Crash was considered overhyped the year it was released. Most people were talking about it being overhyped because of cast and it being about racism. Green Book is seen by most as the same. A safe look at a real friendship through the lense of a movie with all the beats we’ve seen before. If Green Book had been released in the 1970’s, or 1980’s, it may have had more impact. I mean watch a movie like Moonlight, then watch Green Book. The difference in tone is palpable, and Green Book feels like it was a very diluted script. Both have Mahershala Ali, but in one film he is able to put so much reality into the character, while the other felt restrained, edited and censored. The academy is very odd that way. I’ve seen quite a few articles and some videos about why Shakespeare in Love _did_ deserve it’s Oscar over Saving Private Ryan, which are fun to watch, even though I think it’s ridiculous. Usually it’s about the gender issues these people think Shakespeare in Love contains. It’s a very well acted film, but not Oscar worthy in 1998, in my opinion. Truman Show, pi, Thin Red Line, Dark City, American History X, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Ronin, Pleasantville, Run Lola Run, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and many more that are just better films. I don’t even dislike Shakespeare in Love, but It just doesn’t challenge any thought or reveal anything new. I understand why so many loved it, because it’s not taken itself too seriously, and has some wonderful performances. There is just so many better movies that got no promotion, and only became cult classics later, or have been forgotten about.

Kind of a weird analogy and not really an equivalent one.

mel on I think it is. Forrest Gump is a film with basically zero substance and pretty icky message about conformism that hides behind Tom Hanks and a bunch of flashy special effects the same way Bubba Gump is a restaurant with shitty food and worse service that hides behind its theme and a bunch of flashy decorations. Pretty 1-to-1 if you ask me.

@@redtexan7053 it still is a none equivalence. Here is an interpretation about the films depth online. I read an essay online that puts together some interesting interpretations maybe you could read it that would be great: "In 1994, when Robert Zemekis’ cinematic sensation Forrest Gump topped the box office and waltzed away with six Oscar nominations, the critics were firmly in two camps: either the film was unworthy escapism, or it was an ultraconservative conspiracy to communicate an outdated message of traditional values such as patriotism, capitalism and the family. The liberal elite delivered the resounding verdict that there was no serious moral to the story, or else there was a highly suspicious one. And in typically literalist fashion, right-wingers in America lauded the film as a thinly-veiled assault on the counterculture, arriving at an astonishingly simplistic interpretation of the film: Jenny, Forrest’s sweetheart, took drugs, hung out with anti-Vietnam types, and was rewarded with AIDS. By contrast, Forrest wore his country’s uniform, invested wisely, went to church, and made a mint. Yet the film never suggests that making the cover of Fortune magazine (as Forrest does) is where our human aspirations ought to lie. Forrest Gump deserves to be rediscovered. As the film opens we see a white feather fluttering on the wind as it gradually floats down, eventually landing next to Forrest Gump’s dirty-tennis-shoe-clad foot. Gump is sitting on a park bench in Savannah, Georgia, a box of chocolates perched on his lap. These two symbols, the feather and the chocolates, illustrate the film’s true key theme: Fate - the uncontrollable events that make each of us what we are. But the film’s emphasis is not on fate itself, but on our responses to what fate deals us. While we can’t decide what happens to us, we each have important choices to make in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Thus in many ways the film’s message is existentialist. In Existentialism and Humanism (1946) Jean-Paul Sartre distinguishes between human nature and the human condition (p.45ff). Sartre rejected the idea that we possess a generic nature, in the sense of an essence that can be found in each and every human being. Nevertheless, he argued that we share a universality of condition. We find ourselves thrown into the world, and we share the necessities of having to labour and die here. While these necessities are fixed and universal, Sartre stresses that there is nothing about this condition that determines the kind of life we must lead, either as individuals or as groups. Thus our condition limits us in various ways, but it does not compel us to behave in particular ways. Our common predicament means that we must give moral shape to our lives through our free choices. This is an enormous responsibility, because, since humanity has no essence, each of us is literally responsible for creating our humanity. If we choose a holocaust, says Sartre, then this is what we have made of ‘human nature’. Likewise, if we choose resistance or peace, then this is what ‘humanity’ has become for us. Forrest Gump is about these sorts of choices. The real target of Forrest Gump’s critique is the (typically Protestant) American notion that material rewards are the inevitable outcome of a virtuous, industrious life. The film shows that by contrast, people don’t get what they deserve, and life isn’t fair; it’s more like a box of chocolates: “you never know what you’re gonna get.” All of the main characters in the story - Forrest, Mrs Gump, Jenny, Lt. Dan, Bubba - are dealt their share of suffering and grief. Forrest is born mentally disabled, and with “a back as crooked as a politician”; Mrs Gump’s husband has left her; Jenny’s only parent, her father, is abusive; Lt. Dan gets his legs blown off in the war; Bubba is killed in Vietnam while others survive. None of us can control fate, but in an important sense we make our own destiny by the ways in which we respond to it. On her deathbed, Mrs Gump summarises this philosophy: “I happen to believe you make your own destiny. You’ve got to do the best with what God gave you.” To illustrate this philosophy, in an early scene, Mrs Gump tries to instil in her son a belief that he is “the same as everybody else.” Despite the fact that the young Forrest is mentally slow and has to wear braces on his legs, he is entitled to the same opportunities and has the same human dignity as everyone else. “If God had wanted everyone to be the same,” Mrs Gump explains, “then He would have made it so everyone had braces on their legs.” When she attempts to enrol Forrest in school, the Principal insists that Forrest will have to go to a special school because his intelligence is below normal. But Mrs Gump refuses to deny Forrest the same opportunities as everybody else, and to that end she’s willing to prostitute herself. While the Principal is collecting his bribe from Mrs Gump, young Forrest hears loud grunts emanating from her bedroom. When the guardian of institutional normality emerges, wiping the post-coital sweat from his brow, it is he who is made to look stupid, when the young Forrest mimics his grunts. This scene highlights the Principal’s hypocrisy: he is the head official in an institution that exists for the purpose of improving people’s minds, yet his own mind is too small to conquer his libido. Meanwhile, Mrs Gump’s behaviour may be socially unacceptable, but her intention is worthy and she doesn’t feel ashamed. This scene alone is a damning indictment of 1950s American social institutions. These scenes establish Mrs Gump’s moral voice in the story. She is the main influence on Forrest’s life, and her message is that what makes him the same as everybody else is not that his natural endowments are identical to everyone else’s (none of us are equal in that sense), but that, like everyone else, he has the potential to make his own destiny with what fate has given him. His basic human condition (what Sartre would’ve called his facticity) is what makes Forrest just like anyone else. Lt. Dan learns the film’s central message painfully when his own destiny veers off the expected path, disrupting his family’s tradition of war martyrdom. Lt. Dan curses God for instead being made to live with a physical disability. He is reluctant to accept the fact that life is unfair. Yet although the facts are arbitrary, our ability to make choices and to do something with our condition is fair, as the ability to choose is equally distributed to all. In the realm of freedom we all have an equal opportunity to give our lives value. Dan is only liberated from his crippling emotional bitterness when he finally accepts that his freedom, his ability to make the most with what destiny dictates, is where the real value of his life lies. Forrest delivers the film’s central motif at Jenny’s grave: “I don’t know if Mama was right, or if it’s Lieutenant Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental like on a breeze… but I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.” The seemingly arbitrary feather on the wind is a symbol of our lives. We too are tossed about by destiny, with little control over where we’ve come from or where we’re going. But Forrest Gump shows us we still have important choices to make in spite of this, and that these choices give our lives its real value." Continue below:

"So many box office hits are about protagonists who exert power and control, mostly over others. By comparison, Forrest Gump is an unlikely hero. He is depicted as ‘innocent but harmless’, ie, too dull to be cunning or dangerous. Because he does not have the ability to be calculating, he genuinely cares for other people, because he innocently (naively from the cynical perspective of American politics) thinks that other people really matter. Forrest’s natural altruism, and his inability to measure the value of his life against the ‘normal’ criteria of competitive achievement, along with Lt. Dan’s triumph over his own resentment, offers viewers a real source of inspiration, rather than another escapist fantasy of omnipotence. While most Hollywood blockbusters celebrate a kind of heroic hyperperfection inconceivable in real life, Gump reveals the bravery it takes to accept our mere humanity and turn our trials to fortune, both for others and ourselves. While some critics lamented that this fortune had to be taken so literally (‘Bubba Gump Shrimp’ turns Forrest into a millionaire), I still believe the film is better understood as a scathing critique of American capitalist values and the profit-driven worldview that underpins them. In the real world, a morally-innocent millionaire is virtually an oxymoron. This is primarily because, as we instinctively know, morality is distinct from self-interest, the cardinal rule of capitalism. As soon as we begin to ponder the question ‘Why should I be good?’ we understand that a genuinely good person would not need to ask what’s in it for him. If one seeks a reward for an act of goodness, then the motive isn’t good but selfish. The principal at Greenbow Central City School is ‘good’ to Forrest only when he has something to gain; and the same can be said for the University of Alabama. Forrest’s exploitation at the hands of the football team, which after five years allows him to get a college degree, is a comment on how even education in America is little more than a cynical business transaction. Forrest Gump is a witty satire which holds the American political establishment up to moral scrutiny, especially the military-industrial complex. Time and again, Forrest’s naïve innocence is contrasted with the cunning cleverness of those who exploit him, also including the US military. When Gump is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam, President Johnson kicked off the award ceremony by announcing the need for further escalation of the war in Vietnam. When the President asks to see Forrest’s wound, this provides an opportunity for a not-too-subtle affront to the motives behind the ceremony, as Forrest moons him (the wound was on his buttocks). At the Washington monument, we see a uniformed man unplug the sound system in order to deny freedom of speech to Vietnam vet Forrest and other anti-war protestors. The silencing of Forrest is linked to the historical silencing of Abbie Hoffman and other young American anti-war protestors: Forrest is led to the speaker’s podium by Hoffman, the co-founder of the Youth International Party, who along with six others was tried for conspiracy for his outspoken role in protesting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The film also reminds viewers several times that all of America’s genuine moral icons have been killed by Americans, from John F. Kennedy to John Lennon. Cunning cleverness is what Forrest so desperately lacks, yet the question posed by this film is whether he is really any worse off for it. Forrest says to Jenny, “I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.” The lurking question is whether the smart men who lead his country know what love is at all. Gump is continually being given accolades by politicos at the White House, the insinuation being that they prefer dumb, compliant Americans, so that they can carry on screwing them over. Yet Forrest’s innocent responses to their public relations stunts render them as foolish as him, because the viewer sees through the hypocrisy of their empty rituals and cynical PR ploys. The viewer’s sympathies stay with Forrest throughout, and the film leaves on-lookers lamenting the loss of innocent idealism that Forrest represents. As such, Forrest Gump is a swan song to the more honourable values that once made America great. The film ends the way it began, with the white feather floating away, leaving viewers to wonder what fate will bring to the next generation of (smarter) Gumps, and how they too will respond to circumstances they cannot foresee."

Nice to meet you, Abster! I'm glad you liked this. I had a similar history with Benjamin Button. It wasn't until my rewatch last summer that I realized just how special the film is.

@@EyebrowCinema ps- your channel is due 🤨

For most people, the first leads to the second.

In my notes I actually wrote "must include Spider-Man gag"

I agree they are so sad yet wonderful films. Button's is stronger tho. Forest is Funny.

I can't speak for all of them, but using "Fortunate Son" to underscore Vietnam is very on the nose.

You're not wrong about the first part, but you're definitely wrong about the second part. Intentions or not, everything just magically falls into place for Forrest when he plays it straight and everything goes wrong for Jenny when she goes against the norms. The filmmaking makes you root for Forrest to such a degree that Jenny is villainized simply for not dropping everything to stay with Forrest, and we're supposed to believe that's what her cure would be. As if it were that simple. I think that's why people call it a Republican wet dream, it liberates everything the party stands for. American Dream, rigid social norms, etc. It might not have been Roth's intention but it is 100% conservative in attitude with even the smallest amount of critical political/cultural analysis.

I also have yet to get to that part in the video but I'm sure he goes over these points extensively lol

I do believe the filmmakers when they say the conservative readings weren't intentional. If anything, what it might reveal is how deeply ingrained ideas of "pure American values" are in society. And I'm glad you liked the Darkplace reference!

You are most certainly not full of shit, my friend. It has a lot of beautiful imagery, but the colour palette is often cold and there is a lot of shadow. For me, this makes Benjamin Button's warmth and humanity so rewarding. You have to dig a little to find it, but it's all the more enriching because of the effort.

@@EyebrowCinema Glad I wasn't just seeing things! I do see your perspective, though, the moments you talked about in the video sound beautiful.