Why Forest Gump is my favorite (CineWritingContest) *spoilers/plot talk

Directed by - Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay by - Eric Roth
Based on - Forrest Gump by Winston Groom
*I just found out about the book series cos of writing this!!!!!!!
Starring - Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, Sally Field
Music by - Alan Silvestri
Cinematography - Don Burgess
Edited by - Arthur Schmidt
Distributed by - Paramount Pictures
Release date - June 23, 1994 (Los Angeles)
July 6, 1994 (United States)
Running time - 142 minutes
Budget. Box office
$55 million $683.1 million!!!

*I wrote this from my own memory, no need to look back at the plot or reference Wikipedia for that, it took be about 3hours to put this together.

“I, I don't recall what I got for my first Christmas and I don't know when I went on my first outdoor picnic. But, I do remember the first time I heard the sweetiest voice in the wide world. Young Jenny: You can sit here if you want.”

A lot like Tom Hank’s character in this movie, we do tend to forget some of the more minuscule things in life they they may even have been firsts.. like I don’t know when the first time was that I watched this moving, but I do know the feeling that I get every time
I watch it, and every time I think back to one of the scenes and reference an aspect of the movie, or quote one of the jokes.

The movie starts out with Tom as a child, struggling through the hardships of being born “different”.. but he was lucky to have a mother as smart and kind as his was (just taking about a mom like this makes me tear up). If you’ve seen this movie you know he was born with a
spinal issue and needed to walk with braces, aswell as being identified as being “low IQ”.
As well as a scene where his dad walks out on his mom after a big fight while he sits on the front porch and overhears. his dad says while walking past and leaving something blaming it on the mom.

While I didn’t have any major physical birth defect, I did have issues in elementary school handling myself and my emotions, so while I wasn’t as “simple” as forest gump was as child, I was simply uncontrollably angry at times.
Who knows if this similarity in our personality is a coincidence of life that witnessing a traumatic break up between parents could have a lasting impact. But either way I think forest, having a strong and independent, loving, and carrying mother, is ultimately what guided him through his journey.

There is a so many great scenes in this that when I see or do something in my own life I reflect back to them, like when I’m running full speed, or when I got a brand new pair of shoes at the store and then run, I would think about the scenes like when forest was being chased by the bullies on bikes, and broke free from his braces, and when they chased him with the truck and he just ran and look a left into college football, and then into the army!

Woah life moves pretty quick! I forgot to mention Elvis and the bed & breakfast, or jennies abusive father..

Though 2 of those things don’t apply to me one of them do: a reoccurring thing within my life is that MANY of the women who I’ve met, especially in my childhood or school years would confess to me, or to the group I was in (when they became comfortable) that they had experienced some form of abuse by their father. !aF15C2CCC-F33D-4819-9DD1-93D8235C1EF8.jpeg

There is many great scenes from forest’s college career to his military service. I never went to college, but I did go to a military school, and to this day, still consider military service.
Something I have struggled with in life, is my mom encouraging me to join the Navy, and my dad telling me never to join the military.
When I think back to the scenes of forest in the army, and even any other movie about war, the first things I feel are always respects and enviousness or a feeling of “fomo” though that word is too cute to be applied to military service.. but for some reason there is an itch that wants to be scratched.

One thing I love about this movie, is that we travel through time zones from the late 60, to 70’s to 80’s and the soundtrack for this movie is amazing so almost every scene has an iconic song tied to the time.

Something I really enjoy and respect about this movies is the broad range of issues and aspects of life that are presented through the hours that your watching, scenes in this movie like; Love, black & white segregation, integration via military service, Vietnam, grief, recovery from injuries received in war, “Hippy culture”,
Drugs/self exploration, anti-war protests & civil rights(BlackPanthers, entrepreneurship, letting go.

There is so many great things about this movie, and I could go on and on and on talking about it, and often when I’m around my mom it is not too long before one of us are quoting this movie because something we did reminded us of a scene..
My mom is the one that introduced this movie to me as a kid so I gotta thank her for that! Our pass time when we hangout together is to watch movies/TV
And the top 2 are this movie and WaterWorld So lookout for the commentary on that.

I wanna cut this post off here before I spoil too much more of the movie for anyone who hasn’t watched but is interested now. Thank you for making this contest, and for considering this post as an entry!

Contest link: https://peakd.com/cinetv/@cine.comps/cinetv-writing-contest#@unorgmilitia/re-cinecomps-qrywlc

[img. 1 source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump ]

[img. 2 source: http://ericrosenbergdesign.com/index.php/out-of-the-past/forrest-gump/]

[img. 3 source: https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/forrest-gump/images/4161142/title/forrest-gump-screencap]

[img. 4 source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/424956914815628552/]