John Patterson's list of "Oscar's Greatest Crimes" beings with a delicious (and all too accurate) slap at Forrest Gump:
In 1994, Forrest Gump was the perfect movie tie-in for the Gingrich takeover of Congress the same year. Like the New Right, Gump was culturally retrograde, politically reactionary and self-servingly revisionist about matters ranging from the Ku Klux Klan and Vietnam to the Black Power movement and Aids as God's vengeance for promiscuous, citified women. Writer-director Robert Zemeckis's message was - crudely summarised, as he'd like it - stay stupid, stay home, don't ask questions and hate those who do. It was the biggest-grossing movie of the year, ensuring easy victory over the insurgent indie Pulp Fiction which, for all its shortcomings, was easily the most vigorous and inventive mainstream American movie of the year. Pulp Fiction had a Gump of its own, except he was called the Gimp, and they wisely kept him locked and chained in the basement.
That last line is going to have me quietly chuckling all afternoon.
Posted by armand at February 24, 2007 11:34 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Movies