Welcome to the JOE-DOWN, a back-and-forth movie review blog by two snarky newspapermen named Joe from Minnesota, Joe Froemming and Joe Brown. We will take turns selecting a movie — any movie we want — and review it here. For this installment, Froemming picked “Forrest Gump.”
The info:
The Movie: “Forrest Gump”
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Plot Summary: (From IMDB) The presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson, the events of Vietnam, Watergate and other historical events unfold through the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, whose only desire is to be reunited with his childhood sweetheart.
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 71 percent
Our take:
Froemming: *sitting on bus bench like a doofus, Joe Brown sits next to me* Would you like a chocolate? I could eat about a million-and-a-half of these. Momma always said, life is like a box of chocolates, stupid people never read the index — thus never having an idea of what they are going to get.
Last week, Brown and I saw Joey Lawrence with a Forrest Gump haircut. That made me realize, we have not reviewed the Tom Hanks vehicle for which he nabbed his second Academy Award.
This movie came out when I was 13 and it was huge. I loved this movie. The effects, the story, the acting, it was a juggernaut of a flick. And after seeing it, I decided to read the book, which was something I sometimes did when I was young.
The book was a pile of rotten (REDACTED). I couldn’t believe they made a coherent movie out of that sloppy sack of (REDACTED).
Also, RIP Winston Groom.
Since it came out, it has become a part of our popular culture. Hell, I remember when MAD TV spoofed it on one of its first episodes.
Now, almost three decades later, has my view of the film changed? Certainly, especially when it comes to Cinema’s Greatest Monster: Jenny.
Brown,why don’t you give us your first thoughts as I show Lyndon B. Johnson my ass?
Brown: Hehehe… God damn, son.
I think in my 34 years on this earth, “Forrest Gump” might be the most quotable movie of the bunch.
Froemming:
Brown: Froemming, sometimes I wish you’d drown on a shrimp boat.
Anyways… I don’t know what to say. We’re talking about “Forrest Gump,” one of the best movies of the 1990s. I don’t think it was the first movie I saw in theaters, but it’s certainly one of the earliest ones I remember along with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.”
And honestly, if your movie is made into a Weird Al song, that may be more of a stamp of approval than winning the Academy Award for best picture.
I still remember the lyrics to that song.
Start us off while I find my Flex-O-Lite ping-pong paddle, Froemming.
Froemming: Before I start, I just wanted to mention I picked this movie for two reasons. One being I had not seen it in a long time and two, this year has been (REDACTED) horrible and I just needed a comfort food movie.
So, we start off with some stupid feather floating down from the sky where we see a man in a white suit with the goofiest (REDACTED) haircut I have ever seen. Sitting at a bus bench, unprompted, this man named Forrest Gump begins telling his life story to some poor woman who is just trying to read her book.
As someone who used public transit a lot growing up, a general rule of thumb was to never acknowledge the crazies on a bus route. This woman looking at Forrest was her biggest mistake.
Brown: To add to that, you can be the sweetest man ever, but if you’re a sweet black woman waiting for a bus and a man tells you that he was named after the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, you’re right to ignore everything. Especially when that man is played by Tom Hanks: Qanon villain and possible COVID-19 Patient Zero.
Froemming: Has the JOE-DOWN turned into the next 4chan? Because I have some interesting YouTube videos for you to watch, Brown…
Brown: No thanks. By the way, 4Chan is the poorly-Xeroxed propaganda newsletter of the internet.
Froemming: Anyway, Forrest begins telling his life story. Again, unprompted besides this poor woman happening to look in his general direction and turn down a chocolate.
Forrest begins his take like Brown mentioned, being the descendant of a man Trump would call “very fine people.” He then goes on a rant about shoes and how he remembers his very first pair of “magic shoes” which we get a flashback of him, as a child, at the doctor with his mom.
The doctor is smoking and telling the mom that Forrest has a crooked spine so he needs to wear these leg braces that make him look like…
Brown: I wish Forrest would give that doctor a middle finger, a boot, a stunner and a 1-2-3.
Froemming: I wish instead of ending tragic parts of his story with “That’s all I gotta say about that” he’d end it with “And that’s the bottom line, because Forrest Gump SAYS SO!”
Forrest has a strange childhood. His mother rents rooms at the house for income, and this is where young Forrest and happenstance meet for the first time when Elvis Presley stays with them. And Forrest teaches him to dance like one of Satan’s Perverts!
Brown: For as long as I’ve known Froemming, he has referred to something happening via happenstance as “Gumping.”
So not only is Forrest wearing bulky leg braces, it turns out he has an IQ of 75, which is below the state of Alabama’s threshold for public school.
Froemming: That seems a little high for people in Alabama. By that threshold, nobody in that state would get into elementary school.
Brown: Roy Moore almost got to Congress because of Alabama. That’s all we need to say there.
Not OK with her son going to a “special” school like he was Frank Reynolds, Mrs. Gump does what any good parent would do: (REDACTED) the principal.
I should mention that, seeing this movie came out when I was 7 or 8, I thought the principal was choking when he was making those distinct “EHH” sounds.
While on the school bus, Forrest isn’t making any friends. It’s here where Forrest claims to hear “the sweetest voice” in Jenny.
Froemming:
Brown: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making the world believe he did not exist. The devil does exist, and her name is Jenny.
Froemming: This moment on the bus is when the most toxic relationship in cinematic history begins. Oh, Jenny is a monster all right. But Forrest is a crazed stalker who never takes no for an answer. I am surprised he didn’t shoot Reagan to get her attention.
Forrest and Jenny are like “peas and carrots,” the most disgusting vegetable combination ever. And we learn that Jenny is a victim of sexual assault by her alcoholic father. Which is pretty dark for a movie where the lead character tells JFK he has to pee.
Brown: Jenny also spouts one of the most endearing lines of the movie. You hear it shouted any time someone is running for any reason. You know the one.
Err, wrong clip. Just a second…
Also, how do those bulky leg braces fall apart like a used Chevy?
Well, because of Forrest’s legs, happenstance strikes once again as he runs through a football practice being viewed by famed University of Alabama coach “Bear” Bryant.
You’d think a man with an IQ of 75 wouldn’t make it to college. But, I do remember my friend Jeff going to Alabama for a work trip when a local told him “If you can read, you don’t go to Alabama; you go to Auburn.”
Froemming: Jenny and Forrest look a little old to be in high school. Then they also look a little old to be in college.
Brown: To be fair, Forrest’s haircut immediately adds 15 years. It doesn’t matter how old you are, if you cut your hair like Hank Hill, you look like a dad.
One night, Forrest goes to visit Jenny at college, where we see a recurring moment of their relationship: the moment Forrest sees Jenny in peril, he’s throwing punches like Russell Crowe to the rest of the world.
Froemming: Well, she does reward this behavior of his by having him touch her boob, which results in him destroying her roommate’s bathrobe…as the roommate listens on in horror.
(REDACTED) you, Jenny.
Brown: I’ve said many times in these reviews that I watch these movies with closed caption. And when Forrest said “I think I ruined your roommate’s bathrobe,” only for Jenny to respond “It’s OK, I don’t really like her anyways,” my jaw hit the floor.
Jesus, Jenny. I get you had a shitty upbringing. I do want to empathize. But you can’t be bothered to get some club soda or something to get… err… a protein stain out of her bathrobe? You are the worst.
Froemming: If someone juked on my bathrobe, I’d expect that person to buy me a new one. No way in hell am I wearing that thing again.
Well, Gump is killing it with football (we learn he really does not go to classes) and makes All-American, which results in him meeting John F. Kennedy.
And telling JFK he has to pee. Good thing it wasn’t President Trump because…
Brown: Forrest says the best part about meeting the president is the food. That line doesn’t hold up well considering our president’s affinity for a fast-food smorgasbord.
So Forrest graduates (again, an indictment on the University of Alabama) and decides to join the Army. So, you know, he’s going to Vietnam. Way to pay attention to current events, Gump.
Before he leaves for war, he heads to Tennessee to see Jenny live her dream as a folk singer… by stripping down to nothing but her underwear bottoms while strumming Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” on stage for sleazy men.
Froemming: Jenny is working in a strip club. And if she had sang any other song besides one by the Shame of Minnesota, Robert Zimmerman, I would have said they went too far throwing drinks at her.
But she decided on a Bob Dylan song. In this instance, I agree with what they did.
Brown: Look, Jenny is awful. So is Bob Dylan. But a strip club has one simple rule that was clearly broken.
So Jenny tells Forrest to beat it before he tells her that Vietnam awaits. Jenny just tells Forrest that if he gets in trouble…
Honestly, I feel like Jenny should be a little more shook that her childhood friend is going to war. But no. San Francisco awaits.
Froemming: Because she doesn’t care, Brown. Forrest is her safety, her go-to when she gets into trouble. She uses the poor son-of-a-bitch.
Anyway, before we get to ‘Nam and every ‘Nam movie trope known to man, we got to discuss Forrest meeting his first true friend in Bubba.
Like in school, Forrest gets on the bus to basic training and nobody wants him to sit next to them. Except Bubba, who goes on and on about shrimp. The different kinds of shrimp, how it can be prepared. This scene made me go out and buy some popcorn shrimp for my air-fryer, so I am guessing Zemeckis was on the payroll of the Big Shrimp Industry.
Now, we have Forrest and Bubba flying into the war zone in Southeast Asia to the tune of “Fortunate Son” which as much as I hate to say it, it works really well in this moment.
Brown: I remember my parents owning the “Forrest Gump” soundtrack and it may as well have been a bunch of best-of-the-decade CDs from Columbia House.
In ‘Nam, we meet maybe my favorite character in this film: Lieutenant Dan.
Froemming: Later on, he looks suspiciously like Kirk Hammet from Metallica. Just saying, never saw either in the same room together.
Brown: I dunno. If that’s the case, Kirk Hammet is pretty spry for a guy who had his legs blown off in ‘Nam. You know, with all the playin’ guitar and standin’.
Froemming: The drummer from Def Leppard did just fine with one arm.
Anyway, they meet Dan, who is super concerned about dry socks in the war zone. It makes sense, but his obsession with feet borders on Tarantino levels of creepy.
Brown: Lieutenant Dan also comes from a long line of losers and suckers, according to President Trump, who have died in every major American war. I give Lieutenant Dan credit for giving Forrest and Bubba the rundown on Vietnam when he clearly is about to take a dump. Once that alarm goes off in my head, I’m short with people because there are more pressing matters.
Throughout his time in Vietnam, there’s a lot of patrolling, a monsoon season and a ton of letter writing to Jenny, who is out being a gross hippie in California.
Froemming: Yeah, Forrest is serving his country while Jenny is bumping uglies with Charles Manson. They don’t say that in the movie, but given how awful she is, I could see her ending up at Spahn Ranch for a spell.
Forrest also has the craptastic job of gophering into holes to make sure there are no bombs and enemies hidden in them. Pretty sure Lt. Dan is trying to have Gump killed.
Brown: Lt. Dan gets his military strategy from Zapp Brannigan.
All of a sudden monsoon season ends… only for a rain of bullets to start hitting Forrest’s platoon.
Forrest, remembering Jenny’s advice, does what he does best.
But, since Forrest is a good and honorable man, he runs back in the jungle to find Bubba, saving everyone else he finds along the way, including Lt. Dan, who orders a napalm strike on the area.
Forrest does eventually find a mortally wounded Bubba, who dies in Forrest’s arms.
A couple things here.
- While saving Lt. Dan, Forrest gets shot in the buttocks. He later outruns a napalm strike while there’s a bullet in his meaty cheeks which… yeah, no.
- As Seth Grahame Smith points out in the “Con-Air” episode of “How Did This Get Made,” this is one of two movies where actor Mykelti Williamson dies in the arms of a feeble-minded southern man.
Froemming: I always end up getting dust in my eyes when Bubba dies.
Forrest, meanwhile, is telling this tale to an ever-changing group of people at the bus bench. Which makes me wonder how the (REDACTED) anyone is following this when he is talking about people in his life they were not around for when the tale began.
Forrest ends up in a medic unit to heal his ass, and Lt. Dan is there too. And he is PISSED.
Brown: Yeah, in Lt. Dan’s mind, Forrest robbed him of his destiny of dying with honor in war. Now, Lt. Dan has to adjust to life without legs for the rest of his life.
Froemming, what did you think of the legless effect? I remember it looking really good in the theater and on old CRT TVs. But watching it on DVD on a HDTV, it doesn’t look right. It’s not quite like the effect in “Back to the Future” with Marty’s hand disappearing, but it’s treading closer to that territory than you want.
Froemming: I think it still works. I am more interested in the story here and seeing Dan without his legs is still powerful. If this was a CGI-heavy brainless action movie, I’d probably complain about it.
Brown: No disagreement here. Just noticed that on this viewing.
Can we agree that Gary Sinise was perfectly cast as Lt. Dan?
Froemming: Oh yeah. Sinise is great in this.
While recovering, Forrest realizes he is really good at ping pong, and we get a brief montage of this to the tune of not one, not two, but THREE songs by The Doors (according to one of our friends, one of the biggest acts from Worthington, Minn.). Three songs in what amounts to maybe two minutes of screen time. Not since “Suicide Squad” have I been troubled by the cramming of that many classic rock songs into a single scene.
Brown: I will always snicker at Forrest giving Lt. Dan a cone of ice cream, only for Lt. Dan to throw the treat immediately into his bed pan. Even ice cream can’t fix the anger/frustration in Lt. Dan’s heart.
For the second time in his life, Forrest meets the president as Lyndon B. Johnson awards Gump the Medal of Honor. Then Forrest shows the Commander in Chief his ass.
I snicker at this scene being scored by Simon & Garfunkel.
Froemming: Gump then ends up playing ping pong for the Army, leading him to a tourney in China. Which leads him to give John Lennon the idea for “Imagine” while on the Dick Cavett Show.
*rubs temple* Shit like this really pisses me off with the movie.
Brown: That’s jumping a bit ahead, but I will say, that Lennon scene is the most cringe-worthy of the entire film.
After mooning LBJ, Forrest checks out Washington D.C. and gets dragged into an anti-war protests by the Libs.
This leads to Gump being dragged on stage by a foul-mouth Abbie Hoffman, sporting his famous U.S.A. flag shirt.
Hey Froemming, imagine living in a time where wearing the American flag was a counterculture statement instead of being worn by every mouth-breathing xenophobe who bitches about how America is, only to scream at you if you DARE suggest that America isn’t the greatest country EVER.
Froemming: Abbie Hoffman is one of my personal heroes and yes, he was even arrested for wearing that shirt once.
Hoffman drags Forrest on stage to talk about what he went through in Vietnam. Just as he is about to tell that tale, a cop comes around and pulls the cords from the PA system, leaving only the people around Forrest to hear the tragic details.
I mean, I get it is a funny moment, but we know he is telling his tale of Bubba here, right?
And then, like the succubus she is, Jenny appears in the crowd to continue her life’s mission of ruining the life of Forrest Gump.
Brown: The moment Jenny runs into the reflection pool at the Washington Monument, I would harass one of Froemming’s employees (named Jenny) with any time she designed our sports pages. Her emojis said laughter, I’m sure her real reaction was strained annoyed sighs.
Froemming: They are.
And this is when I realize how this movie pretty much white washes our modern history. Jenny brings Forrest to a Black Panther meeting with her SDS boyfriend and it basically paints the antiwar movement as a bunch of violent assholes. It paints the war in Vietnam as “not always fun” in Forrest’s own words. It has these pretty intense moments in our history painted in a very odd light. I wonder if they made a sequel, Forrest would accidentally end up with those khaki-sporting “very fine people” in Charlottesville?
Brown: This is also a movie that people like to point at for being “Oscar Bait,” which I get. It has all the historical events and is seen through the eyes of a lovable dope. The movie’s case isn’t helped when it beat both “Pulp Fiction” and “The Shawshank Redemption” for best picture.
Froemming: Really Gumped its way to that award, if you ask me.
Brown: Out of the three, I’d pick “Shawshank” as the best of them, but by no means do I think “Forrest Gump” is undeserving. It’s still a really (REDACTED) good movie!
Back to the review…
So yeah, Jenny and Forrest are reunited, only for Forrest’s overprotectiveness to show up again when Jenny gets slapped by a guy she’s seeing named Wesley. This is the most justified of Forrest’s random acts of violence, although he does spoil a Black Panther party.
The delivery of that line still makes me laugh out loud.
Froemming: Jenny and Forrest spend the night walking and talking, probably because Forrest might be dumb, he isn’t stupid enough to have a hippie crash in his hotel room. Like Jack Donaghy said in “30 Rock,” never go to a second location with a hippie.
Jenny and Forrest part ways again, but he gives Jenny his medal, which in my head canon she sells for cocaine later on. And as the bus with the hippies drive off, Jenny and Forrest give one another the victory signal, because of course they did in “How Boomers See History: The Movie.”
Brown: THEN, Forrest goes to New York for the Dick Cavett show. And aside from the cringy Lennon bit, here’s a recurring thing in the movie I find annoying: the media sucks at their job in this world.
Forrest ends up on national TV a lot in this movie. He’s a former All-American football player. He meets at least three presidents. He wins the Medal of Honor. Later, he runs across the country several times. He’s also a multi-millionaire who ran a shrimping empire and was an early investor in Apple.
And yet, every time he’s on TV, he’s introduced as some backwoods simpleton who comes out of nowhere.
Froemming: The movie is from his perspective and frankly, he is not a very reliable narrator.
Brown: Are you suggesting Forrest Gump is Joker-ing his way through this movie? I mean, we’ve never seen Forrest Gump and the Joker in the same room…
Froemming: I am just saying, the way he remembers it is what we are seeing. Also, this part of the script is lazy writing.
Outside the studio, Forrest hears the voice of an old friend. Kirk Hammet, with his long greasy hair and goatee is in his wheelchair and upset about something. Probably Dave Mustaine’s drinking problems.
Lt. Dan, now living in New York off the government so he is probably despised by the Right, has fallen on hard times. And he likes to get hammered. A lot. He would fit in on our midnight journalism Zoom calls.
Brown: Gump sticks around for New Years in New York with Lt. Dan, which leads to one of my favorite exchanges in film history.
Watching this movie in our current environment, I also decided that us, as the human race, are all Lt. Dan when the clock strikes zero on 2020. Just staring off into space, dead inside.
Froemming: Sinise has the best thousand-yard stare in movie history there. Also, that will really be us New Years Eve/Day.
Brown: This leads to a party at Lt. Dan’s apartment, which gets broken up when the girls start making fun of Forrest. Again, Forrest breaks up a good time, but this time, as he puts it, “she tastes like cigarettes.”
LOL
Froemming: Well, this is followed by Forrest meeting Richard Nixon and accidentally being the person who got the burglars arrested in the Watergate break-in. This and the Lennon thing are the two moments I truly hate in this movie.
Forrest is discharged and heads back home, where he gets endorsement deals because of all the ping pong fame he has. Which I guess was a thing in 1974.
With this endorsement money, Forrest heads to Bayou La Batre, where he buys a shrimping boat. Because that was Bubba’s dream. Forrest has no dreams of his own, like The Joker he is a blank slate with an unhealthy obsession with some hippie woman who keeps breaking his heart.
And he finds out that shrimping, a thing he has no idea how to do and has no experience in or any education besides the rants of Bubba, is hard.
Brown: Well, Forrest gets a new set of hands on deck when Lt. Dan makes good on a promise to become Forrest’s first mate if he were to become a shrimp boat captain.
Froemming: He just ran out of drinking money, didn’t he?
Brown: Forrest’s greeting is fantastic. I don’t remember the clown being so terrifying, though.
The shrimping still goes poorly, leading to Lt. Dan questioning God. And, as Forrest explains, that’s when God shows up.
Going back to how insanely quotable this movie is, any time the sky gets black and heavy rains come, I pull out the Lt. Dan line “YOU CALL THIS A STORM?!”
How did Gary Sinise not win an Oscar for this role?
Froemming: That is an excellent question. He is amazing in this.
Brown: The winner that year for best supporting actor was Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood.” I never saw that movie, Froemming. Was Lt. Dan robbed?
Froemming: Both are excellent acting jobs, so I wouldn’t say he was robbed on that.
Lt. Dan, screaming at God in a rainstorm, is probably my favorite moment in this.
After the rain takes out all their competition, Forrest and Dan find shrimping pretty easy now. That is a very odd message in this movie. Capitalism is easy when there is no competition!
And thus, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Corporation was born. Making these two dingdongs wealthy beyond their imagination, especially when Dan invests them in Apple Computers.
And the people on the bench draw the line of believability at this moment! Not him mooning LBJ or taking down the Nixon administration or inspiring “Imagine” or teaching Elvis how to dance? The idea this goofball is a millionaire is the moment that this tale makes zero sense?
The public education system in Alabama has failed everyone there.
Brown: Just as things are good and stable in Forrest’s life, here comes Jenny like she’s Brennan and Dale from “Step Brothers.”
After years of abuse with sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, including a near suicide backed by Skynyrd’s “Freebird,” Jenny comes home to Forrest.
Froemming: I was rooting for her to jump in that scene.
Brown: Also gotta mention before Jenny shows up, Forrest’s mom dies of cancer.
Mrs. Gump gives the famous line that life is like a box of chocolates. And I’m reminded of how stupid that line is. Boxes of chocolates have diagrams that tell you what each piece is. You don’t know what you’re gonna get if you’re an impatient lunatic who’s too gluttonous to look at the box.
So again, Forrest and Jenny are like peas and carrots, in that they’re terrible together. Jenny sleeps a lot while Forrest picks her flowers every day and treats her like royalty. To be fair, Forrest, it’s not healthy to put women on a pedestal. I’ve done it before. It leads to heartbreak.
Because Jenny is the love of his life, Forrest pulls the bold move of asking Jenny to marry him. She turns him down, and I cry at his reaction because I’m not a heartless human being like Jenny.
Froemming: Here is some sage advice, Forrest.
Brown: Jenny won’t let him. She has to dig her hooks into him deeper. How does Jenny accomplish this? Pity sex!
She’s gone the next morning, which leads Forrest to what he should have (REDACTED) done in the first place.
He runs away, across the country, for years.
Froemming: I do enjoy this part of the movie. I mean, he literally runs away from his problems. There have been many times I wanted to do that.
Brown: I felt like you did that in college when people bailed on writing Intermissions section articles. No one in the room blamed you.
Froemming: I did. And you did this to me:
Plus, along the way, he helps some people out. He comes up with the bumper sticker “Shit Happens,” which inspired millions of assholes to put that on their vehicles. He also comes up with a smiley face logo by wiping mud on a shirt from his face.
But my favorite is how it ends. In the middle of nowhere with a lot of followers, he says what I used to tell people when I wanted to leave a bar or any social situation:
“I’m pretty tired. Think I’ll go home now.”
That has evolved now into my infamous Irish Goodbyes.
Brown: And it’s through this running across America that Jenny reaches out to Forrest with a letter, which brings us to Forrest on a park bench with a box of chocolates and his Barack Obama-style beta male light suit.
After finding out that Jenny’s apartment is just a few blocks away, thereby making this entire experience a WASTE OF TIME for everyone, Forrest meets with Jenny once again.
Only this time, she has the ultimate emotional baggage over Forrest: a child. Turns out, his child.
Froemming: My take on this:
Brown: Now, the acting here by Hanks is top notch. I legit tear up as you see Forrest wonder if his boy is smart, showing how self-aware he is about his own mental capacity. I mean, if you watch this scene and don’t get emotional, you’re a Jenny-level sociopath.
After this bombshell, Jenny drops another: She’s sick. The doctors don’t know what it is — it’s heavily implied Jenny has AIDS — so in this moment, Jenny asks Forrest to marry her.
Yes, Forrest, marry this woman who is clearly doing it out of convenience instead of love.
Jenny is the (REDACTED) worst.
Also, if Jenny does in fact have AIDS, does that mean Forrest… what about Little Forrest… With that context, this scene from “Walker: Texas Ranger” gets a lot darker.
Conan has the response all of us should have while contemplating this.
Froemming:
So it is wedding day and Lt. Dan shows up with titanium legs. It looks more uncomfortable for him walking like that than when he was in his chair, but if it makes him happy. Jenny finally meets *checks notes* the other co-founder of Forrest’s multi-million dollar empire…
Sure. Figured that would have been one of the first people she would meet before they got hitched, what with her about to be married to his business partner and all.
Then Jenny kicks the bucket. She has ceased to be! She expired and gone to meet ‘her maker! She’s a stiff! Bereft of life, she rests in peace! Pushing up the daisies! Her metabolic processes are now history! She’s off the twig! She’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off her mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible.
Brown: And again, Hanks knocks it out of the park as we see Forrest talking to Jenny’s grave.
Any time things would get too emotional, Forrest would cut it off by saying “That’s all I got to say about that.” Here, we see Forrest actually processing grief and it’s heartbreaking.
Oscar bait? Maybe. But it’s really (REDACTED) good Oscar bait.
Froemming: And now, he gets to raise little Forrest on his own. Good thing he is a millionaire, which helps a lot I’d imagine. I enjoy seeing him interact with his son, and little Forrest helping him with his reading abilities.
Then, because everything is cyclical in this movie, on his first day of school young Forrest meets the bus driver like his old man before him.
And then Forrest is just going to sit on a stump for eight hours until his son is dropped off. I imagine he is like David Puddy waiting on phone calls.
Brown: As we watch a feather drift in the wind to bookend this movie, I have a question for you, Froemming: What other historical event do you wish Forrest Gump was a part of?
Froemming: 9/11.
Brown:
Me, I’d wanna see Forrest take down the money plane!
Froemming: And with that, let’s run down to recommendations!
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND?
Froemming: Yup, like I said I needed a comfort food movie with all the crap going on in the world.
Brown: It’s (REDACTED) “Forrest Gump.” Of course.
Here is what’s coming up for the next Joe-Down:
The JOE-DOWN 
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