Posted on 05/24/2005 2:27:36 PM PDT by wagglebee
The book was different in several different ways. True, Forrest could run like the wind, but he was also 6'6" tall. He was also what we used to call an idiot-savant, kinda like Rainman. He couldn't spell his way out of a box, but he was a genius at some complex area of mathmatics. He went into professional wrestling, but wouldn't marry Jenny even (putting it off) though they were living together. In addition, Bubba Gump shrimp company was actually based upon raising shrimp in saltwater ponds/marshes after he got the idea from a little Vietnamese guy.
Finally, he was always being asked to give a speech after ending up in the news in some way or another. He always said the same thing, (which the movie touched upon when he met JFK). He'd say, "I got to p..."
"Better Times Than These", about a 7th Cavalry company in the Ia Drang Valley, early in the Viet Nam war....
Great book!
It was the highest grossing movie released in 1994. Lots of people loved it. I would have rather had Pulp Fiction win that year but anyway.
It's really a sad chapter in our cultural history.
The New York Times used to be an excellent newspaper.
"that today's American soldiers are the imperial Hessians"
The Hessians that fought in the Rev. War were not "imperial". They were conscripted by the British. Some did not return to Germany...including one of my ancestors who was captured and escaped.
Lately I have been looking at the films fro m what I call "the Golden Age of Westerns" (mostly from the very late 30's thru the very early 60's, people like Ford, Houston, Wayne, etc.) and I am struck just how good those films are Yet they are quite low tech and with very little pretension. They are also quintessentially American. The common strain through them is a focus on mythos rather than ideology, and they assume that the viewer is at least as intelligent as they are.
Hollywood needs to return to the vaults and have a collective gander at there predecessors' works, and take some humility with them.
I did like Gary Sinise, though. He always does a great job.
She can read, sorta. She moves her lips but eventually gets through parts of it.
During World War II, targets (you know, for target shooting)had Japanese faces on them. I suppose, today, that would be considered racist. But they were the enemy, and anyone who would dare consider them racist would have their patriotism called into question. Being unpatriotic in WWII could be bad for your health.
Yeah, that's true. I was thinking back to my college days when we read Voltaire. My one professor went on and on about Candide, then made us watch the film Being There with Peter Sellers. The basic premise was: The noble idiot is so wise that he doesn't need logic and intellectual pretense. In fact, logic and intellect were simply evil producs of white male superiority, and were thus BAD THINGS.
Well, Candide was a satire of such ideas and Leibnizian optimism in general. Voltaire didn't like Rosseau.
PJ O'Rourke had a great rant against the idiocies of Rousseau in one of his books, unfortunately I can't remember which one....
Try Groom's "Better times than these"; I think you'll be a convert.
Good for Winston Groom! The NYT just cannot stand ANYTHING that will put America in a good light.
I believe it was one of the producers (Tisch)--but it could have been the screen writer. But you VHS record every Oscar ceremony, don't you? Please watch it for yourself.
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