Forrest Gump (1994) / Glenmorangie Nectar D'or Single Malt Scotch [6:52-10:26]

Like everybody loved Reservoir Dogs in what, 91, 92? 92. Yeah. Yeah, so a few years later, you know, he makes this masterpiece of a film. And then you have the pop sensation that is Forest Gump. And I can understand why critics would be annoyed that it would win. I think I'm curious if there's a difference between critical reception before the Oscars and then critical reaction to the Oscar win. Like did critics like the movie just plain and simple on their review, were critics a fan of this film before it got caught up in the politics of Hollywood? I think critics were like, you know, when you look up a movie on Metacritic, if it's like under an 80 or 85, it doesn't say universal acclaim. It says like generally positive reviews. And I think that's a good way to sum it up. They were like lukewarm on this movie. Like, hey, it's a pretty good movie. It's got great visual effects. It's a fantastic summer movie to go see obviously they had its detractors as well. But again, this is when the Oscars had a lot more cache in our society. And so even though a lot of movie critics have never put too much emphasis on the Oscars, it was still like the popular mechanism for saying, hey, history, this is the movie from this year that we think represents the year in film. And when you have a movie like pulp fiction break into that five nominee category, it's almost like, oh my gosh, like this movie could really do it. This is a revolutionary film in American history. And then to lose, but not just to lose, but to lose the force gump is kind of, I think the turning point with a lot of critics. And it's not necessarily that they hated the movie. It's just like you gave a three star movie the Oscar in a year where we really could have like coordinated something new and exciting in American cinema. And again, I think that's fair or not, I think that's what happened there. You say three star, but famed reviewer, and I would say the favorite of this podcast, Roger Ebert gave it a four star review. He sure did. I was coming for a scum. Roger Ebert loved a good time at the movies. You know what I mean? And Roger Ebert was also like much more than his peers, I think, susceptible to exciting visual effects in movies. And at the time, the VFX and forest gump were cutting incredible. Yeah. Yes. And I think that the spectacle of it definitely tipped his hand. He also gave like the first Harry Potter movie four stars. And yeah, which I think is like kind of a good comparison here, because I wouldn't call that a perfect movie. But it was something that was new. It was something that was exciting. It was at the cutting edge of what we could do with technology at the time. And so, yeah, I see why Roger Ebert gave it four stars. I also see why Bob Book is not going to give it four stars. So, can I read you one line from the Ebert review that just may be laugh really hard? Yeah, sure. So he's talking about how forest IQ is 75. And you might be able to argue that forest can't understand everything that's happening to him. But Ebert is saying that he does. And he says he even understands everything that's important about love. Although Jenny, the girl he falls in love with in grade school and never falls out of love with, tells him forest. You don't know what love is. She is a stripper by that time.