VIDEO: The Curious Case Of Forrest Gump

COMMENTS (28)

• That’s funny

  Comment by just a thought — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 3:54pm PST  Reply to this post

• EXACTLY! Except Forrest Gump was far funnier and far more provocative than Button. The writers are one trick ponies. Nice try.

  What? No comment about Matt Wiener’s victory with Lion’s Gate? We can all breathe easy now.

  Comment by Daisy Red Rider — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 3:56pm PST  Reply to this post

• Too true! Now you’ve gone and ruined their Oscar chances! LOL!

  Comment by helenofpeel — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 4:09pm PST  Reply to this post

• Thank God someone finally pointed this out. Eric Roth should sue himself for plagiarism.

  Comment by Robin — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 5:00pm PST  Reply to this post

• There’s no new ideas in Hollywood, right?

  Comment by michael dobrofsky — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 5:15pm PST  Reply to this post

• Hilarious!!

  Comment by THE OBENSON REPORT ON BLACK CINEMA — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 5:32pm PST  Reply to this post

• I enjoyed Benjamin Button way more. I hate rewatching Forrest Gump, it’s just annoying the second time. I’ve seen Button thrice and I’m still loving it.
  - izi

  Comment by izikavazo — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 6:07pm PST  Reply to this post

• I said that while I was LEAVING THE SCREENING I WAS AT on Christmas eve…a guy we know had an academy screener. And…that was WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING that it had been written by the same guy. it is the same freaking movie.

  Comment by Jessica — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 6:31pm PST  Reply to this post

• They also forgot the Feather/Mockingbird thing and the Bus Stop bench/Dying Mother and Child comparisons. Forrest Gump I didn’t mind. Button made me want to shoot myself in the face.

  Comment by hatedthebb — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 6:50pm PST  Reply to this post

• And I would argue Roth got it right the second time. Finally. Because the only thing worse than FORREST GUMP are Stupid Americans who felt celebrated by it.

  Comment by blowhard — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 6:59pm PST  Reply to this post

• Button was unwatchable. Awful. Awful.

  Thank you.

  Comment by anhonestAnswer — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 7:20pm PST  Reply to this post

• let’s take a vote.

  Forrest Gump or Button?

  I vote Forrest.

  Comment by me — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 8:57pm PST  Reply to this post

• You guys are stupid. Is there anything you people DON’T complain about?

  Benjamin Button was far and away better than Forrest Gump.

  Comment by Shaking my head — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 10:18pm PST  Reply to this post

• Because of the way studios do business, writer like this are on very short lists when the budgets are big. And because after their success they become fearful and stagnant, they fall into hackery.

  Button is a big, bloated, boring film and the perfect evidence of our creative bankruptcy.

  The racial stereotypes in both film are particularly unsettling. (I bet the writer’s car is covered in Obama bumper stickers)

  I hope this ass-sore of a film doesn’t get one Oscar nomination.

  And I vote “Gump.”

  Comment by Anonymous — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 10:46pm PST  Reply to this post

• “new yet familiar” — so what’s the big deal?

  It’s supposed to be “new” in the sense of a new flavor of yell-o with a color that looks appetizing — Not in the sense of a brand new dessert you first would have to turn people on to. Way too avantgarde, way too risky or way too gay makes for very limited releases and miserable box-office.

  Some build their careers on ripping off aka paying hommage to other writers/filmmakers… At least Roth keeps it in the family.

  Where was the outrage at Baz Luhrmann’s MOULIN ROUGE? I felt cheated when I realized, halfway through, that I’ve seen this flick already, even though it was in b/w… so I knew the ending already. Now that sucked big time!

  Gump vs. Button? Are you kidding me? Button.

  Now I’m waiting for a comparison between that one-man Sundance film and that other Hanks film.

  Comment by AM — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 10:57pm PST  Reply to this post

• Benjamin Button also made me wnt to shoot myself in the face. Well put,

  Comment by love the hate the bb — Monday January 19, 2009 @ 11:32pm PST  Reply to this post

• The thing is, if you really-really think about it, Gump was more believable given the lead was born like all of us. Button was way too ‘out of this world’ premise with the birth of a baby that was actually an old man

  So for those who voted Button…

  Gump is for me given it was a movie about overcoming your disabilities and dreams, some of they do come true.

  Comment by Armand — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 4:05am PST  Reply to this post

• Gump is better, for sure, but it does have that one atrocious scene that almost ruins it.

  Gump, after returning from Vietnam, is going to speak his thoughts publicly about the war. But… the sound goes out on his mic so we can’t hear his opinion. Whether he supports or opposes the war — a choice that divided the country — is never told. It’s a complete cop out by the filmmakers so they didn’t have to potentially offend half their audience and everyone can have a feel good experience. So lame.

  But at least not as boring as that never-ending scene with Tilda Swinton and Brad having tea. Way to kill the momentum of the movie.

  Comment by George Glass — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 10:27am PST  Reply to this post

• Who said a movie had to be believable to be good?! Button all the way.

  Comment by The Hammer — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 10:41am PST  Reply to this post

• Button was bad. Gump FTW!

  Comment by marie — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 11:31am PST  Reply to this post

• That’s a really funny video. The similarities in the basic outer shells of the plots are undeniable but I still refuse to believe Fincher and Roth consciously went into the project with the specific intent of ripping off Bob Zemeckis. I’m sure Paramount was hesitant on giving the pricey, long-gestating project greenlight approval until they were presented with a script that adhered closely to the Gump formula code book. What nobody wants to mention is how apart the two films are in terms of the tone and content inbetween their trifling plot correspondences: Gump was a whimsical, syrupy, picaresque chronicle of a mentally challenged guy always being in the right place at the right time for historically momentous events and Button is a bittersweet elegy about transience. Since online people hate both films anyway, I don’t understand why they’ve become so obsessed with punctuating their similarities when they briefly take time off from fellating The Dark Knight. If you deem Button bad because you weren’t won over by the presentation of the story, so be it, but if you deem it bad on the basis that it’s a total, pound for pound facsimile of Gump, you’re just trying to be in lockstep with the unfair popular sentiment of others (many of which probably haven’t even seen it because the length of the film would take too long for them to steal via torrent).

  Comment by Gerald — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 12:52pm PST  Reply to this post

• I also found the films to be very similar, but if you’re going to do a point to point comparison, you’ve gotta play more fair — Button goes to war, sure, but that infantry footage is from the WWI prologue and has nothing to do with Button himself. And I’m not sure what “heroism” he’s supposed to have shown, other than just plain surviving.

  Comment by hair-splitter — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 3:20pm PST  Reply to this post

• Buttons was directed well, acting was good, story was good, and everything technical was good – yet it was boring. Am I the only one who thinks this?

  Comment by missing — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 4:46pm PST  Reply to this post

• To think, I thought Benjamin Button stole the whole aging backwards bit from “Mork and Mindy”, guess the filmmakers shopped elsewhere.

  Comment by Anonymous — Tuesday January 20, 2009 @ 7:36pm PST  Reply to this post

• Genius.

  Benjamin Bullcrap! Forrest Dump!

  They’re both laborious, literal, portentous, but ultimately meaningless reach-arounds on the American soul.

  Comment by Macmac — Wednesday January 21, 2009 @ 6:59pm PST  Reply to this post