Tag: robert zemeckis

Smug Film Podcast Episode #3 – Movies That Got Us Into Movies (4/21/14)

movietheaters 1:15:47 | View on iTunes | Download Mp3

On this episode, I am joined by fellow Smug Film contributors John D’Amico and Jenna Ipcar. We discuss the movies that got us into movies, and were our gateway into obsession. As always, we go on tangents along the way, take a quick break for a movie joke by comedian Anthony Kapfer, and then close the show with questions from our mailbag.

If you have a question for the show, leave it in the comments or email us at Podcast@SmugFilm.com.

If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to subscribe on iTunes, and leave a rating and a comment on there as well. Doing this helps us immensely as far as our ranking on there, which is what allows people to be able to discover us. Word of mouth is always best of all though, so spread the word!

Movie Stuff Referenced in this Episode:
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I Want To Talk About The Internet

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When YouTube started to happen, it seemed like the great leveler.  Kids in their basement suddenly had distribution equal to that of the major Hollywood studios.  And following in the wake of cheaper and better video equipment, it looked like the control of all media had shifted from ‘The Man’ to the everyman.

The results of this have been dismally revealing.

Thanks to the internet, and YouTube, we now have confirmation that 99.999% of all art completely sucks.  Before, we could only look to the establishment and their putrid output to see how bad everything is.  But with every person on earth making stuff, and throwing it up on there, we now have proof that almost nobody can make anything good.
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Forrest Gump: A Gritty Indie Film Masquerading as a Hollywood Epic

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Forrest Gump (1994)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay by Eric Roth
From a novel by Winston Groom
142 min.

I know it’s weird, but there are actual people who don’t like Forrest Gump.  (Dr. Seuss described this phenomena as having a heart three sizes too small.)  Sentimentality is a powerful thing—it makes people cry and tricks intellectuals into thinking art isn’t good.  It also tricks moms into thinking that a movie with LSD use, a guy blowing his load early, sexual bartering, and child molestation is appropriate for an 8 year old—or, maybe I just have a really cool mom.

I was flipping through the channels the other day (I don’t use ‘the guide’) and I landed on Forrest Gump, which is the epitome of a ‘whenever it’s on TV I have to finish it’ movie.  I landed on one of Jenny’s hippie scenes, the one where a dude pulls up in a Volkswagen Beetle and asks if anyone wants to go to San Francisco, and Jenny says “I’ll go,” and he says “Far out!”, like a very happy hippie.  At that moment, I had a realization: Forrest Gump is a pretty weird movie to be on ABC Family (which is the channel it was on).  When I was a little kid, Forrest Gump was just a big, fun movie that made me laugh and then cry at the end.  When I was eight, I didn’t understand that when Forrest is sitting on Jenny’s bed in her dorm and she takes off her shirt, he ejaculates early.  Forrest Gump is a gritty, indie film masquerading as a Hollywood epic.

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