The most ridiculous movie I have ever seen in my life

Rating: 5/10 (18 June 2000)

OK, before I tear this movie to shreds, exactly HOW many Academy Awards did the stupid thing win? No, wait, don't tell me. I have a feeling the answer will depress me.
This hype--er, movie--is a living testament to the fact that the baby boomers are incredible suckers. It's quite simple, really. You make a movie that romanticizes the '50's, '60's and '70's, and with enough publicity and a good enough soundtrack, no matter how bad the movie is, you have a hit on your hands. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the generation is stupid or shallow by any means; I'm merely saying that perhaps the haze of nostalgia that obstructed their view of the movie screen during Forrest Gump is what made this trash a hit.
Because Forrest Gump is one ridiculous, unbelievable joke followed by another, and when Forrest isn't teaching Elvis how to dance, giving Lennon the idea for "Imagine" or, in an embarrassing scene I only WISH I could call "forgettable", wiping his face on a clean shirt and making a smiley face with the dirt by accident ("Have a nice day," he says to the man who gave him the shirt, thankfully ending one of the "clever" scenes that surely had everyone rolling in the aisles); his life is taking another depressing turn that makes this less "feel-good movie of 1994" than "number 1 movie of 1994 to commit suicide to". He's born crippled with an IQ of 75; the neighborhood kids taunt and throw rocks at him; his "girlfriend" Jenny leads him on hopelessly while sleeping with every man in America except for him; his best friend dies in Vietnam and his superior has his legs blown off. Feelin' good yet? Oh, it gets better.
But even if Forrest Gump IS depressing, that doesn't make it a bad movie. What makes it bad is, as I said before, the silliness. Sure, putting him in all those vintage newsreels is cute and even pretty cool to see. But the cuteness wears thin pretty soon, and is replaced by more ridiculous events in which Forrest inadverently alters NEARLY EVERY IMPORTANT EVENT IN AMERICA, FOR THREE ENTIRE DECADES. Maybe that's appealing to some people, but not for me. For me, it makes the movie completely unbelievable, and what's more, stupid. This is not cute, and I certainly wasn't feeling good when I realized I'd wasted over two hours of my life listening to Forrest Gump's preposterous anecdotes.
In the end, the movie's few saving graces--the good but predictable soundtrack ("For What it's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield in a Vietnam scene...great! Only 300 other movies before have done the exact same thing!), and the interesting effects with the newsreels--fail to rescue this bomb from the clutches of mediocrity. Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis can have Oscars coming out of their friggin' ears, for all I care...this movie will only ever amount to a 5 out of 10 in my book.