One of 1994's best

Rating: Null/10 (13 March 1999)

I've seen a great many movies, but when I saw "Forrest Gump", I was delighted. I don't own it--I don't want to see it more than the two times I've seen it already, but this film was a valuable experience for me.
It wasn't the best film of 1994 (that would be "Pulp Fiction"), the best directed ("Natural Born Killers"), or even the best written ("Pulp...", "Clerks", "The Last Seduction"), but there hasn't been a whole lot of movies that have been as emotionally rich or powerful as this one. Robert Zemeckis has the power to exhaust me, whether it's my emotions ("Contact", this film), my visual cortex ("Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "Contact"), or my funny bone ("Used Cars"). His screenplay is responsible for anything positive that came out of Steven Spielberg's 1979 flop "1941", (except for that astonishing dance sequence). Here he tops his past films and screenplays and has not done quite as good since then.
I'll be honest: sentimentality has its proper place and time, and must be done right. This film has it. I laughed and cried, and was struck dumb with awe.
Its six Oscars meant that a few better films, performers, and technicians were robbed blind, but let's be real, folks: they're Academy Awards. It's a popularity contest, and as long as we see it for what it is, we can just sit back and enjoy them. "Forrest Gump" wouldn't get any prizes from me, for the simple reason that any category would be won by another film. But an Oscar? Sure, what the heck.