Forrest Gump - A Truly Memorable Story

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get." This quote is something we have all heard. Whether it is through a friend or even through the film Forrest Gump, we all recognize it.
   My boyfriend was out of town and my sister was busy, so naturally my instinct was to watch Netflix all night long. I chose the timeless film Forrest Gump directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Winston Groom (novel) and Eric Roth (screen play). I have seen this movie countless times. In fact it will remain as one of my favorites. However, I decided it would be a great idea to write a review on it especially for those of you who have not seen it. Now even if you have no idea what this movie is about, Tom Hanks is the star. Everyone can agree that Tom Hanks is a phenomenal actor. He is arguably one of the best of the generation. I cannot think of a movie in which Tom Hanks poorly executed a character. Therefore, this movie was destined for greatness, greatness bestowed by Tom Hanks.
  Our story begins with a young Forrest Gump in a small town in Alabama. He is different. He is not smart like the other kids and he has what his mama calls "magic legs" which is just a fancy way of saying he has a disability. Although every kid treats him poorly, Jenny Curran treats him as a human being. In fact, they become best friends. If you haven't seen this movie, here is my warning to you right now: do NOT be deceived by Jenny's sweet face and southern accent. She is not the southern belle that you expect her to turn out to be. Robin Wright did a fine job playing Jenny. I am sure she is a wonderful person but she played one of my most despised characters.So Forrest and Jenny go through life as best friends, but after high school they go separate ways. Forrest makes history and Jenny gets into a lot of bad situations like drugs and alcohol. Yet, here is the saddest plot line in the whole movie: Forrest achieves so many things to win the heart of Jenny Curran who runs away from him every chance she gets. Unfair right? SPOILER ALERT: after about thirty years of running away from Forrest, Jenny reveals that Forrest is the father of a child and that she is ready to marry him. Here is the plot twist though: she has AIDS. Just when you get closure and think everything is okay, everything falls apart. Jenny screwed up in my opinion. Most of us are guilty of friend-zoning a person whether we realize it or not. Yet, here is this guy who is standing in front of her doing absolutely everything he can to win her heart and he is never good enough. She had a troubled life and I will give her credit for that, but she had so many chances to turn her life around. He gave her so many chances. Although, Jenny is not all that bad. Forrest ends up a millionaire and she still won't date him after he makes his money. Kudos to you Jenny Curran for loving him in the end for his personality and not his money.
   Now I did learn some things from this movie. We can create our own destinies. No one believed in Forrest Gump and he turned out to be an incredible human being. Then again, I am biased seeing as Tom Hanks played him. It is really difficult to hate a Tom Hanks character. Maybe if Justin Bieber played the role of Forrest Gump my opinions would differ a bit. The second thing I learned is somewhat sad. Here we have a man with so many people he impacted and so many accomplishments and the one person who impacted him the most is Jenny Curran who did not care about him until the end. It is really sad to think that you can love a person with all your heart and they don't feel the same way back. You can dedicate your whole life to one person and they will not return the favor. But then again life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. I guess we have to take risks in life because we'll never know how it all ends.
   I would rate this movie 10/10 stars. Tom Hanks, you are a treasure. This movie will forever remain timeless with a phenominal cast and phenominal story. There are many historical aspects to the movie as well. Even if you don't like love stories, history enthusiests will have a party with this film. Miracles happen as Forrest Gump once said and this movie is one of them.

The Fault In Our Stars

So I realize that technically the movie The Fault In Our Stars has not yet been released; I just want to discuss the book. I just finished reading it today. I decided upon this novel because I refuse to be a heathen who sees a movie before reading the book. I am not sure whether to be happy or sad about it. There are two sides I've taken to this book: one is that it is a love story about a girl and a boy with a tragedy at the end (basically every cliché romance novel) or two that it is a representation of death that no one wants to admit. The book was relatively pessimistic, but I guess that makes sense because it is about cancer. Then again the focus is far from a cancer novel. In fact, I was very impressed by the metaphorical aspect of it all. The character Augustus Waters was the type of character I have longed to see for a very long time. I have not loved a character so much since the Harry Potter books. He is the charming, charismatic type of character that everyone just wants to read about more and more. Yet he represented the brutal truth of death. The book tells us that we are all a statistic in the greater scheme of life. Time screws us all over eventually. All of us have a set number of days left on this earth (some more than others). However I think the scariest idea represented in the book was that all of us strive to make a mark on the earth before we die. We want to believe that when we die, people will remember us forever that it will be this great tragedy. Yet this is not true. It is such a pessimistic view but it is merely the truth that all of us hate to admit. When we die the world keeps moving. People mourn but eventually we are nothing but a forgotten memory to most. The sad reality is that all of us have this moral duty to treat the dying better than the living. Not to ruin the book, *SPOILER ALERT* but when one character is dying he sees people who have not talked to him in three years. They act like his best friend but no virtually nothing about him. Nevertheless, I have to say that I enjoyed John Green's pessimism throughout the novel. Not that I am a pessimistic. I have quite the optimistic view on life. John Green forces the reader to see beyond a cliché love story. He wants us to realize that we cannot live our lives until we can accept that one day we will die. I highly recommend everyone to read this book. After all the movie is coming out in about two weeks.