Response 5

All The Way Through Forrest Gump

Last week, I was still trying to find an event I could use for an E1. Then on Friday, I got an email for an E1 opportunity that I was available for and seemed like fun: Someone would be showing Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption. This seemed simple enough. The email stated that it would start at 4 P.M. at the knuckle lounge on the 2nd floor of USuites. This seemed perfect because I live in USuites and I get out of my Calculus class at 3.

After I got back to my suite from Calculus, I just kind of relaxed for a bit. Every Friday, around that time, I call my dad to discuss when I want to come home for the weekend. Usually, he comes around 9:30 or 10, but I wasn't feeling that good at the time, so I wanted to be picked up around 7:30. Now what I forgot about at the time was that the email said that they would start Forrest Gump around 4, but they would start The Shawshank Redemption around 6:30. That being said, my dad and I already agreed he would pick me up around 7:30, and I didn't want to just start watching a classic movie like The Shawshank Redemption and leave in the middle of the movie.

So in Usuites, there are two separate lounges on each floor. And the email didn't specify which one, so I went down the stairs (the viewing was on the second floor, I live on the third floor), and I basically had to guess which lounge it was at. I had a 50/50 chance of getting it right. I went left because my suite is left of the elevators, so I walked down the hallway, turned around the corner, and I saw some other students watching ESPN. At first, I thought I was just early, but I looked at the time on my phone, and it said 15:59, since I have a 24-hour clock. Since the movie would have likely started by now, or at least been set up, I realized that this was the wrong lounge, so I turned around and went to the other lounge, which was literally on the other side of the building.

I get there, and I see that they already started the movie, the logos were on the large screen. The two girls hosting the event hand me a sign-in sheet as it is an E1, they want to prove I actually went. Only a couple of people, none of whom I've ever seen before, were there when I arrived, but more people started coming in, and by the time everyone who would attend the event arrived, there were about a dozen and a half people, roughly around 18-20 people.

I would like to point out that this is the first time I've ever watched through Forrest Gump all the way through, ever. My parents love this movie, understandably, and they would watch it every now and then, and I would usually walk in and catch them watching it, and it would usually be in the beginning of the movie, where Forrest gets chased by the bullies, Jenny yells "Run, Forrest, run!" and his leg braces miraculously break and fall off, and it is revealed he's a fast runner, or at the end, where it's revealed that he's sitting at the bus stop, waiting to catch the bus to visit Jenny, but she lives only a few blocks away, so he runs to her apartment and reunites with her after so long.

After watching 45 minutes of this movie, I now fail to see why I've missed out on this movie. I have now realized why this is one of the greatest movies of all time. I understand why this movie was picked to be placed in the U.S. National Film Registry for preservation, which they only do for "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films", like Star Wars, The Godfather, or Back to the Future.

This movie literally, not figuratively, is a masterpiece. From Tom Hanks' brilliant performance as Forrest Gump, from the premise that Forrest is literally telling strangers at the bus stop his life story, to even the way they digitally incorporate Forrest into real-life archived footage, like when Elizabeth Eckford walked into the Little Rock Central High School, and Forrest was standing there, not sure what was happening.

It was made clear watching this film that it is meant to be a comedy-drama film, and with Forrest's obliviousness to situations, like when Forrest met former President Nixon, and Nixon had him stay in the Watergate hotel, resulting in Forrest unknowingly uncovering the Watergate scandal, and he didn't know why Nixon resigned after that, or when he saves Lieutenant Dan in Vietnam, but Dan desperately wants to die with his men, and he initially hates Forrest for saving him, even though Forrest can't help but... help people. But of course, it's filled with incredibly sad moments, like when Bubba dies in the ambush in Vietnam, or when Jenny dies from an unknown virus.

You can expect that I will definitely watch this movie again the next time it comes on TV. And it worked out to because like I said earlier, this is an E1 opportunity, so I will definitely be using this for my E1. I will probably write something along the lines of what I wrote here, but it'll be fine.

So for the E1, I have to write down who hosted the event, so the two girls hosting the event flipped the sign-in sheet over and it showed their names and I took a picture of it so I can remember them when I write the E1.