Pulp Fiction or Forrest Gump? I saw this somewhere else here, where Forrest Gump seems to be viewed more favorably than Pulp Fiction.

You may remember back in 1994, when Forrest Gump beat out Pulp Fiction for the Best Picture Oscar. While Forrest Gump, a box office sensation, was your uncle's type of movie, Pulp Fiction, a breakthrough of narrative leaps and bounds, became a critical darling, mounting a run for Best Picture before coming up short. Overall, it seemed like Gump would get the Oscar while Fiction would remain the lasting film landmark.

Now 14 years later it seems like Pulp Fiction and the "Tarantino genre" either haven't aged well or are suddenly more fashionable to dismiss. And somehow Forrest Gump seems to be viewed more favorably overall.

Fashionable or not, I still see Pulp Fiction as miles ahead of Forrest Gump in terms of cinematic achievement. Not only did it largely break the long-standing tradition of the linear narrative (not the first to do so, but the most influential), but it also almost singlehandedly launched an entire genre of Tarantino-type movies with plenty of notable entries throughout the next decade.

And Forrest Gump, while a very good movie in my opinion, was only covering old ground (Being There, for one), but with top-notch acting and production values.

So is it Pulp Fiction or Forrest Gump that's best stood the test of time?[/i]

I love both movies, but Gump is in my top 3 favorites of all time.

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I said this in the previous discussion, Shawshank was better than both of them. I think Forrest Gump was better than Pulp Fiction though. Im not a huge Tarantino fan.

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Loved both and each had some innovative work in them. It may be hard to remember now but the manipulation of old footage with new voice over work was cutting edge at the time.

Pulp Fiction is the type of movie every film student wants to create.

Social significance doesn't necessarily make it a better film. That being said, I'll stop channel surfing if either one of them are on, and both are in my top 10 films of all time.

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I don't know if it's a chick thing or not, but I have a hard time getting into any Tarantino movie. Plus...the violence really bothers me.

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Seriously?

I always have, and always will, loathe Forrest Gump. Pulp Fiction was great but I now agree with FavreFan that Shawshank was the best movie that year.

Like I also mentioned in the other thread, if I were making a list of my favorite movies I'd start with Ghostbusters at the top and work my way down.

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Pulp Fiction. In a landslide.

Both are great movies for very different reasons.

But I would have to give the edge to Gump. Basically because I can quote just about every line from the film...

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I like the Shawshank love, but whats up with the vitriol for Gump?

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I just find the movie a little too "syrupy" and sappy. Also a little too unrealistic.

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Unrealistic? No way!

I think its really, really cool how they have a character like Forrest Gump do social commentary on events throughout our history from a more naive, innocent perspective. Also the "Imagine" scene on the talk show with John Lennon is awesome.

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Pulp Fiction and Silence of the Lambs are the two most important and most perfectly realized commercial films of the 1990s.

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Fuck John Lennon.

I'd prefer to go one year later and take The Usual Suspects....I know that's not the question but I just wanted to throw it out there.

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If its fair its outta here!!

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I'm interested...please elaborate Midget. I've never seen 'Lambs so I don't have that perspective though.

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Gump is alright but I don't understand the love for it. Pulp Fiction is a better movie but I don't think either would make my top 10 favorite list.

Paul Newman should have won that year instead of Hanks.

No. John Lennon, more than any person except maybe Elvis, ruined music for all time. Music is dead, and the Beatles killed it, and John Lennon was the worst of the lot. Music will never recover from his destruction.

You cant say something that completely idiotic and not expand on the WHY? aspect.

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Note: I do not mean to say that I'm happy he was shot. I am not. I simply wish that he could have used his influence for good, like renouncing every piece of crap he ever produced and moving to rural Uzbekistan to become a goat herder, where he'd never be seen or heard again.

Paul McCartney can still go this route.

Again what did he do to damage music? Thats an insane assertion. He made some absolutely beautiful music.



He did.

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Listen to the river sing sweet songs
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Are you speaking specifically of the Beatles as a band, or John Lennon as a soloist?

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Here's the simple why (there are doctoral theses that can be written about this):

Rant on-

Classical (orchestral) music was not yet dead in the 1950s. It was in decline, but it had been in decline before, and it could have been temporary. There were still great composers in the world. Maestros were celebrities. There were other legitimate outlets of music as well, including well developed strains of jazz, but I'm less expert about these.

Here I should make a quick pitch for orchestral music and the Western musical tradition. A lot of people think that all "classical" music sounds alike. It does not. Western music is like the Africa of music; just like there is more genetic diversity within one tribe in Africa than there is in two different tribes on different continents elsewhere in the world, there is more diversity and change within the greatest composer's canons that there is in any other genre. I will defend this technically if need be.

Anyway, The Beatles and their popularity was always more a sociological and demographic challenge to music than an outright challenge. The Beatles harmonic language is laughably simple compared to composers like Palestrina, who wrote in the 16th century, not to mention later composers, whose language grows exponentially more complex.

Liking the Beatles was an emotional statement, and more importantly an outgrowtn of youthful ignorance. It was a stance against "old" music. All generations have done this; the only difference is, every other generation has turned towards an even richer harmonic language. The Beatles were the first incredibly popular group to strip every novelty and complexity out of music and deem it important.

None of this would have been nearly so awful, except that the rise of the Beatles occurred alongside the last significant population surge in Western history. Taste is often a numbers game, and since the baby boomers formative years were spent idolizing the Beatles, we're doomed to a world where the Beatles are actually important. Other musical markets have dried up, and orchestral music, much like modern art, turned down a series of blind alleys, no longer finding it possible to compete with pop music.

One of the greatest heritages of Western society is the music it created. There is great literature all throughout the world and in almost all ages, but Western music is something special. No other society has learned how to so effectively manipulate tone and established a refined theoretical framework for understanding tone. But that's all lost. No longer is chord structure or progression important; now, people listen for lyrics (which is poetry, at best) or melody (which is the simplest aspect of music unless you're really original or good at it, which almost no one is consistently.) It's as though no one remembers how to read or write, and people debate what books are best by determining which burn the brightest. That's the state of modern music, and John Lennon is more responsible than any other person. I will never forgive him.

Rant off.

uhhh guys...YOU COULDN'T BE MORE IN WRONG SECTION TERRITORY.

Now as for "Pulp Fiction" vs. "Forrest Gump"--this is why awards for creative works is always a hypocrisy...an award is an objective thing (it's an object, afterall...rhmm) and yet it's being presented in the most subjective field there is...grammy's, emmy's, oscars--it's all just really more about status than anything else.

"Forrest Gump" was an easy pick for Picture because it was the most crowd pleasing.

"Pulp Fiction", and most "ground breaking" movies, will ALWAYS win a screenplay award--but that's it. It's when Tarantino makes HIS "Forrest Gump" (like Spielberg did with "Schindler's") that he'll win director or his movie win Best Picture. But Tarantino could give a flying fuck about the Oscars.

I personally think "Pulp Fiction" was nowhere near the electricity and originality of "Reservoir Dogs" but is still a damn entertaining flick.

On TM's note, "Silence of the Lambs" was a masterpiece. If you haven't seen it, you should. Fuck "Red Dragon" and the rest of the "trilogy" this is the only one worth watching--with a nod to Michael Mann's version of "Red Dragon" in the 80's, "Manhunter". Brian Cox made a great Lector.

And I hate to contribute to this lame argument about John Lennon "ruining" music but Jesus Christ...if that becomes more of a mainstream thought, I really pity the upcoming generations...

There's no "let's save the world" boilerplate long enough to cover up the shame of destroying the greatest heritage of society. OK, maybe he wasn't the only one. But he was at the forefront.

Wow... I dont even know what to say. If you think Sgt. Peppers is very simplistic, I would love to see you try to duplicate it. You'd be very rich and famous if you could, and if it were that easy. It's absurd to blame one person for how music has shifted in this world. He was very influential, not sure he was that influential though.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

For anyone who wants to oppose me, I want more than "I really like John Lennon" or "the songs are nice." Get into the music. Find something- anything- that hasn't been done musically before. I'm going to repeat this again- get into the music. Follow the chord progressions. Read the modulations. And point out exactly where The Beatles are superior to what came before. I don't want airy tropes about new sounds or anything. Let's talk about the actual music. If you're not prepared to do so, or if you can't, then I have no patience for being told by a musical illiterate (which you would be, since you can't read and comprehend music) than my opinions about The Beatles and Lennon killing music are incorrect.