UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ - What Lies Beneath -- in 4k UHD (1 Viewer)

[TonyD]

I love Forrest Gump and have it at #20 on my list of favorite movies and I don't think he jumped the shark with Beneath, he's had very good movies since that one.

I will say that maybe cliches went over the rails when people started saying "agree to disagree" instead of just saying "disagree"

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I still haven’t seen Cast Away! Someone blew the ending for me way back when and that’s all I think about when the film is mentioned and that gets in my way of wanting to watch it.

I thought The Walk was the closest he’s come to that feeling of youthful exuberance and sense of wonder that his great run in the 80s had. The visual fluidity on display, particularly in the 3D space during the tour de force finale, are masterful and overcome a rather paint-by-numbers script.

Death Becomes Her is something I still enjoy a lot. I hear the musical is pretty good too.

 

[TravisR]

I still haven’t seen Cast Away! Someone blew the ending for me way back when and that’s all I think about when the film is mentioned and that gets in my way of wanting to watch it.

Yeah, that person was the damn trailer.

 

[Worth]

It's interesting to examine Zemeckis’s body of work in light of his being, sort of, a Spielberg acolyte, because the start of his career promised the arrival of something like an edgier, more rambunctious Spielberg. I think his first two movies, I WANNA HOLD YOUR HAND and USED CARS, are still among his best, and in a way the latter is the movie Spielberg tried to make with 1941 (which Zemeckis had a hand in writing), but he was ultimately too much of a showman to really roll around in the mud with the material...

At least some of the credit for that has to go to his former writing partner Bob Gale. I think the movies they did together were better than anything Zemeckis has done solo.

 

[JoshZ]

Personally, I think Forrest Gump is one of the best movies ever made in the 1990s. However, what do I know except what I like in cinema because I can understand why other people wouldn't like it.

I've had many arguments about Forrest Gump over the years and don't mean to start another one here. However, I will say that, despite its great success, I believe even Zemeckis may have felt he went too far with that one. In many ways, Contact can be seen as a corrective against Gump. It's a movie about intelligent, driven people who are very good and passionate about their jobs working at the utmost of their talents and abilities.

Watching it in the theater in 1997, I could practically feel Robert Zemeckis trying to shake off "Stupid is as stupid does" and make a movie about smart people again.

Even when I wrote my post, I was questioning if WLB was Zemeckis's definitive Jump-the-Shark moment: There are certainly a few candidates. I considered the Back to the Future sequels as potential shark-jumping moments, but it turned out those were only dolphins.

I can understand feeling BTTF 2 and 3 are lesser movies than the original. I don't even disagree with that opinion. But having watched them all recently with my kids, the sequels hold up better than I expected, and the totality of the trilogy as a three-film arc is very strong (even if the original was not actually written with sequels planned).

THE POLAR EXPRESS didn’t become a perennial Christmas favorite for an entire generation by accident,

I have no idea how The Polar Express became a Christmas favorite. That movie is an absolute Uncanny Valley nightmare. My kids used to like it when they were little, and I've suffered through many viewings of it. Even the abridged version that used to play in IMAX and motion simulator rides is unbearable.

 

[SD_Brian]

I will say that maybe cliches went over the rails when people started saying "agree to disagree" instead of just saying "disagree"

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

It drives me nuts when people say, "I don't disagree with you," instead of simply saying "I agree with you."

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I don’t disagree

I totally get where you’re coming from but I feel like “I agree” and “I don’t disagree” have different meanings, maybe it’s just in how I use them. “I agree” is pretty straightforward when I say it, but when I say “I don’t disagree” I feel like the subtext there in my head is “I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying but I’m also not passionate enough about this issue to make a big deal about it or get on board with what you’re trying to sell.” That may just be a me thing, though. I feel it’s more neutral than straight up agreeing with someone, while still acknowledging the validity of their point.

 

[SD_Brian]

I don’t disagree

I totally get where you’re coming from but I feel like “I agree” and “I don’t disagree” have different meanings, maybe it’s just in how I use them. “I agree” is pretty straightforward when I say it, but when I say “I don’t disagree” I feel like the subtext there in my head is “I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying but I’m also not passionate enough about this issue to make a big deal about it or get on board with what you’re trying to sell.” That may just be a me thing, though. I feel it’s more neutral than straight up agreeing with someone, while still acknowledging the validity of their point.

We'll have to agree to don't disagree.

 

[Tommy R]

I don’t agree or disagree to agreeing to disagree.

Unless you’re disagreeing with the fact that Zemeckis puts WAY too much in his trailers and hurts his movies.

 

[FatherDude]

At least some of the credit for that has to go to his former writing partner Bob Gale. I think the movies they did together were better than anything Zemeckis has done solo.

Well, he almost never writes solo -- I think A CHRISTMAS CAROL is the only screenplay he has the sole credit on -- though it would have been cool to see the two Bobs writing together again. I know they intended to reunite in the early 2000s with a movie about Curtis 'Bombs Away' LeMay, but for whatever reason it didn't get off the ground. I believe John Milius was tooling around with a LeMay script back in the day as well.

 

[JoshZ]

I totally get where you’re coming from but I feel like “I agree” and “I don’t disagree” have different meanings, maybe it’s just in how I use them. “I agree” is pretty straightforward when I say it, but when I say “I don’t disagree” I feel like the subtext there in my head is “I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying but I’m also not passionate enough about this issue to make a big deal about it or get on board with what you’re trying to sell.” That may just be a me thing, though. I feel it’s more neutral than straight up agreeing with someone, while still acknowledging the validity of their point.

No, you are correct. "I don't disagree" has a different meaning than "I agree."

"I don't disagree" implies ambivalence from the speaker, who may not fully agree with the original statement but recognizes the other viewpoint and doesn't feel it worth arguing about.

 

[Wayne Klein]

I think the term "classic" is in the eye of the beholder. Other than that, unfortunately classic has just become a marketing word.

I think it’s a very good thriller. As to being a classic, well, that will depend on the eye often beholder. It does play cleverly with our expectations due to casting and the twist, while it might be evident, does work pretty well.

 

[Wayne Klein]

Personally, I think Forrest Gump gets too much flack and with massive box office and Oscar success, it's an easy target. I understand the criticisms of it but I certainly don't think it's as bad as I've seen its critics declare it. History is written by the winners so with the movie being a huge hit, its Oscar wins and it being the movie where Tom Hanks fully became THE Tom Hanks, it's guaranteed that Gump will be long remembered long after I'm dead.



I can see that. When you look at movies like 1941, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Used Cars or Back To The Future, you can see the guys writing those movies were zany dorks just having fun and nowadays, he's making much more serious movies. There's nothing wrong with the personal growth on Zemeckis' part but I do miss the 'fun' side of him from his early days.

While I think it’s lost some of its allure, it’s still a very good movie and plays with expectations-on the surface it appears to be a much less subversive film and its satire works pretty well.