‘Forrest Gump’ Live From D.C. With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Mallory Rubin
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The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the Bill Simmons Podcast. You can find The Watch with Chris Ryan. You can find The Big Picture with Sean Fantasy. You can find House of R, our Ringerverse podcast with Mallory Ribbon. The four of us were in Washington, D.C. two weeks ago, and we broke down one of the great pop culture movies of the last 30 years, Forrest Gump.

Wow, is this fun. Wow, is Mallory on one. This is just a rollicking affair. We had such a good time. Thanks to everybody who came out in D.C. for the cold weather tour. Here it is, Forrest Gump. Paramount Pictures presents... My name's Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest Gump. The story of a man... Are you stupid or something?

Stupid is stupid does sir who was good at just one thing Life Tom Hanks, I'm not a smart man But I know what love is Forrest Gump rated PG 13 starts Wednesday, July 6 at theaters everywhere Wow

Look at you crazy MFers. Jesus. Waiting outside in the cold. Over there is Chris Ryan. She has family in attendance. Yeah. The mother of dragons, Valerie Rubin. The one, the only, Sean Fennessey.

My name is Bill Simmons. We have three children of divorce up here and Chris White. We should have done Kramer vs. Kraber or Marriage Story. Would that have been good? That's the encore. Marriage Story? We'll do that maybe later. Encore. We're here to talk Forrest Gump. Classic DC movie.

You all feel like this is a DC movie? We kind of cheated. This movie is about America. It's America. We're going to relocate to Tuscaloosa at intermission. This movie came out in 1994. There was a backlash, then there was a frontlash. I think we're like midlash now. Sean, complicated relationship with this movie. You're like me.

Deep down, you love it. I do. You and I, we have talked about this movie before. You're still getting over it. I'm coping, for those of you who heard that episode. It complicated for a variety of reasons, right? Really exciting, bold movie from a great filmmaker, but also came out the same year as the movie that changed my life, Polarize.

Pulp Fiction was the, that was the movie that changed everything for me. But also, I watched Forrest Gump on a plane this week and I was just bawling the whole time. I cried like five times. The movie just touches me. CR? I think that this is the weirdest, biggest movie ever made. Like, I think that there's a world in which this movie is the room. You know, it's like the scion of the KKK becomes an SEC kick returner and he's not a war hero.

and then invest in Apple. - Mal, what's your relationship with this movie? Because you love "A Good Cry." - Love "A Good Cry," I watched this movie with my mom, who you'll be able to hear screaming throughout the evening. That's her! - Yes!

watched it when it first came out, and then many times I would say it was a mainstay in our household. You know, I love the American myth. I love college football. I love joining some of my closest friends and colleagues on stage in front of 850 people to talk about young Forrest prematurely ejaculating into...

Jenny's room is back. Don't step on my corner. I have a whole bit. Come on. I'm getting a blanket and everything. We're going to really do this. I hope you guys like this kind of humor because it's all that anyone has prepared tonight. Premiere magazine in 1994, of which I have a copy, I've described this movie when it was coming out as a combination of being there meets zealot in terms of endearment with a touch of world accord and a garp.

It's kind of accurate. Sounds amazing. So we'll walk you through what happened because I'm actually old enough to remember this. This movie comes out and it becomes an absolute phenomenon. It's huge. But it's the same year as Pulp Fiction. And then it's the same year as Shawshank, which kind of creeps up and becomes this movie that everyone's like, hey, man, I saw Shawshank. That movie changed my life. And it was kind of word of mouth. And by the time we got to the Oscars, Forrest Gump was favored to win everything. And people were like, fuck that movie.

And that was the next 10 years of Forrest Gump, Sean. Yeah, I think because it was framed as a movie made by and for baby boomers. And it's the world, it's America in the second half of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of people who were young when these events were happening. As opposed to if you were like me and you were 12 and you were like, I need to see a man stab Uma Thurman in the heart with a syringe. That is America to me. So many people want to see Pulp Fiction on the rewatch. Yeah.

Do you remember the backlash, Chris? Yeah, because Pulp Fiction was cool and this was for Squares. And this was like a double disc Motown boomer cathedral soundtrack. And Pulp Fiction was like all these incredible songs nobody had really heard before. But at the same time, over the course of time, when you get out of the context of it versus Shawshank Red versus Pulp Fiction, I think it does take on a life of its own.

I remember by like 1998, after I'd watched Shawshank and watched Andy and Red Hug enough times, I really hated Forrest Gump. Yeah. I was like, how did this movie not win? This is the most important movie ever made. And Pulp Fiction is probably second. Right around 2004, 10 year anniversary, the Internet has arrived at that point. And the Internet basically exists for people to just get furious to Forrest Gump.

won all these awards over Pulp Fiction Shawshank. And I think that was the peak of the backlash. And then something weird happens from that point on. It was on a lot, and it's like, you know what? This movie's really good.

And then by 2014, it's like, God damn, why did Jenny have to die? And then by 2020, you're like, oh man, this is a great one. Jenny just loves a party, though. Wow. Who had five minutes for the first Romo impression from Chris? She's coming back, Jim. But I think we're...

I think we are now in the zone of this movie's back. 30 years later. It's the 30 year anniversary of this year. I love this movie. I think it's for the same reason that the movie worked in the first place, which is that I'm sentimental about watching Forrest Gump 30 years ago. And the movie is about being sentimental about being 18 or 25 or the first time you prematurely ejaculate in front of a woman. These are critical moments in a person's life. And I view Forrest Gump the same way.

Hanks. He has this run from 92 to 2000. League of their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Up and Comer 7. Not a lot of people realized he was in that. It's a porn movie. Oh, wait. My notes are wrong. Toy Story, that thing you do, Saving Private Ryan, you've got mail. Toy Story 2, The Green Mountain Castaway, and yet Sean thinks Tom Cruise had a better career. No. No. That isn't what I said.

What I said and what Chris backed me up on, and if you let me dangle here, you're fucked later, is I think Tom Cruise is the superlative movie star. I still agree with this. You agree with this, CR? Yeah, I agree with it at the time. Fucking traitor. You guys were just locked in your, like, you're the dragon fight when this happened. I was like, yeah, Sean's right. Mal, you get a tie-breaking vote. Harrison Ford. Oh.

So, Hanks, this is, I'm going to say, the peak of I'm going to play a character with something wrong with him and potentially win the Oscar, which was one of the reasons we had the backlash. This starts Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot, and Hoffman, Rain Man. Two really good movies. Hanks and Gump. It starts to go sideways with Jodie Foster and Nell. Not sure if you guys have seen that movie.

It's an atrocity. She grew up in the woods and has her own woods language. It's really bad. Isn't Liam Neeson the doctor in that? He's trying to coax her into society. I wish he had killed her. Will you do the rest of this pod in the Nell language? In the Nell voice? Val Kilmer at first sight.

Blind guy regains his sight and then loses it again, but doesn't lose the girl he loves, Mira Sorvino. That's bad. Sean Penn and I am Sam. This is when the wheels really came off, leading to Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller as Special Jack. And then we were done. That was it. Until Emma Stone and poor things. But Hanks wins the Oscar over Morgan Freeman. How do we feel about this, Mal?

This is the most iconic performance of his career, right? Are you going to ride for Castaway? So you're saying you would still, you're redoing the Oscars 30 years later. We just get to reset button it.

I don't think it's an indefensible or all that controversial win. Like, it's fine. Right? Sean, host of The Big Picture, doing a post-Oscars podcast on March 11th. Could you imagine that episode? Are you apoplectic if this happens? Are you just losing it if this happens? Yeah, we just cancel the pod. Tarantino not getting Best Director is, I think, much more glaring. I never really thought that was unworthy. You think just because he had just previously won for Philadelphia that they didn't need to give him a second one? He's...

Have you guys seen Tom Hanks and Forrest Gump? The movie would be... That's where I landed as well. Tom Hanks is amazing in Forrest Gump. I thought Freeman's Amazing in Shawshank. It's just one of those years. What were the other nominees that year?

I have this, actually. Travolta? Well, your guy Nigel Hawthorne and Madison King George. I had a poster of him on my wall in high school. Just big Nige, just hanging out, yeah. Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool, a Sean favorite, and then John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. I think Hanks was amazing in this movie. I mean, he's the best part of this movie.

So I'm okay with it. Yeah, I mean, he is literally the only part of this movie. What about Bear Bryant? That's true. Now, where do you stand on movies that stay with one character over a long period of time? And who would play you in the Mallory Rubin over a long period of time? Oh, I mean, somebody who had a lot of gray hair at 32. That's going to be one of the prerequisites, I think.

I love following a character across the course of their life. I'm looking forward to the boyhood podcast that we get to do one day. Wonderful film. Delightful. It's...

from the overall structure of the film, which is like you're telling the story of American history through the story of this person's life. It is like every other aspect of the film, the genius and the absolute befuddlement entwined inextricably because like Sally Field is playing Tom Hanks' mother and is 10 years older than him and that doesn't make any sense. And also Tom Hanks looks the exact same age overall.

over literal decades of this show. They made John Lennon's mouth move on the Big Cabot show, but didn't think, like, what if we added a little gray around the temples? Right.

I always thought, so like one of the things that, I think the reason why the movie ultimately works though is because they're making this movie from his perspective, right? Like they're essentially making a movie that has like a childlike innocence to it. Like I, this has been discussed in many of the 30th anniversary pieces you were referring to, but like this idea that when he goes to New York, all he sees is our taxi cabs. So like on the Avenue, it's just like hundreds and hundreds of taxi cabs, even though probably

in reality not that many caps right but it's like his mind sees it that way because and he does a great job of reflecting that in the performance you're really getting into unanswerable questions but the is forrest gump completely diluted and none of this stuff happened to him yeah

Oh. Oh. Oh, yeah. We're going there now. I mean, Jesus. You know, it's so convenient that he met every sitting president of his life. It was a star collegiate athlete, a war hero, a champion athlete who went to China. How convenient for Forrest.

Do you guys think Top Gun Maverick ended when he died and they just kept going? Because that's the other... That's the best one of these series. Yeah. He just dies in the beginning and then everything else is a fever dream. Every 18 months I break that theory out about some movie and Bill's like, that's a great call, Chris. Was that yours or was that online? I think that was me communicating the conventional wisdom of online. I can't take credit for that.

You should take credit for it. Did you come up with Gressi Knoll? Was the Gressi Knoll your thing? Was that your theory? It's been aggregating from a lot of my own sources, but yeah. So the movies that move with one character over a long stretch of time. This is probably the most famous one, but World According to Garp. Walk the Line. I don't think that's enough credit for that. Would you count Goodfellas? Sure, yeah. It's 20 years. Boyhood. And then Benjamin Button going backwards. Yeah, but...

Basically the same premise. What's interesting, because I had the magazines from back then. What happened? Elvis. And then I did the Austin Butler mama. Just for show. This was marketed as, holy shit, you're not going to believe the technology. Yeah. That was like the whole premier magazine. It's two pages of Zemeckis just being like, man, we went for this.

You're not going to believe the stuff we did. He says, one of the quotes is, I think if David Lean was making movies right now, he'd say, where has this been my whole life? It was an actual Zemeckis quote. Zemeckis said that about his own movie? Yeah. He was so fired up about the technology. He's like, we have Hanks.

With John Lennon. They're on the same screen. David Lean was filming the sun rising over the desert in Lawrence of Arabia. I was like, God, if only Gump was here. That's like running across the skyline. Zemeckis says that. He says they were waiting for days for the right sunset. And he's like, we could just make the sunset right now. That was a catastrophic choice for filmmaking going forward. Well, it was...

I mean, that's one of the quicksand meccas thing. This is one of the things he loves is being on the cutting edge of things. You can tell this is one of the reasons why I wanted to make this movie, because first couple of movies of his career are just very standard stories. I want to hold your hand about young girls who love the Beatles, used cars, about used car salesmen. And then all of a sudden he's like, wait a minute, what if we went back to the future? And I figured out how to make the future look like the future. And then what if I did Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And I put cartoons in a movie with real people.

And then he's constantly now, and he's spent the last 20 years only thinking about the technological excitement and the breakthroughs that he can make in filmmaking. And you can tell that a big reason why he wanted to do this was not just to do this picaresque story over a history of time and his generation, but also...

to make John Lennon's mouth move on the Dick Cabot show, that that's actually interesting to him, to recreate what it would have been like to meet John Kennedy or all these other things that we see in the movie. And then a couple of years ago, he was like, what if Denzel Washington smoked a banana boat and turned a plane upside down? Riverboat coming. This won Best Picture, and he won Best Director. So this was the biggest quote-unquote achievement of his career. But he... Zemeckis had it.

He did well for himself. Yeah, I mean, he made Back to the Future, so the Oscars can eat shit. Here are all the things Forrest intersects with during this movie. The Ku Klux Klan, Elvis, Bear Bryant, George Wallace and Alabama Integration, JFK, Playboy Magazine, LBJ, Abby Hoffman, Black Panthers, 1970s China, John Lennon and Dick Cavett, Nixon and Watergate, Apple, Nike, Shit Happens, Have a Nice Day, and maybe AIDS.

What do you think is the most culturally significant contribution he made to our society over the course of this film? Oh. Gump? Good question. What's your answer, Mal? I think it's teaching Elvis to dance. Oh. He had the most hands-on, like, that was him. It wasn't just like, oh, there's Nixon. It was like, no, I taught Elvis how to do the hound dog, you know? I think, and I think this is an appropriate room for this answer...

He deserves credit for the birth of podcasting. Because ultimately, this is a movie about one person talking for a really long time to a bunch of people who are just trying to get through a lonely... That's what this movie is. You would not have a career without Thor.

This and Pump Up the Volume. Those were the two. Do you think Coward was inspired by Gump? I can just solo this. I got it. Jordan Love. Let's go. Moving guest hosts. What do you think, Sean? He was really good at assembling and disassembling that gun.

That was kind of amazing. They were like, you're going to be a general one day! Because he's good at assembling a gun? That was impressive. I thought amazing shrimp boat captain. I thought that was his most impressive thing. All the other boats were destroyed. Gumps out there just sailing around. Most DC thing about this movie is obviously the Capitol, the monument, and the White House, which we get all in a row, and then we get the big...

The big scene in the water. That's why I feel like this is a Washington movie, even though it's not set in Washington, because that's probably the best use of that entire environment I've seen in a movie, right? Would you say that...

Maybe, what's the Clint Eastwood movie that we did? In the Line of Fire. I like when Mitch McDeer gets completely bulldozed by the FBI at the same location. It's like, your phone's tapped. Your life as you know it is over. What about when Jim Garrison goes for a walk with Mr. X in JFK? And he explains how this entire country is built on a lie? Not untrue. The backstory. This was a 1986 novel by Winston Groom.

And they adapted it, and they believed the people that were working on the script believed that it was actually really should be about Forrest and Jenny and their spiritual journey. And that's what they did. So won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor. I can't believe this, but our girl Robin Wright, not nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Pretty tough. Yikes. $55 million budget, made $678 million worldwide. Wow.

This is the craziest stat, though. It stayed in the theater for 42 weeks, Sean. 42 weeks. That's longer than any sports season. Yeah. They did the thing where they released it in July. It ran for four months. And then the Oscar nominations came out and it was nominated for 13 Academy Awards. And they were like, we'll put this back in theaters. And then everybody was like, absolutely. And it was a top five movie in America after they re-released it seven months after it came out.

Also one of those movies that any, you could see like on any family vacation and every member of your family could go. Right? Oh yeah. Grandma, little six year old who's probably bouncing around. Couple scenes that you were like, you're too young for this. Here's what Forrest did in Jenny's roommate's bathroom. It's natural, it happens. If you're six, you probably don't understand what happened in that scene and if you do understand, watch out. Um,

Roger Ebert, four stars, starred in a magical movie, and he said Tom Hanks may be the only actor who could have played the role. I can't think of anyone else's gump. Our guy Raj. Raj got an ovation last night in Chicago. We brought him up and the crowd just applauded because he's a home game for Raj. What's your problem, DC? We're talking about Roger Ebert here. All right, so if you've never heard the rewatchables, we do categories.

And we break them down and we dive into the movie. This first one is the most rewatchable scene. And here are my candidates. The first one, Forrest meets Jenny on the bus and they hang out. As children. As little Forrest. Yeah. And he gets bullied and she says, run Forrest! Get the bikes! Watch out, Johnny! I'm gonna get you!

And all of a sudden he's on Alabama playing football. And we are fucking off. There's a couple of incredible moments. Barely any. Honestly, barely any. Absolutely incredible moment. I love when they cut to him on the bench. Like when they choose to go back to the modern timeline, right? The way that he turns and side smirks and says, I could run like the wind. And you get to see like the actual genuine pride that he takes in his achievements. And it's lovely. It is. It is.

Now you wouldn't believe it if I told you that I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was going somewhere, I was running.

I wish we had Ben Solak here from The Ringer to break down Gump as a kick returner. It would be amazing. Gump was a dude. Good golly! What was his 40 time? Like 3.9? I don't think Solak would be impressed with Gump's combine results at all. You don't think so? No, he's just a north-south runner. Also, if you're grading those kids riding their bikes, they suck at riding bikes. They couldn't catch that kid. Gump. Tough wonderlick test for Gump. I'm for it.

Next scene. Forrest visits Jenny in college. Here we go. Oh boy. You gonna do some physical comedy here? What can we expect? You ever been with a girl, Forrest? We get the premature egumpulation. Oh, good. You've been saving that. I wrote that backstage. Okay. Um.

I can't tell you how many times I've imitated this in real life. Can you take me back to 1994? Nothing is funnier to me other than Buffalo Bill in the dungeon. 1994, you're sitting in the movie theater. You see this for the first time. I'll do this Charlie Rose time. And you say what? You think what? Just laughing my ass off like, oh, my God.

We get to relive this and redo it and imitate it for the rest of my life. It really comes home when they pan down to the roommate's face. It is the most psychotic thing in American film history. Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry. It's okay. Sorry. Oh, oh, oh, I'm dizzy. First of all, when he sees her in the bra and he kind of does the double take, like he's looking at like a snake that has just been unleashed from a cage.

And then she puts the hand on him. He's just the fastest anyone's ever come. Instant.

Ever. A light nipple graze. That was all it took. It just destroys the blanket. I don't even, I can't even imagine what happened to that blanket. I can't believe I'm sitting this close to you. His facial expressions in that scene are historic. That's how he wins the Oscar. That should have been the Oscar clip when they're like in Tom Hanks.

Yeah. Before it's got a page like Morgan Freeman standing above Jeff. That is it.

We see multiple sequences of him returning kicks for Bear Bryant's championship Crimson Tide teams, earning his way to a spot on the All-American team. No labored breathing that even touches what we see when he is sitting on Jenny's bed saying, I'm sorry. The best part, quietly though, is the muttered, I'm dizzy. Yeah. I'm dizzy.

And then she says, bet that never happened in home acting. Yeah. Great line. Jenny Gump. More rewatchable scenes. The Vietnam battle scene is really good. It's great. They filmed it in South Carolina. They put like 20 palmetto trees in some plantation and just went to work. And it actually looks like you're in Vietnam. It's a really good scene. I don't know. CR, you're a Vietnam guy. I am a Vietnam guy.

The whole torture sequence is great. I just kept going back more. He's just incredible at set pieces. So like this, the flight crash, castaway crash, obviously. He's just incredible at moving these major pieces around. So that's two flight references. Yes, two. Saves four people. There's a couple great moments in this scene, like Lieutenant Dan telling him to leave him. Leave me here. And then him going back to find Bubba. Wow.

I didn't ask you to pull me out of there, god damn you. Where the hell do you think you're going? I got an airstrike inbound right now and they're going to make the whole area. Don't you stay here, god damn it. That's an order. And then realizing it's but... Is that the first time you cry in this movie? How many tear jerks were there in this one? That's a loaded statement. Yeah, maybe. I'll rephrase. Are we back? Are we back to the forest? Are we back to the forest?

Did you cry many tears while watching? Yeah. It's a sad and emotional movie. I think most of the tears come at the end, but it's hard not to get a little choked up when Bubba is dying and saying that he just wants to go home. Why did this happen? I think what's interesting about the Vietnam scene, though, is like it's not even really a scene, right? The whole Vietnam sequence is wonderful. They meet Lieutenant Dan. He's holding a roll of toilet paper at the end.

the entire time talking about how like the one thing you need to know is about your socks and the movie is like really more collection of vignettes than scenes right like a big montage yeah yeah next one monument protest scene give me that that's it that's all i have to say about that that's the right on man you said it all what's your name man my name is forrest forrest gump forrest gump

Yes. Abbie Hoffman. Would you call him bigger actor for the Abbie Hoffman cameo there? I love that guy. I don't know what that guy's name is, but when he's like, Forrest Gump, that's like, right on, man. My brother and I have said that to each other a hundred times. CR, what are the odds Forrest's speech was actually good if the mic had been on? Oh, no, he was definitely giving out, like, same-game parlays. Yeah.

Today I like Tulane or Louisiana Tech. Take the points. That's all I got to say about that. And then all of a sudden, fuck Jenny! And there's Jenny Gump. That's one of the best scenes of the 90s. It's incredible. It still gets me. Has anybody here ever tried to recreate that on a date? People get a little jumpy about stuff in that area, I know now. But you could try it. Try it. Tell them Chris told you it was fine.

Do you count as that scene Forrest then beating the hell out of the boyfriend at the Black Panther party? That's my favorite character in this movie. Hipster doofus guy. Next one, just a quickie. The hurricane scene. Just Sinise cooking on the top of the boat. Screaming at the storm. Remarkable. Forrest's mom dies leading to the following things happen. Forrest gets rich on apple stock. Forrest becomes a gardener.

Jenny shows up. They go to her old house. She throws rocks at it. She turns down Forrest as a husband, leading to one of his best monologues. Why don't you love me, Jenny? I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is. I'm not going to do the Forrest voice for you guys. I'd make a good husband, Jenny. You would, Forrest. But you won't marry me. You don't want to marry me. Why don't you love me, Jenny? I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is. Hi!

Jenny's response to have sex with Forrest and then leave early the next morning in a cab. One of the most evil acts ever perpetrated by a human being in a movie that we've ever seen. I'm including Saw movies. I'm including... What's in the box? Yeah, Seven. Is this worse than Seven?

Honestly, yes. Yeah. At least he gets his revenge in seven. Right. He's like, great, I have a kid now. Like, that's amazing. Every time he looks at the Nike Cortez that he's wearing, he's like, was I that bad at sex? It's devastating. Well, now, I mean, since you're here. Already? Wow. This is earlier in the show. There's two directions here. Either...

You know, the premature thing was another issue. Yeah. Or Forest was amazing. Yes. And rocked her world, and that's why she had to get away. Yeah. No? Well, I think she had to get away because, like, Jamie Lannister, you know, she doesn't believe that she deserves to be happy, which is actually, like, a deeply tragic tale. I do believe that Forest was a very deft and capable lovemaker by that point. I do. Yes. Are you familiar with the show The Good Place? There's a great moment where...

Spoilers for the good. The bill has spoiled every movie that's ever been made. It's fine. When Tahani is describing having sex with Jason and basically is like, he has no self-awareness and is thus extremely good at sex. So I think Forrest knew what he needed to improve, right? And was ready. I forgot to thank Honda for sponsoring tonight's podcast. Thank you to Honda. Really appreciate it. Ugh.

I can't believe this is my career. Chris, have you ever had a traumatic post-sex experience that led to you just sitting in different rooms of the house in complete silence? With a glass of milk? No, but you know what? The night is young. Two more scenes. Forrest meets Forrest Jr., played by Haley Joel Osment. Wonderful. Incredible casting.

Man, it's hard not to get choked up in this scene. He got a daddy named Forrest too. You're his daddy, Forrest. And then Hanks does the, oh no. Forrest, look at me. Look at me, Forrest. There's nothing you need to do, okay? You didn't do anything wrong, okay? Isn't he beautiful? He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But he's a smart artist. He's very smart. He's one of the smartest in his class.

When he like rubs his chest when he's asking, is he smart? Is he smart? And then she's like, top of his class. Meanwhile, he's like, you know, in pre-K. Top of his class. Finger painting stage, I think, yeah. He was tearing through Curious George. He's not a complete dumbass like you, Forrest. And then she does the, will you marry me, Forrest? And she says, okay. And we're off. We're at a wedding. Lieutenant Dan shows up with the magic legs. Uh,

Last scene. I mean, we just got to commemorate it. I wouldn't say it's necessarily rewatchable, but Jenny dies and Forrest gives the speech is one of the saddest scenes. This is waterworks for you, Mel. Oh, my God. Well, and especially because like the whole conceit and framework of the movie is that he's telling the story of his life to strangers on the bench because he just wants to reach Jenny. And then he does. And how does he have to continue the story? How do we hear the end of it? He's standing at her tombstone and then the birds. Yeah.

Bill, they flutter above their tree. She just wanted to turn into a bird and fly away. Sean, your heart is basically black. Did this... You're a Jets fan. Did this...

Did this bring any emotion out of you? When I was watching the movie yesterday on the plane, during the scene, Lady turned to me and the scene next to me was like, are you okay? Because I was destroyed. You know, I'm hideous to look at and just red face and got tears. But there's a real... There's a real I'm a parent now thing about this because he's talking about Little Forest to Jenny. And honestly...

Really tough scene to not make awful. Again, like Hank's selling against a tombstone. I mean, that's really who he's acting against in this scene. And you're with him the whole time. You're like, this is exactly how we're supposed to be feeling in this moment, which...

I think in the hands of almost any other actor just wouldn't work. It's great acting. It's great writing because he can't all of a sudden be more profound than he is, right? So he has to kind of still stay in the zone, but it has that extra layer of almost poetry to it. I have a serious question. Would you have read the letter? Little Forrest writes a letter, right? And Forrest leaves it on the grave, says he's not allowed to read it. It's sweet, I guess, that he's respecting his...

three slash four year old child's inner life and privacy, but wouldn't you want to know what was going on in your son's head there? Do you think it said, Mom, why didn't you tell me Dad's a dumbass? Dad sucks. Mom, what's the story with Dad's apple stock? Do I get the back? Do we sort the will? My only nitpick with this scene was Forrest, who, it's been established, rocket scientist.

Get super eloquent there for like three sentences. You think so? Talking about destiny and fate. And it's like you were a gardener by choice and you had Apple stock. And you've been established that you're kind of all over the map. Now you're just eloquently breaking this down for us. I don't know. I didn't buy it.

It raises something really interesting, which is the difference between the book and the movie. In the book, the character is so different because he's more of a savant. For anybody who's read the Forrest Gump novel, he's like a math whiz,

But he also is very socially inact. They made him more like, almost like Will Hunting, Rain Man-ish. But he's just simple in this movie. He doesn't have any of those skills. So you can almost feel like a little bit of the carryover from the character and the writing. Yeah. Well, what do you got for most rewatchable, CR? I think I'm going to go with the Vietnam, the ambush, and like the rescuing. Oh. See, he always likes a good... No. Just brothers, band of brothers. So it brings you back to when you serve or start country. Yeah. Now...

Matt, what do you have? I'm going to go with the scene with Jenny and Forrest at the National Mall and Sean's Abby Hoffman impression. I do just want to state formally for the record, though, that your bias, which I'm sure will come up a lot tonight, against the I ran across the country for three years sequence and not putting that in the most rewatchable scenes is crazy. You documented the entire life power of the movie and skipped the running. It's coming up later. Yeah, I bet. Thanks.

What do you have, Sean? I love meeting Little Forest for the first time. Oh. Wow. Didn't pick a Tom Hanks scene. Sean has a heart. No. Tom Hanks and meeting Little Forest. Oh, Little Forest. I thought you meant little, well, there's multiple Little Forests. I like Monument Protest. It's my favorite. All right, next category is what stage is the best? If you're ever in trouble, just run, run away. Just good advice from Jenny.

Good one. In terms, Forrest could understand. He's like, all right, so I'm going to run if I'm in trouble. You think that was like a metaphor for Vietnam? It is. Good. Seattle, what do you have? Give me one. Well, I got the pacing. This is a very long film, and it goes in a bunch of different places and has a bunch of different shifts, totally. But it never, like, is any scene in this movie longer than like two and a half minutes? Like, it essentially flies through it. So I always thought the pacing was great. Mal? No.

Should we talk about the feather? That's a what's aged the best? I think so. Okay. Yeah. Let's do it. Because this is a fairy tale, right? This is a fable. So you have this like deeply symbolic bookend to open and to close.

You're saying that you think Forrest Gump is an unreliable narrator, but the feather is our version of that, is the audience. We get to project our meaning onto that, right? And you guys talked about this on the first pod, what do you see in that feather? And the idea that it's just going to fall on his foot at the beginning, then it's there at the end, he's going to pick it up, right? He's going to put it in his briefcase. You move through life. You cross paths.

The randomness, the coincidental chance encounters. And like that actually, I think, connects to the grave sequence that you cited, right? This idea of like, is it destiny? Do we choose our own course? It's both, right? Wonderful. Who doesn't love some literary symbolism in their blockbuster? Did your mom like that? That's more of a dad one. The feather's more of a dad one. All right. What do you have, Sean? What stage is the best? Give us one. Blaming everything that happened in this country on one guy.

My first What's Aged the Best. Robin fucking Wright. Just one of the greatest looking actresses of all time. I wouldn't give her goat status, but she's in the A block of the TV show about it. A block of goat status? Just the perfect Jenny Gump. I don't know. Who else could have played Jenny Gump? Who would you have picked from any era?

Any era? Yeah. Cleopatra? Is she eligible? Who? Cleopatra? I didn't think about it. I didn't mean to go that far back. Mary Todd Lincoln? Jesus. Just love Robin Wright. Princess Bride and this, like, unassailable. Um.

I thought the CGI in this movie for a 90s movie is actually pretty good. It is. They're still not doing this good of a job on Disney Plus today. It makes you wonder if... Yeah. They're not. As a civilization peak with Jurassic Park in this, and then it's just been basically... Where it was realistic CGI, but you could still tell that. But now it's like, I don't know where we are now.

It's because it's used sparingly. I mean, there are a couple of sequences in the Vietnam set piece where there's a lot of it, but for the most part, it's just very small dashes where it's not like the entire movie was shot on a green screen or on a soundstage. It's shot in real environments, so it looks good. More would say it's your best. Sean, how many Dora songs...

So there are five songs by The Doors, but I actually read that there were six. Yeah. I thought there were six. Like, I think The Doors are a little bit over-criticized, but five is a lot. Zemeckis is like, I'm going for this. Isn't it three in a row at one point? Yeah, he just really liked The Doors. He wanted to set the record straight. Although Forrest being a dumb guy who likes The Doors isn't great. That's a great pick. That's really funny.

I liked how he described the rain in Vietnam where it's like stinging rain, fat rain, sideways rain, rain that came up. Vietnam, it wasn't fun, was it, Chris? It didn't, no. I can tell you some stories. A very young Haley Joel Osment? Incredible. Sure.

What do you have for what's aged best, Mal? How about quotability? I think this has been a little bit of a journey for this movie, right? Where like the stupid is as stupid does or run far as run or life is like a box of chocolates almost became like so ubiquitous and inescapable that like then people tired of them. But staying power for the lines from this movie is extraordinary. It was this and Austin Powers. Yeah. In the A block of the goat conversation. Another poet. Yeah.

I have another what's aged the best, actually. New York City Lieutenant Dan. Unbelievable. Love to party with that guy. Did he know Harling Mays? Great New Year's Eve. Pure CR energy. Speaking of Lieutenant Dan, I had when it's finally going well on the boat and it says Forrest,

I never thanked you for saving my life. Yeah. And then he dives into the water. That got you, Sean, a tiny bit, no? That aged the best? Yeah, it's a great moment. Okay. It's a great, nice scene. It's a good scene.

so this is a what's age the best that, that playboy magazine that Jenny Gump was in. Yep. Sold at a movie prop auction three years ago for $4,800. That really was $4,800. Uh,

The Lieutenant Dan redemption going from magic legs as the new wife at the wedding. Would it have been funnier if he married cunning Carla or long legs? Lenore was like, this is my member. Long legs. Both like Byron. It's the future. I got too much love for one lady. Sierra, this one's for you.

What's aged the best? Attractive, coked up characters on the edge. It's like, oh, she's going on the hotel balcony. Oh, no. She's speaking my language. So every still picture of Forrest in this movie, Hanks has his eyes closed. Yeah. Just like a little. Fortune magazine, you can do better. Come on. We can get another cover shot, can't we?

I really like young Forrest mocking the principal after his sex with his mom. It's very funny. Bernard from Lost, I thought of you. Yeah, of course. Would you put the Bubba Gump Company? You're mixing up your scenes there. Now that would be a movie. Bubba Gump and Company? I can't even say it. That restaurant. There's like 33 of them. Is that a What's Age the Best or What's Age the Worst?

I think like the franchising and merchandising of Forrest Gump, like again, this is not Star Wars. This is Forrest Gump. So you'd go what stage is the worst? No, best. The fact that they were able, like people wear Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. hats. That's astonishing. Do you, when you see somebody wearing a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. hat, are you like that? I'm like put on a Baltimore Orioles hat. Yeah.

New owners. Congratulations, Mal. New owners. I'm thrilled. So long, Angelos. Sign Gunnar Henderson. Forrest Alabama football career we mentioned, but I just, God damn, I enjoy that part of the movie. It's amazing. You could have had seven more scenes of him. I would have liked to have seen him in the cotton bowl, like all kinds of things.

You want to do the soundtrack here as a what's aged the best? That could also be a what's aged the worst. I have it in what's aged the worst. You do. But for a very personal reason. All right, let's hear it, Sierra. You want me to jump ahead? Okay. I used to work at record stores in the mid-90s, and this was just an absolute nightmare to fucking put in the security case.

is it was only the Bubba Gump, the Forrest Gump soundtrack was this double disc. We could never keep it in stores because boomers were like, I love all these songs. And so we would have to constantly restock it, which means you would have to put it in the plastic security case. And it was just the bane of my existence. So I never forgave it. It was this and Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness. Yes. With those thick double cases. Oh my God. Yeah.

That was great. So we talked about this when we did the first time we did this pod, which was a lot shorter. I have no idea what I said about it then. So if I contradict myself. The picks are so generic that I actually respect it. Like it's like...

He's running the scene. I will play running on empty. Yeah, exactly. Almost like Forrest Gump level IQ for the song choices. I totally agree. If you rewatch the Vietnam sequence, it's like, hey now, what's that sound? While they're looking around, looking for what's the sound. It is the most literal, but, and also, it is the most obvious top 40 from that era. So it's a double whammy of obviousness, and yet...

If you just put those songs on. The songs are good. It's like, oh, Jackson Browne. Some good songs. Yeah. Any other What Stage is the Best before we keep moving? No, I just wanted to talk a lot about Dan in New York. Also, I will say, great drill sergeant. I love this drill sergeant in this movie. This is one of my favorite people in this film. The drill sergeant? Yeah. Maybe we should save him. Can save him. This did the five factors, Sean. VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming.

What do we call that? The quadfecta? Absolutely. The fantasyfecta? The fantasyfecta? The quinfecta? Fun fact about this laser disc, no chapters. You had to watch the film all the way through because Zemeckis was like, no one will be skipping around in my movie. This episode is supported by State Farm. Think about your first reaction after you have an accident. What do you do? You scream, oh no, or man, why did this happen? On the flip side,

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Some quickie awards. The Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop. Probably running on empty for the jogging scene, right? I had Go Your Own Way, but same scene. Yeah, same sequence. What do you have, Mel? I have Jenny as Bobby Dylan. Oh! Singing, plowing in the wind, in the nude. Yes. The Big Kahuna Burger Award, Best Used Food and Drink, the 15 Dr. Peppers. I don't think anything. More than a box of chocolates? A box of chocolates is tough to top. Eh, I like Dr. Pepper. Okay.

Den of Thieves, Benihana Award, scene still in location, obviously the monument. And then what do you got for Great Shot Corner Award for Best Cinematic Shot? I got Jenny running across the reflecting pool just because it was actually a pretty cool... They had to take two days to make it and they would basically shoot all the extras in squares of 1,500 and then lift them and then replicate it. So, you know, innovation. Yeah.

I like Forrest beating the hell out of Jenny's annoying boyfriend in slow motion. As a great shot Gordo? Yeah, I like the slow-mo. It's like, oh, he's going to kick this guy's ass. The pinnacle of cinematography in this film. Forrest was strong, man. He didn't want to mess with Forrest. Absolutely. That's that Greenbow Alabama strength. Here we go. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for the weak link of the film. When I got tired, I slipped.

When I got hungry, I ate. The jogging sequence. My God, why? Just why? Why is it in this movie? He jogs for three years, two months, and 14 days straight. This is the dumbest scene of all time. Why did this happen, Chris? So him becoming a champion ping pong player. Right, exactly. Or busting up Watergate. That's fine, but him jogging. What person can run for three years and two months straight?

What? Why are you staring at me in horror? It's the movie in miniature, right? Like, everything that the movie is trying to do is present in that scene. And the way that he, like, you get the emotion of him saying that it brought people hope, right? You have the absolute kind of, like, incredulity of... The response that you're having is the one that you're supposed to have. But then, like, we get a great moment where we see the clippings that Jenny has collected, which I have some follow-up material on in Unanswerable Questions. Right?

He's a sensation. Like, everything that he does inspires not only attention, but rapture. And he doesn't give a shit. Sean, help me. Well, it's a plot device. Because you've got to ask yourself, if Jenny wanted to get impregnated by Forrest Gump, dubious proposition in the first place, but if she did want to do that, why would she keep the child alive?

from Forrest. This is a guy who owns the Bubba Gump shrimp company. You lock it down. He's on the cover of Fortune. In theory. But what we need to do is be completely distracted from that question and have a whole set piece where Forrest, for some unknown reason, is going to run for the duration of Haley Joel Osment's life so that by the time we get to see him, he's that age and cute. And so we're like, okay, I get it. I see why they're back together. Also, she got sick.

I think that's why it's there. That's not in the book. That whole running thing, that's all an invention by Eric Roth. I'm going to say he developed plantar fasciitis. LAUGHTER

Or a torn meniscus. Something is happening at some point over three years. Morewood stage the worst. So the CGI is really good except for John Lennon's lips. They just couldn't figure that one out at all. That was really rough. No possessions? It also is, it takes a peg or two out of the John Lennon genius. Yeah. Yeah. Forrest Gump just writing those lyrics for him. Is that not what happened? Yeah.

Here's what's in Forrest's suitcase at the bus stop. A ping pong battle, a Curious George book, some awards, and a feather. Not the beauties of the South issue of Playboy? Almost like you could just put him in jail if somebody opened the suitcase. Like, this guy's planning an attack. You mentioned Sally Field's 10 years older than the Hanks. Here's a good what's aged the worst. Warner Brothers had Forrest Gump.

And after Rain Man came out, they decided it wouldn't work. And they traded it for the rights to a movie called Executive Decision, which was a $650 million mistake by Warner Brothers. Tough one, Sean. I don't know. Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal. They hijack a plane. I'm not saying I didn't like Executive Decision. Maybe not great. There's a deleted scene that they shot and is on the 25th anniversary of Blue Way where young Jenny kills her father.

By releasing the tractor handbrake so it runs him down in the cornfield. That's sick. I love that. I wish that had been in the movie. The filmmakers decided the audiences would not forgive Jenny. What? Hasn't Jenny's father been terrorizing her for all of her life? I think we would have just stood up and applauded. You know me. The scene's in if I'm the director. I'm keeping that one. It sounds amazing. The Simmons cut of Gump was unreal. Yeah.

You keep that scene, Sean? Yeah. I think you got to save that for the Gump prequel, Jenny's Reckoning. I feel like that would be... All right, fair. Can I ask, Bill, just not to digress here, but if you did make Forrest Gump, do you think... Do you have Gump on the court with Garnett being like, anything is possible? See, I was going to make an Embiid Simmons joke here, but I'm just not going to. Um...

Well, this is going to bum you guys out, but they filmed a deleted scene with Gump and Martin Luther King. Yeah. Where Gump distracts police dogs that were going to attack Martin Luther King. And they decided in their infinite wisdom, we should probably take this out.

And thank God. Kind of redefines deleted scene. Yeah. That is, talk about deleted for a reason. I can't even believe they filmed that. I can't even believe they talk about it. Just unbelievable. And then Eric Roth, the screenwriter, who's done a lot of good stuff, they were developing a sequel. And in the sequel, Forrest Jr., I'm not making this up, Forrest Jr. had AIDS. Forrest ended up in OJ's car in the backseat. And

Forrest became a ballroom dancer who danced with Princess Di. Not making this up. And then he found a Native American girlfriend. They lived in Oklahoma City. She worked in a federal building and got blown up in the bombing. And then Eric Roth was like, but 9-11 ruined all that. Yeah. They had agreed to do it and 9-11 happened and they were like, let's back off on this gum thing. Listen, this is apparently factual. I...

I don't understand. I don't even know. What is the craziest out of those four things? That would be like if you got high and hung out all night with your friends and be like, let's just think of what Gump 2 would be. The craziest four things. Well, there's one other thing about it which I don't think was going to be in the movie, but in the Gump sequel book...

The movie exists. And the second book is all about how the real Forrest Gump meets Tom Hanks and talks to him about how inaccurate the portrayal of his life was in the movie Forrest Gump. Like, everybody involved in the whole Gump enterprise... And isn't Tom Hanks a dick in the book? Yeah, he's like a dick to him. These people are on drugs. Stupifying. Best quote.

I got one other what's aged the worst. It's not a big deal, but it is like when you lead with I'm related to Nathan Bedford Forrest. This was mine as well. We should talk about this. Yeah, tough. Mama said the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, don't just make no sense. You could just have a chat about

People make mistakes. You don't need to name your son after the founder of the Klan to impart that wisdom. The Nathan Bedford Forrest wiki is like a wild ride. You spend a lot of time on that wiki? Last night I was like, what the fuck? This guy's in this movie? He's a bad man.

Best quote that's not the typical best quote from this movie. I really like there's an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes. Yeah. That was a good one. That's my favorite. That's a good high school yearbook quote. Yeah. I like that one. All right. Stephen A. Smith, hottest take award. You have one, CR? Yeah. So this is out there. So this again, but I think this really works, is that this movie works way better if you just look at it as like an allegory for Jesus Christ.

And basically, the entire movie... I thought you said this was out there. No, I mean, it's out there. It's out there. This has been talked about on some Christian forums and stuff like that. Oh, okay. If you Google Forrest Gump Jesus, you get to some interesting websites. It's pretty obvious. The beard, the apostles, Lieutenant Dan, the conversion moment. It comes up a lot. And if you watch it as a parable, it actually...

Jenny as Mary Magdalene. Yes. Yeah. It's pretty six. You are. Yeah. I'm doing the work. I'm trying my best. You know, thanks again to Honda. I don't remember which book in the new Testament, the premature ejaculation. I also realized that that's absolutely a sin to say out loud. So I'm sorry. What do you have now? If Forrest Gump lived now,

he would be canceled instantly. One tweet and he's done. Right? Name for a clan leader, as we just discussed. Shoves a woman off his lap. Right? Pushes a woman.

shows the President of the United States his ass, pulls down his pants in front of the President on television. You mentioned beating up Jenny's date. Constantly starting fights and punching people. He was violent. During the three-year run that he's just constantly, when he says, if I had to go, you know, like, constantly defecating in public, right? How much of the three years were just arrests for public urination? Like, maybe it works better in your timeline if it's just that. Uh...

So you think he's canceled? Instantly. I like it. What do you got, Sean? This is kind of elaborate, but go with me. If Forrest Gump was never born, the New York Jets would have zero Super Bowls to their name. Because think about it like this. You go back to Alabama in 62. You got a young hotshot quarterback, Joe Namath. Namath.

He needs to build his confidence in his freshman season at Alabama. What does he need? Good field position. Who's getting him that field position? Little punter turning in Forrest Gump. That gives him the confidence to project him into the AFL and eventually to Super Bowl III, where he gives us the one title we needed. I love it. So Elvis...

Taught Elvis to dance, taught the Jets how to win a Super Bowl. That's right. I like it. My hottest take doubles as the Vincent Chase Award for are we sure this character was actually good at their job. Named after Vincent Chase and Entourage, who couldn't act but was a famous actor. So this goes to, let's talk about Forrest's mom here. Wow. You zagged. Named her son after the head of the KKK. Yeah. We'll just start there. It's tough.

To remind him that sometimes we do things that don't make sense. Sleeps with the principal with Forrest just outside swinging on a swing so he doesn't have to go to a special school. Let him go to Vietnam. Could have gone to the AFL. Could have gone to the NFL. There's two football leagues in 1963. Easily could have made a living on that.

Here are some of her quotes that Forrest thinks were so wisdom and so great. If God had intended everyone to be the same, he would have given everyone braces on their legs. What does that even mean? Mama says stupid is as stupid does. What? Mama always said dying's a part of life. Oh, whoa, she did it again.

Life is like a box of chocolates. You don't know, never know what you're going to get. You actually do. There's a fucking key with all the chocolates. You know what you're going to get. It's like, oh, there's the cherry one. Oh, that one has a nut in it. Mama was as dumb as Forrest Gump. I think you really need to consider that she knows who she's speaking with in all of these circumstances. She lowered her plane? Yeah, she may have been watering down the wisdom. That's fine.

Casting what ifs. I swear this is true, but Zemeckis wanted Harry Anderson to play Forrest Gump. From Night Court. Yeah. And didn't he do another CBS show instead? Yeah, he couldn't. He was doing some random CBS show. And Zemeckis was like, damn, I guess I'll have to get Tom Hanks. And John Travolta was the original choice.

and said after that passing in the role was a mistake. I would say so, John. Can you imagine if Travolta had done... Would he have done Gump in fiction in the same year? I think he does Gump over fiction. Or maybe he does both. What do you think? Well, he... I think he would have done Gump over fiction too because of the filmmaker involved. But...

He made two movies that tried to re-Gump. He made both Michael, in which he played an angel, and Phenomenon, in which he played a man with magical powers. I like Phenomenon. And in both cases, he was like, I gotta get me some of that Gump. I'm trying to correct the Gump mistake. Phenomenon's good. I like that movie. He looked right at me when he said that. This led me on a deep dive. All the movies John Travolta passed on. Oh.

Forrest Gump, Officer and a Gentleman, American Gigolo, Splash, The Green Mile, and Manny and Scarface. Yeah. Travolta said no. Sean Penn claimed he was the second choice for Forrest Gump, and he turned it down. I don't know if I believe that. Did he claim that on John Bernthal's podcast? Yeah, yeah. I think he did. I think that's true, actually. And then for Bubba, three people definitely turned it down. David Alan Greer, Dave Chappelle, and...

And Ice Cube. Yeah.

Ice Cube as Bubba Gump does not work. I am just going to say that right now. Hot off of Boys in the Hood, his next movie would have been Forrest Gump. Did he do Anaconda instead, though? I don't know. Chappelle felt really bummed out when the movie made $670 million and badgered Hanks to work with him again and they did You've Got Mail together. There's one other audition. Do you want to tell them who auditioned for Bubba? Tupac.

Tupac Shakur. Audition for Bubba Gump. I think it would have brought a different energy to Bubba Gump. Different vibe. They hit him up, Bubba. Jenny Gump, Jodie Foster, Demi Moore, and Nicole Kidman all turned it down. I don't know which one of those three would have been the worst one, but probably Demi Moore. And Terry Gilliam turned it down as a director. There's one casting what if that we haven't touched on though.

that Joe Pesci was being discussed for Lieutenant Dan. Oh my God. And it's one of the great... So did you think that... I didn't know if that was real. That like broke my brain. You know, but sometimes you see something and you just need to believe it. You know? That would have been amazing. And the idea of Joe Pesci being like, shrimp, what are you talking about? Yeah. Like, I'm fucking talking about shrimp, I'm fucking... Like...

What the fuck is so good about shrimp? Think about the amazing visual image of Joe Pesci with no legs. Yeah, it's incredible. Just that stoned body. Would have been amazing. Harder to prop him up against the side of the hospital bed, though. So the Ruffalo, Han and Ruben approaches over acting word.

Cindy styles it up a couple of times. I'm here for it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, Joey pants, best that guy award. So ironically, I think Sinise was a, that guy before this movie.

And then graduated being Gary Sinise. I didn't know who he was before this movie. Interesting. He was like a stage actor. It's not like he went on to be one of the world's great film actors, though. Like, have you looked at Gary Sinise's IMDb lately? Well, he was in CSI for like 10 years. He hasn't been in like a movie in 20-something years. I think he was too creepy in Ransom, and that was it. He couldn't get normal parts. But he's running off. He does this. He does Apollo 13. I mean, he was a big deal. Yeah, he did a nice run. I think it's Sam Anderson. It's the principal.

Oh, that's good. Oh my God. Bernard from Lost. Yeah. Guy Lee Paxton from Justified. He's my, he's my vote. So Dion Waiters Award, which is for best heat check where somebody just comes in and steals a couple of scenes. You could go Michael T. Williamson is Bubba.

The Horny Principal you could do. You could do Cunning Carla and Long Legs Lenore. Yeah. That's a great one. Old Lady in Pink Dress at Bus Stop. Really into Gump stories. Yeah, she's wonderful. Or Dick Cavett aging himself 20 years. What would you go with, Sean? I have one more nomination and it's my pick. It's Efimo Omolami as Drill Sergeant. Oh, okay. You must be a goddamn genius, Gump. You must have an IQ of 160. That guy is incredible in that scene.

He's coming for the full metal jacket crown in that scene. It's pretty good. Has there ever been a bad drill sergeant in a movie? No, never. It's never not worked. Should we just start cutting drill sergeants into dead poet society? Great idea. Smart. I'm going with Dorothy Harris, the bus driver.

That's a good one. Iconic showing, again, like across time, when they do the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead version of Forrest Gump, where we're seeing the entire story through side character perspectives, I want it to be through bus driver Dorothy's eyes. That's the story we need. I know. We have a new category just for the tour. What would Tony Romo's director's commentary for this movie sound like? He's going to blow that bathrobe, Jim! LAUGHTER

It's his first time touching a human breast, Jim! You can have it way too soon for him, Jim! It's gonna be a gusher, Jim! Then the jogging scene. He's been saving it up for Jim! It's all this moment! The jogging scene would be great. He's like telestrating across the room. Yeah. He's been running a long time! He's gonna run all the way to May, Jim! I like that you specified human breast. Yeah.

Guys get up to weird stuff in farms. Half-assed internet research. Greenbow, Alabama does not exist. They made it up. Everyone heartbroken in the audience. Yes, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that was a conversation killer. They spent two months building Forrest's house on a South Carolina plantation, and they finished filming, and they argued with the person who owned the land, and they said, fuck you, and knocked it down.

They knocked down what would be a tourist attraction today, I think. People would go to this house. Big mistake. Wow. I think I have to retract my prior comment about the successful merchandising and franchising of the Forrest Gump universe. I know. That was like a no-brainer. So the author of the book, Winston Groom, says that he intended the disease that Jenny had to be hepatitis C.

Not AIDS. I think Zemeckis. Great spot to laugh. I got very serious there. The hammer on that was like, not AIDS. It does feel like Zemeckis. Zemeckis is leaning AIDS. For sure. Kurt Russell was the voice Elvis. Yes. This one, I was stunned by. Michael T. Williamson wore a lip attachment for Bubba Gump's protruding lip. I did not know that. Better tuck that in. Get a common trip wire.

Tom Hanks' younger brother, Jim Hanks, was his double for the cross-country scenes. This is a great one, good internet one. Jenny's date of birth was the same day as the Trinity test. It's Oppenheimer shared universe, baby. Hell yeah. Shit.

Sean, coincidence? We need a fourth hour with Jenny. What if the last shot of Oppenheimer was Jenny Gump being born? Move over, Barbie. Oppenheimer's security clearance needed to die so Jenny could be born. The park bench was in Savannah, Georgia. It's now in the Smithsonian. You guys could go see it. Here's what Forrest says. This is what Tom Hanks said Forrest said at the Vietnam rally after the mic was pulled off.

Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mamas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that. I'm not sure Abby Hoffman should have been that blown away. You said it all, man. Forrest Gump! Zemeckis and Hanks did the thing where they waived a large part of their fee for percentage points and made ungodly amounts of money for the movie.

I think they did that because Paramount was trying to cut the budget on them. And so they said, we'll let you cut the budget if you give us points, which turned out to be pretty darn smart. And then in the novel, which Sean alluded to earlier, Gump was an astronaut and a professional wrestler and a chess player. And it's just, I think, a different vibe than the movie. There was one more, another theory that was floating out there that I found on the internet. Oh, no. This is Forrest is Dead theory.

So the idea is that the bullies kill him early in the movie, and when he breaks out of his braces, it's him leaving this mortal coil. He does good deeds on Earth until he finally gets his angel wings, which is the feather, and then, this is a CR, just a little bit of spice on top of this, look at it, Haley Joel Osment shows up and he sees dead people! - Oh!

Spread the needle. Love it. Great stuff. Did Chris convert to Christianity in Chicago? I think he met him. You've been watching too much True Detective. I'll tell you that. Apex Mountain. I think yes for Tom Hanks.

This is it. After back-to-back Oscars and he makes this movie work for $680 million, what movie were they not saying yes to Tom Hanks for? Yeah. And then he's right into Apollo 13 and Toy Story. We get Woody right on the heels of this. Great job, Tom Hanks. Love that guy. I wish Sean liked you a little more, Tom Hanks. So it's not Cloud Atlas? No, it's not. It's a cheap shot. Robin Wright. No. House of Cards.

I can't believe I mentioned Frantic last night and House of Cards tonight. What is wrong with me? Two of your favorites. Your problematic faves. She was nominated for four Emmys for that. I mean, it's got to be that. She's great. Zemeckis? No, Back to the Future. Okay. Premature Ejaculation? I think so. I think so, yeah. I mean, it broke the record by like two seconds. What about...

Bobby Thompson or Forrest Gump? For boomer pop culture, would you go this or Big Chill? Oh. Big Chill. Yeah. Yeah. What would you say, Sean? It's a tough one because this movie comes out post-Clinton. And I always think of Clinton as like

You guys did it, you old bastards. You know, like you got your guy in there. You know, you all, you just really wanted to take over the world and you fucking did it and then you made Forrest Gump, you assholes. Now you just won't give up the goddamn crown at all. Just step back. Just step back. Let Mallory go forward as a leader of this world. Apex Mountain Shrimp? There is like a seven minute stretch of this movie where every single possible preparation of shrimp is enumerated in full. And it made me kind of want shrimp.

Joe House is out there somewhere. It made him hungry. Gary Sinise, Apollo 13 or this? I think it is. Okay. Love that. The Oscars. Apex Mountain. The 1994 Oscars, which had David Letterman hosting, and it was the Oprah Uma one. It became super controversial. And then we had Shawshank versus Pulp Fiction versus Forrest Gump. And it was like baby boomers against newer...

people. Old school Hollywood against new school Hollywood. Gen X, your generation. Gen X, yeah, my generation. Can I give you a data point about this? Yeah. In 1995, when this Oscars took place, 49 million people watched the Oscars. 83 million people watched the Super Bowl that year. In 2023, 19 million people watched the Oscars and 112 million people watched the Super Bowl.

The Oscars fucked up. That's terrible. What happened? I felt like the Oscars meant the most, mattered the most, and resonated the most in the 90s because we had enough movie history at that point

I really cared who won. There was that whole movie making culture, all the magazines. It's just like, I really cared. And now I care because you care. Yeah. You care so that you can watch all the movies and be like, you know that movie you loved and talked about? Hated it. But Sean, how many people are on Letterboxd every day? You're fine. You're fine. I see each and every one of you and I love and respect all of you. Ridiculous.

Michael T. Williamson? Apex Mountain? No, it's Heat. You fucking ain't right, it's Heat. Methamphetamines! Movies built around a dumb character? Would you go this or Dumb and Dumber? Ooh. Yeah. I mean, I would rather watch Dumb and Dumber right now. Okay. The Washington Monument, I'm going to say no. I just think they probably had better moments. Spider-Man Homecoming?

Tragic hot female movie characters? It's a long list. How much more do we have to go on the show? All right, moving on. Best racehorse name has to be Magic Legs if we're having a racehorse from this movie. Like you're betting on Magic Legs. I'm going with I'm so dizzy. Kickstart the school year with Apple gift card. You can send it via email or send a physical card to your loved ones.

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It's a Camry vibe. Learn more at Toyota.com slash Camry. It's always a pleasure when we get to do this in person, especially with her parents here. I wasn't sure if you were going to skip this tonight. Oh, God, no. The Mallory Rubin Award, which we named after her, did this movie need a better sex scene? We literally named this after Mallory, and it was probably an HR violation, but we're all okay. Okay.

I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this with 850 of my closest friends and my father. Sorry, Dad. It is astonishing to me, astonishing, that there's not a scene in this movie where Jenny teaches Forrest how to perform oral sex. Forrest hears, Forrest hears once, never take your eye off the ball.

And he becomes the best ping pong player in the world! You don't have to worry about the premature ejaculation. And we have seen this man attack an ice cream cone. The future of our country. Amazing. Wow. Was there a better title for this movie?

Probably not, right? I don't think so. Forrest Gump, good title. Okay. I'm stumped. You got to give me a second. You got to give me a second. Yeah, no. She really went for a chick. Her dad's in the audience. She didn't care. All right, time to pick some nits. Yes. Man. How long was Forrest at the bus stop? I mean, honestly, how many hours?

Like six? Nine? These three different buses, right, have gone by. Three hours? Five? It really makes that forest is in heaven idea make a lot of sense. Because it could have been 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. where he was waiting for one bus. And he's three blocks away from where he is. Yeah, and then it's like, oh, yeah, he's stupid. That's right. I forgot that he's dumb. How did he even get that far? Like, how did he get to Savannah? How did he get anywhere? Yeah.

He ran across the entire country for three years. He knows where everything is except the apartment that he has the exact address for that's five blocks away. All those people stayed at Forrest's mom's bed and breakfast in the middle of fucking nowhere, Alabama. That place was packed. Beautiful. What was going on there? The like lush canopy of the tree line, a lake. Beautiful. It wasn't near anything. Where were these people coming from? It was a long time ago. You didn't need like a big Wi-Fi signal, you know?

Just needed a refuge to write. What do you have, C.R.? I have a couple. First one is a little bit of a culture of accountability. I feel like I missed the boat as a child from... I didn't ever use gump as a verb, and I feel like we really missed out as a society, so you could use it in two different ways. One would be...

for premature ejaculation. So you could be like, Gary almost lost his virginity last night, but he just gumped out right after he got past second base. That would have been great. Also, just anybody running from a stressful situation, like, oh man, we were about to get in a fight with a bunch of Cowboys fans last night, but then Gary just gumped. He straight up gumped out the bar. So I feel like we could have used that. But the one that I'm really concerned about was, do you think that Forrest's mom

was like, if you had told me you were going to turn into Deebo Samuel, I may not have had sex with that principal because we probably could have put you in IMG Academy. Oh my gosh. Great one. You have any, Sean? Yeah. You already pointed out that it's insane that

Forrest's mother allowed him to enlist in the military after graduating from college at that time. And he was an only child. An only child with a 75 IQ and they're like, you should definitely go to war. And then on top of that, how long was he in Vietnam? Oh, I have that as my next one. So he meets JFK because he's in the All-America team and it has to be the 1962 team because JFK died the next year.

Basic training. Vietnam. We know Bubba dies in 1965 because you see it on his gravestone. And I have no idea what happens from 1965 to 1974. He plays ping pong. For nine years for the military? Yeah.

Yeah. A lot of ping pong. Can they do that? A lot of ping pong. I don't want to make this movie longer, but it feels like there's one... He could have been a roadie for the Rolling Stones for two years. Oh, that's a good idea. That's a great one. Taught Mick Jagger to dance. Maybe that's where all the oral sex tutelage happens. 65 to 74. Just two a day. Um...

Are we okay with every Louisiana boat getting destroyed in Hurricane Carmen except the Jenny boat? Not super really, no. Yeah. It's a plot hole. It sort of forces you to wonder if Forrest just like was okay maintaining a monopoly on the shrimping business. Did he offer any of those people jobs? Oh, that's a good point. It's very strange actually if you think about it. Supports here would be canceled idea too. Yeah. Forrest destroyed everyone else. Uh,

Why couldn't Jenny meet one nice guy? Not one? Well... Nobody like... But that's the story, right? She comes from an abusive household, so she's seeking... She's some rich guy in 1975, and that's it. She moves to Darien, Connecticut, and has a couple kids, and we're done. Couldn't happen for her. Poor Jenny. Here's a nitpick. Once Forrest gets rich, he's getting ripped off immediately. I mean, that is like, come on. He's the biggest target who's ever been rich. Yeah.

Nobody has to bother ripping him off because he just keeps giving his money away. Right. Well, Lieutenant Dan, he's just like, here, take my money. He's like, I got some Apple stock and it actually worked out. But there's 10 terrible versions of that. I don't understand how he got Apple stock before Apple was a company. I had a question about this. This is a picking nit. I can't believe Lieutenant Dan did that. Do you think like Dan was on the message boards? Just like, oh yeah. That's an unanswerable question. He got something cooking in the garage. Yeah. He went to high school with Wozniak. Yeah.

I thought Apple was around the mid... Was it around the mid-70s? 76. Anybody know? Yeah, but it didn't go public. How would you buy stock in a company that doesn't go public until 1982? This is a movie where someone jogged for three years and went straight. Here's a nitpick just for Chris.

We needed Lieutenant Dan to throw Forrest a bachelor party where things got a little nuts. Oh, yeah. Like one of his magic legs is just missing the next day. It's like, where's my right magic leg? Just for old time's sake. The wedding's almost canceled. Lenore's pops out of a cake. Bill, did you consciously pick movies for this cold weather tour that involved people with severed limbs and prosthetics? No, this is the last one. Thank God. Two nights in a row. Just realized. All right, so...

I don't know if it's a nitpick or if it's an unanswerable question, but why did... We talked about how evil of an act it was for Jenny to leave. But why did she leave? Because she can't break him. She doesn't want to hurt him because she knows that she's... Wait a couple weeks, or maybe she finds out she's pregnant and she leaves the next day. She's like, I gotta... No. Well... That's the thing. I mean, Forrest is not the father. Bang.

I mean, he's not the father. I feel like I'm literally on Mori right now. Yeah. Has this not occurred to anyone else sitting here? Oh, no, of course. How convenient it is right at the moment when she's dying that she calls up her rich moron childhood friend and she's like, I really need somebody to look after this kid. Maybe it's the guy who's worth $500 million will help out.

So I would say good theory, except when they're watching TV together, they really look alike. Yeah. You don't think she's coached that kid? She could have been like, look, he's going to walk over to the TV, just kind of like mirror. Just tilt your head. Also, the name on his birth certificate is like Dan. It's not Forrest. And then she ex-post factoed it. No? See, this is the Jets. This is the Jets. This isn't you. Deep down, you don't believe this. All right.

Why didn't Forrest get what Jenny had? Yeah. A grim conversation, but we're all friends here. I think we should have it. That's why you guys came out to talk STDs. Let's put it on the table. Why not, Mal? Well, so there are a couple timeline variables to consider, right? So we have the, is it HIV? Is it hepatitis C? Chris and I did have a conversation earlier today where we debated whether it was

smart and or safe to Google on our work computers, is hepatitis C sexually transmitted? We decided not to do that. We figured we'd just like workshop it live here right now. We just like sort of nap people at the Navy Yard. It was just like, just get up and treat it. Question for you. But either she already has whatever she has before they sleep together, in which case Forrest, Forrest Jr.,

They're at risk. Or she doesn't. She contracts it later, which means, are we supposed to assume that Jenny is still shooting heroin and sharing needles after she has a newborn? That's, like, very depressing. All right, just to get grim here for a second. She dies... Just to get grim? Like, that wasn't grim? No, I thought I'd take it up a notch. She dies in March 1982, which is nine months after the first recorded AIDS case. So it's still a mystery. Um...

Hot take, maybe she just had a virus. Maybe. I think if you're Zemeckis and you're making this movie and you have your character say out loud it's a virus, they don't know what it is or how to treat it, and that's the time frame, you know what your audience is going to assume. Hot take, maybe the filmmakers fucked it up and they didn't research when everything started. It was like, oh yeah, it was around then, and then they just, that was what they did. The movie is literally about key dates in American history. That would be a bummer.

Any other pick and nits? Got a couple quick ones. All right, do it. Has Forrest Gump ever considered closing the blinds in his hotel room? It's not just that he's involved in Watergate. It's that he calls and he's like, they're keeping me up. It's like, close your fucking drains. Yeah. Then you wouldn't see the light. It's shocking. And then we would have gotten more Nixon. That would have been sick. Yeah. What did you do, Forrest?

the fact that forrest names the shrimp boat jenny instead of bubba is outrageous this is bubba's dream he couldn't honor his friend i mean sure he's honoring him by like seeing through the promise that's fine he does right by his family fortune name the boat bubba it's bubba's dream what did jenny do for that dream well never write him a letter yeah she took off her shirt one time

sequel prequel prestige tvl black cast are untouchable i'm not against prestige for this a prestige would be a bit of a choice i'm not against it i gotta be completely honest what streamer what streamer are you putting it on probably a failing one feels peacockish yeah sorry can i throw something at are they here

Mr. and Mrs. Peacock are right there. So we didn't do recasting couch, but I can fold it into this category. I missed one. What if we are living a sequel to Forrest Gump and Forrest Gump is being played by Travis Kelsey?

And this is the way we get the Oscars back, is when we realize this is all a Truman show, right? And the last year has been a movie. And then that gets nominated for Best Picture and beats Oppenheimer's Special Dispensation. So recasting couch, Travis Kelsey is Forrest Gump. Yes. He saves us from coronavirus, wins multiple Super Bowls, dates Taylor Swift, pushes like a dubious credit card on us, like whatever it is he's up to.

And it has a podcast. I love it. It's The Modern Man. Great one. Great one. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Katherine Hahn, Steve Buscemi, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Byron Mayo?

Harling Mays or Philip Baker Hall. We talked a little bit about Byron and what he could participate in in this film. And I think he would do some great work. I think Danny Trejo would be an amazing addition to the Vietnam squad. But if Wayne Jenkins had been coaching Alabama...

That's some great fucking special teams work, man. I didn't know I recruited Eric fucking Metcalf. I'll tell you what, Forrest, you got some great 40 speed. Too bad you just got drafted by the only team that matters, the United Armed Forces. Here we go to Vietnam a fucking time before I get the fuck out of here.

It feels weird doing it at some point. Yeah, you're in the mid-Atlantic. You really channeled the power of Wayne. Wait, Wayne was the special teams coach at Alabama? Is that okay? Just one Oscar, who gets it? Hanks or Zemeckis? Hanks. Okay, I agree. Probably an answer for questions. So many. I'm glad you brought up Forrest in football. Yes. Best weight kick returner ever, Forrest Gump. Unbelievable. Every time he hit the ball, 100 yards.

Where do you think he finished in the Heisman voting? Because this was really the era where there was like a huge gap typically between the first and second place finisher. Because I'm me, I researched this. Stalbach won in 63. You think he's second behind Stalbach? There were no receivers or kick returners on the All-American team. They took some liberties. They did have the AFL and the NFL back then. So we had two football leagues. And I find it impossible to believe that he wasn't drafted in one of those leagues.

Like, it's impossible. He's Devin Hester times 10. Yeah. Somebody, there's 30 teams. He's like more of a Corderell Patterson, bruiser, physical runner. Yeah, just imagine what Shani could do, just putting him into some concepts, you know? He's on two Bear Bryant title teams based on this timeline. Two. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense.

He was so good, the whole section held up stop signs. That's how many times he scored a touchdown. They had to tell him to stop. We forgot to point out, though, in picking nits, that whenever they hand him the ball on the kickoffs, that it's an illegal forward pass. Oh, that's fair. It's true. So the jogging scene that's reprehensible. Where did...

Forrest says, I'm done. I'm going to go home now. Where did everyone else go? They're like, we followed this fucking idiot. Montana? We're 20 miles from a hotel. You're going to stop here? They're just in the middle of some highway? I believe they're in Arizona, right? And so he's so close to the West Coast at that point. It's like, just see it through. Do it one more time. Right? Get to California. You have an unanswerable question?

Yeah, what's up with everybody he comes into contact with either dies or gets maimed, including all of the presidents? Well, Nixon didn't die, but eventually he did. But it just seems like he has this trail of death that follows behind him. I don't know what's going on with that. So it's a more sinister movie lurking underneath Forrest Gump. Look, if you shot this movie from Jenny's perspective... Mm-hmm.

It's much different. This guy shows up three times in her life, beats the shit out of her boyfriends, ejaculates prematurely, and then gets her pregnant. Yeah. Like, that's fucking crazy. Are you saying that actually, like, the demon in her life was not her father, but Forrest Gump? Forrest...

That would be an amazing... Now, that's our prestige show. It's called Jenny. It's the Jenny Gump story. Pacific Heights version of this, where it's like the guy next door, and he's just like, okay, Forrest, whatever, man. Vinyl season two? Is this your backdoor pilot for vinyl season two? Just a lot of cocaine? There's a...

There's a whole, is this a conservative movie thing that developed in the mid-90s from this. In 1995, National Review included Gump as one of its best 100 conservative movies, and it's still ranked number four right now. I don't really understand this, and I'm going to make this an unanswerable? Or maybe we just move on. Well, let me just show the dichotomy that anybody can claim this movie. So within five minutes of the movie, there's a scene in which

an active and awarded military serviceman speaks to an anti-war protest group and is applauded and then meets the love of his life in the pond. And then like five minutes later, he's beating the absolute shit out of a democratic socialist in front of the Black Panthers. So you could say this movie is all things to all people. Yeah, good answer.

Any other answerables? Because I got one more. Did this movie invent deep fakes? Yeah. That's good. Yes. You think so? Wow. Conceptually, at least? Man, you guys didn't expect this pod to go this dark, huh? No. What do you have, ma'am? So the scrapbook that Jenny makes, the clippings, I'm assuming everyone goes frame by frame, freeze frame, to read some of these headlines. Yeah.

One of the small ones is investigation of Gump to continue in hometown.

What? What is that about? Dark Gump. This is what I'm saying. What is that about? It's sitting right there for us. That's like unbelievable. And then there's a lot like, so there's really intriguing, serious, sinister stuff like that. And then it's just juxtaposed against an inquirer headline. Go-go dancer says, Forrest Gump made me his secret lover. And then there's a little photo of Forrest and the banner that says, I don't know her. So he's like the pro-Clinton guy.

I just thought of the running and the dark Gump. Like, it's basically Ted Bundy and Gump. Gump's running the country, but he's also a serial killer. Maybe that's the prestige thing. Directed by David Fincher? Some slate columns about the run where it's like, what's he running from? The dark truth about Gump's endless run. All right. Last one for me, just because we have to. Cruise versus Hanks has been a big...

Big battle for us. What is this movie like if Tom Cruise played Forrest Gump? Well, you would love the running scene. Yeah, exactly. That's why I brought it up. Every scene of Gump running goes up five levels. And by the way, there's no fucking Jim Hanks as a stunt double. Cruise is doing all the jogging scenes. And I think he's hanging off the shrimp boat.

Fantasy, what do you think if it's Cruise plays Gump and Kubrick comes in to direct the first section? I mean, we all saw the magic between him and Jennifer Connelly on that bed in Top Gun Maverick. Imagine what he could do with Robin Wright in that scene, prematurely ejaculating. It's got Cruise written all over it. It's a funnier movie with Cruise. Is it? It is for me. Any other answer for us?

Best double feature choice for this movie. What do you got, Sean? I think Back to the Future shows you the genius of Robert Zemeckis. I feel like these two movies together are great. I have Cast Away. Because there's Zemeckis and Hanks of it all. So you could do Cast Away, Wonderful Beard, or you could do The Waterboy. The Waterboy. Great call. I honestly can't stop that. That's so good.

Great stuff. Can I point out one thing, though? There's a movie coming out this year called Here, directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, written by Eric Roth, shot by Don Burgess, who shot Forrest Gump. It's a reunion of everyone, the critical people who made this movie. The movie is based on a graphic novel that takes place in one corner of a house in

over millions of years. And each panel is a different image of that space and period in time. And somehow, this will be a movie starring Jenny and Forrest. Wow. I'm in. Which is kind of what Forrest Gump is about. Yeah, I love it. Can't wait till 2025. Too long, Bill Simmons ringer. Sounds kind of awful, I gotta be honest.

The Indian Red's the one day award for what happened the next day. I have Forrest Jr. ends up creating Facebook. Yeah. And eventually becomes the bane of our existence. I like this. Yeah. I think Lieutenant Dan opens a hedge fund and eventually is the inspiration for billions. Oh, that's great. Magic legs LLC. Yeah.

Chris, what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? Easy. The seat pad from Lieutenant Dan's wheelchair. Oh. Oh. What a choice. Sean? Wouldn't that be sanitized before he took possession? The original must. Just come up with it. Okay. Leg braces?

So I had, I really liked the Gump Mao table tennis set that they show. Yeah. It'd just be an amazing thing to bring out at a party. Get a Flex-O-Lite paddle while you're at it. You got 25K for that. I like the fake magazines, like the Fortune magazine, the Playboy is good. The Jenny scrapbook would be, the original scrapbook would be unbelievable. Yeah. And then obviously the shrimp boat.

I don't know where to put it. I can't believe you didn't pick the mud-caked Nike Cortez. You love a pair of Nike Cortez. Yeah, all right, that's the winner. How is your Mao memorabilia room going? That would be my first one. All right, we're almost done. The Coach Finstock Award Best Life Lesson. You can believe in destiny and luck? See, I got profound. You guys didn't expect that one. No, you leaned forward and everyone thought you were going to make another premature ejaculation joke. Yeah, I know.

I thought one more oh was coming. He's going to do it again, Jim. He's not going to leave it on the table, Jim. Who wins the movie? Hanks. Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks. You guys agree with Hanks? That's it. We're out of categories. This was great. It was good to be in D.C. I promise we're going to come back. We love D.C. It's really fun to come back. I don't know what the next movie will be, but...

We'll be back. This has always been, for me, a fun spot. Did a couple book tours here. We had great showings, and this was a great showing as well. So thanks for coming. On behalf of these wacky three and the Rubin family, thanks for coming in. Thanks so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you.

That's it for the rewatchables. It was produced as always by Craig Horlbeck. Don't forget, you can go on youtube.com slash Bill Simmons and watch any of these live shows and a lot of the rewatchables that we've done. If you want to see us on video, we will see you next week on the rewatchables.