COURTESY MOMA
The film department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York will screen the entire career of director Robert Zemeckis, including his new film The Walk, about Philippe Petit’s high-wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. This means that Forrest Gump—the film that gave us the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company themed restaurant chain as well as the line “stupid is as stupid does”—will enter the hallowed walls of the country’s supposedly leading arbiter of the modern and contemporary art canon. Ah, life. You truly never do know what you’re gonna get, am I right? No?
The museum also announced, in a legendary moment in MoMA press release history, that as part of the retrospective, “On October 3, MoMA will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Back to the Future by screening all three Back to the Future films in succession, just in advance of October 21, 2015, the future date that Marty McFly travels to in Back to the Future II (1989).” Methinks there are some nerds working at the MoMA film department.
MoMA describes The Walk as a “PG-rated, all-audience 3D motion picture experience,” which the art world might consider adopting as its official tagline. The retrospective is called “What Lies Beneath” and opens September 29.