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reggie
Talkin' Bout our Generation

I don't know if this has been done on here before but it's somethin' I've been thinking about recently. It seems like every year for the last few years there has been at least one movie that really is aimed at our specific generation. I'm talking about those us (and I believe that's most of us on this site) in our mid to late 20s up to those in our mid thirties. Whatever THAT generation is called, what would you say are the flicks that we help define who we are?

For instance for our parents the movies made in the late 50s, 60s and 70s pretty much tell their stories. Movies of the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s tell out grandparents stories. Even though I'm not that big into 80s nostalgia and really that movies of the 90's and the first half of the 00s hit closer to home, I'd still be willing to allow movies of the 80s in any list.

Here are a few I've thought of:

Fight Club
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Lost in Translation
Garden State
Boyz n the Hood
Kicking and Screaming (not the soccer movie but the Noah Baumbach one)
Slacker
Singles
High Fidelity
Ghost World
Pulp Fiction
The Matrix

I wouldn't necessarily limit it to movies featuring characters in their twenties either. For instance, I'd be willing to say American Splendor qualifies even though most of it is set in the 70s and 80s and features a character in his forties. That's because from a stylistic standpoint its mixing of narrative and documentary as well as its kind of free-form narrative (even though I guess that owes a great deal to Woody Allen) gives it that ADD feeling. American Splendor feels more like OUR movie than it does theirs. Maybe that's because Harvey Pekar might be the definitive slacker (and I mean that in a good way.)

Any other suggestions? Also, I'm still really not sure if we've already had this discussion before...

[ 115 responses ] < Post > < link >
[ posted by reggie at 02/03/2006 10:34:29 AM ]
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meredith [email] said at 10:49 AM 02-03-2006:
I would throw Reality Bites in there with Singles for the 'oh so 90s' movies.
kiche [email] said at 11:29 AM 02-03-2006:
donnie darko
kaycee [email] said at 11:31 AM 02-03-2006:
lost in translation is an awful movie!
    nathan [email] said at 11:46 AM 02-03-2006:
    I'm with you there Kaycee, but I think we're the minority on that opinion.
    josh [email] said at 12:24 PM 02-03-2006:
    i dont really think it was awful... over-rated, yeah. i wasn't bored when i saw it, and bill murray was good in it. i'm sure all the japan stuff was wrong, but i don't reallycare about that aspect.
    meredith [email] said at 12:30 PM 02-03-2006:
    I didn't really think it was awful, but I don't think it defines my generation either.
      myriam [email] said at 12:56 PM 02-03-2006:
      I liked it, but I agree, it doesn't define my generation. Bill Murray's generation, maybe. (Middle-aged people!)
        john [email] said at 1:01 PM 02-03-2006:
        Hey watch it! You probably were a teenager for crappy movies like Amercian Pie, etc. that's what you can relate to! I'm going to make you watch all of the Vacation movies when you get here tonight, except for Vegas Vacation, because that one sucks.
        josh [email] said at 1:06 PM 02-03-2006:
        well, whatshername's character is younger than us and teh story is equally hers.

        i really dont think it define's anyone's generation... it's no Easy Rider.
      reggie [email] said at 10:03 AM 02-04-2006:
      Scarlett Johannsen plays a twenty-something who has recently graduated from college with a philosophy degree. She thinks she wants to be a writer but isn't sure. She's gotten married most likely because that's what she felt she had to do.

      Her character reminds me a lot like Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate which is the movie that Lost in Translation gets compared to most often.

      Whether or not you think it defines our generation. It was made by a filmmaker that's the same age as us and has grown up on the same pop-cultural diet as we have. One of the two main characters is the same age as us. She's disillusioned and cynical of the world around her. She doesn't have a job. Doesn't know what's in store for her future.

      She's THE very definition of the word "slacker" if that's what we're going to be called. She's artistically inclined, culturally aware but not really motivated to do one thing.

      She's the kind of girl that moves back home from Japan with her nice fancy Philosophy degree and ends up working where? At a Borders.
    kevin [email] said at 1:32 PM 02-03-2006:
    the way it was filmed was just beautiful though. awesome colors and bokeh everywhere. i like the way her movies look. virgin suicides also has the same feel.
carla [email] said at 11:37 AM 02-03-2006:
How about "Clueless?"
    reggie [email] said at 10:29 AM 02-04-2006:
    I love Clueless and think it applies to us more so than TBC even. Not that we are rich and live in Beverly Hills or anything but the thing is the most important part in most our lives wasn't the 80s but the 90s.
    abby [email] said at 10:51 AM 02-09-2006:
    yes!
nathan [email] said at 11:45 AM 02-03-2006:
Rushmore was a nice antithesis to Slacker. Kids had alot of accuracies.
josh [email] said at 12:23 PM 02-03-2006:
slacker? i think i was like 15 when i saw that, does that really apply to my generation? maybe.
    reggie [email] said at 10:09 AM 02-04-2006:
    It came out in 1991. You may have been fifteen (I was fourteen when it came out) but you can't tell me that you haven't had many days either in Weesiana, DC or Ballmer like the one where you just kinda wander around town, bumping into your other crazy friends as well as the town weirdos.

    That guy "Wandering Mark" who used to always come into Visions (and like every other bar in DC) might as well have been a character in Slacker.
      andrew [email] said at 11:50 AM 02-04-2006:
      I knew this guy who was in Slacker. I'd mention his name, but I don't want him to google himself. He was one of the most lazy people I have ever met in my life.
rick [email] said at 12:24 PM 02-03-2006:
"Menace II Society" was way better than "Boyz In Tha Hood"
craig [email] said at 12:32 PM 02-03-2006:
Napoleon Dynamite.
    josh [email] said at 12:36 PM 02-03-2006:
    i think this really speaks to people a bit younger than us, personally. if it speaks to any particular generation at all and isn't just a mildly funny movie.
john [email] said at 12:50 PM 02-03-2006:
Office Space. I can't count how many times I quoted dumb shit from that movie with friends in my last few years at LSU. Funny to watch it now and see how outdated the computers are.
    kara [email] said at 1:10 PM 02-03-2006:
    unfortunately Office Space truly does define my life.. regardless of the technology, the principles are all still there (or here)
    myriam [email] said at 1:32 PM 02-03-2006:
    Yeah, Office Space.
      kevin [email] said at 1:38 PM 02-03-2006:
      everyone relates to office space. i have fifty year old coworkers who quote lines from the movie!
    reggie [email] said at 10:11 AM 02-04-2006:
    I'd say yes although since Office Space pretty much applies to anybody who's ever worked a job ever it kinda transcends a specific generation but I'd still tend to agree with you. Especially with the usage of gangsta rap on the soundtrack for a movie set in corporate America.
art [email] said at 12:52 PM 02-03-2006:
Any movie with Tera Patrick in it
myriam [email] said at 1:36 PM 02-03-2006:
The Princess Bride (for us girls)

also, I dunno, things like "Indian Summer" and "The Breakfast Club" are definitely coming to mind... also things like Ghostbusters were highly influential to me. And the one with that girl who dances with Patrick Swayze and gets knocked up. I had a lot of friends in college who were in love with "Chasing Amy" but I *hated* it.
    john [email] said at 1:54 PM 02-03-2006:
    Are you talking about Dirty Dancing? I hated that movie.
    reggie [email] said at 10:16 AM 02-04-2006:
    You hated something? What a surprise. ;)

    I would allow the Breakfast Club although I'm not that big a fan of it. Maybe it would've helped if I'd seen it when I was younger.
    zack [email] said at 7:26 PM 02-09-2006:
    I'm not sure why you classified The Princess Bride as a chick flick.. Is this like how Brokeback Mountain was a chick flick? (ie: wtf dude it has romance!!)


    I loved Princess Bride, and I know many many dudes who loved it to. (I know, I know, it's: "Inconcievable!") It's just a plain old classic funny movie.
      reggie [email] said at 7:38 PM 02-09-2006:
      Yeah, no way Princess Bride is a "chick flick." I'm not even that big a fan of it (I like it...a lot even, but I'm not a Princess Bride die hard) but there's no way it's chick flick.
rick [email] said at 1:46 PM 02-03-2006:
Goonies

Explorers

Wargames

Cloak and Dagger

The Peanut Butter Solution

D.A.R.Y.L.

Flight of the Navigator

Spacecamp

Weird Science

My Science Project

    myriam [email] said at 1:48 PM 02-03-2006:
    I was OBSESSED with Flight of the Navigator as a child. OBSESSED.

    I guess you have to include Back to the Future and Star Wars with these.
      reggie [email] said at 12:58 PM 02-04-2006:
      See I don't know how much claim we can stake in Star Wars. I don't totally disagree but I was six by the time Return of the Jedi was released. My connection to Star Wars is possibly based more upon the action figures than the movies themselves.

      Back to the Future possibly in that all three of those movies (well the first two at least) were somehow able to mock the decade that they existed in...unless that was unintentional.
brandon [email] said at 2:08 PM 02-03-2006:
Bubble-Boy

Not Another Teen Movie

Other endless Spoof-flicks

Endless movie adaptations of anti-establishment books from other eras.

All, speak to the fact that our generation lacks its own identity and constantly raids other cultural eras in a vain quest to construct an image of ourselves to admire.

What's weird is a lot of these movies proposed to the list are made by late boomers who just seem Gen-Xy or just boomers in general. Just an observation. Would you say that this was a a trend for movies that spoke to previous generations?
andrew [email] said at 3:01 PM 02-03-2006:
The Warriors
myriam [email] said at 3:12 PM 02-03-2006:
The Matrix (first one)
gen [email] said at 11:00 PM 02-03-2006:
Igby Goes Down
Imaginary Heroes
KIDS (maybe more my brother's generation)
reggie [email] said at 10:32 AM 02-04-2006:
Let me add:
Do the Right Thing (barely)
Three Kings
Election (maybe)
Clerks
john [email] said at 12:46 PM 02-04-2006:
I haven't seen it yet but I've heard a lot of people love it: Almost Famous?
reggie [email] said at 1:03 PM 02-04-2006:
Scream
reggie [email] said at 1:47 PM 02-04-2006:
THEM - The Graduate
US - Lost in Translation (maybe Rushmore)

THEM - The Godfather
US - Pulp Fiction

THEM - M*A*S*H or Catch-22
US - Three Kings

THEM - Bonnie & Clyde
US - Natural Born Killers

THEM - Taxi Driver
US - Fight Club

THEM - Mean Streets
US - Boyz n the Hood

THEM - Super Fly
US - Hustle & Flow

THEM - Point Blank
US - The Limey (this one's for you Jake)

THEM - King Kong
US - King Kong

Dang. Each time I came up with a classic movie (the Hustler, Rebel Without a Cause, On the Waterfront) I found it really hard to come up with a modern day equivalent. That's not to say everything of the last 25 years has sucked but a lot of it just doesn't match up. Evenly.

Like The Godfather and Pulp Fiction are both centered around crime and both deal with gangsters but I matched them up because both movies have become part of the pop-cultural lexicon.
    julie [email] said at 1:59 PM 02-04-2006:
    THEM: Point Blank
    US: Grosse Pointe Blank
    julie [email] said at 2:00 PM 02-04-2006:
    THEM: The Hustler
    US: The Color of Money
    har har
    julie [email] said at 2:03 PM 02-04-2006:
    THEM: To Kill a Mockingbird
    US: Good Will Hunting
    ? don't ask me why, it just works
      reggie [email] said at 4:05 PM 02-04-2006:
      I don't know about that one...
        ed [email] said at 4:49 PM 02-04-2006:
        I loves me some Julie, but I'm with you on this one.

        Both movies are *great*, but I wouldn't consider them equivalent for different generations.
          reggie [email] said at 6:44 PM 02-04-2006:
          When I orginally did my THEM/US list, I had To Kill a Mockingbird paired with A Time to Kill. Then I remembered how lame and heavy-handed I thought A Time to Kill was and erased it.

          I don't know what compares with To Kill a Mockingbird. The key is that the movie looks at a very serious issue entirely through the eyes of a couple of kids. So TKaM has more in common with Stand By Me than Good Will Hunting but even that doesn't quite fit.
            ed [email] said at 8:55 PM 02-06-2006:
            Honestly, I can't think of an equivalent of TKAM. It just stands on its own.

            Kinda like Taxi Driver. I just can't think of anything that even approaches it.
    julie [email] said at 2:04 PM 02-04-2006:
    THEM: Nosferatu
    US: The Crow
    julie [email] said at 2:06 PM 02-04-2006:
    THEM: Romeo and Juliet
    US: William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
      reggie [email] said at 4:08 PM 02-04-2006:
      THEM: West Side Story
      US: Moulin Rouge
        julie [email] said at 4:20 PM 02-04-2006:
        Ugh, no way! Moulin Rouge sucks, and I don't feel like it was for "our" generation. Worst movie ever.
          reggie [email] said at 4:43 PM 02-04-2006:
          I really liked Moulin Rouge, and I don't like musicals (y'know, cuz if I do then obviously I'm gay and you know how homophobic I am.) I liked it b-cuz it uses pre-existing music specifically in the form of anachronistic pop songs as its score.

          In High Fidelity, John Cusack's character in talking about the art of the mixtape described it as something like using someone else's poetry to tell somebody how ya feel about them (I'm paraphrasing here.) I like Moulin Rouge because it's like somebody made a mixtape and then wrote a movie around that mixtape. Our generation LOVES mixtapes/CDs. I mean they used "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Roxanne" for chrissakes and it worked. It's the only postmodern musical I've ever seen.
            chrisx [email] said at 6:08 PM 02-09-2006:
            My (and Cusak's) generation may love a mix tape, but your generation loves an iPod shuffle!
              reggie [email] said at 6:25 PM 02-09-2006:
              My? How old do you think I am?
              reggie [email] said at 6:31 PM 02-09-2006:
              Exhibit A
                chrisx [email] said at 7:08 PM 02-09-2006:
                I'm guessing you are approx 10 years younger than I am, like most killoggers.. But really I was just being a smart-ass.
                  reggie [email] said at 7:25 PM 02-09-2006:
                  okay, next question. how old are you...if you don't mind my asking?
                    chrisx [email] said at 7:35 PM 02-09-2006:
                    uhhh... 10 years older than the average killogger. One year younger than Cusack.
                      myriam [email] said at 7:38 PM 02-09-2006:
                      Is 10 years considered a different generation?
                        chrisx [email] said at 7:41 PM 02-09-2006:
                        Only if you are willing to date outside your generation...
                          myriam [email] said at 7:49 PM 02-09-2006:
                          ha ha ha

                          I think I already am!

                          I guess generation is more culture-based than age-based, anyway.
                            reggie [email] said at 8:08 PM 02-09-2006:
                            I guess generation is more culture-based than age-based, anyway.

                            There you go. It's kind of like the entire point of VH1's "I Love the [Insert Decade Here]'s".

                            I'm still old enough to remember 8-Tracks, I think most of us on this site are old enough to have owned records when we were kids. Yet there will soon be an entire generation of kids who were born with iPods and mp3 who will think that CD's are ancient and wouldn't know an 8-track if it hit 'em in the ear. Might not even know what a cassette is.
                        reggie [email] said at 7:58 PM 02-09-2006:
                        Maybe but the thing is he's of the "generation" that would be teaching us -- well you're only 25 so ;) -- what records to listen to, what movies are cool etc.
                          chrisx [email] said at 8:04 PM 02-09-2006:
                          And that's why I try to school the shoppers at Reptilian about where their fave new bands got their influences, and why I have movie nights often! (I fell off the couch when some young friends came over and said they had never seen River's Edge, Repo Man, or even Miller's Crossing and True Romance! Classics!
                      reggie [email] said at 7:49 PM 02-09-2006:
                      Wow, you're right on the money. But I don't think 10 years is that big a gap (for what we're talking about.) I mean my high school years were 1991-1995, I didn't even get my first CD player until about '94. I'm analog born and raised homey.
                        myriam [email] said at 7:58 PM 02-09-2006:
                        My high school years were 94-98, I got my first CD player Christmas 98, post-high school.

                        I tend to feel like: if my high school or college years overlapped with someone, then they're within "my age bracket". Generally.
                          rick [email] said at 8:06 PM 02-09-2006:
                          Not to start a gratuitous thread or anything . . .. but what was your first CD?

                          I shall go first; mine was MCMXC A.D. by Enigma. (Rick: +10 lame points)

                            reggie [email] said at 8:13 PM 02-09-2006:
                            I'll see your 10 lame points and raise you 10 more: my first CD was Code Red by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.
                              rick [email] said at 8:38 PM 02-09-2006:
                              Awesome. It is weird listening to that kind of hiphop nowadays compared to the stuff that comes out now.

                              I remember reading once in GQ, an interview with Will Smith in which he said gangsta rap ruined hiphop. I dunno if that was true (but it reminded me a bit of an article I read in the early Nineties which said that grunge temporarily ruined the alternative music scene).

              kara [email] said at 7:18 PM 02-09-2006:
              i'll always love a mix tape the best
    julie [email] said at 2:07 PM 02-04-2006:
    THEM: The Poseidon Adventure
    US: Titanic
      atchafalaya said at 3:45 PM 02-04-2006:
      The Poseidon Adventure was good stuff. The networks used to play that once a year till I was about 10 or so. There is a great falling through glass shot in that film.
      [Reply To this] [#212048] [ip: logged]
katie [email] said at 9:02 PM 02-06-2006:
THEM: a raisin in the sun
US: do the right thing
Emmaleigh said at 12:34 AM 02-07-2006:
Hackers
[Reply To this] [#212378] [ip: logged]
reggie [email] said at 5:25 PM 02-09-2006:
THEM: Chinatown
US: Silence of the Lambs (LA Confidential's too obvious a choice and is more of a throwback kinda movie.)

THEM: Rififi
US: Heat
    reggie [email] said at 5:54 PM 02-09-2006:
    I have to disagree with myself on this one. As I sit here watching Chinatown on one of the HBOs I'll change Silence... to maybe Fargo?
josh [email] said at 6:27 PM 02-09-2006:
you guys have named a TON of movies that i doubt the average member of our generation really even knows about, much less considers "defining"
    rick [email] said at 6:41 PM 02-09-2006:
    I was being facetious when I named my films, if only because my real choices would be even less representative.
    reggie [email] said at 6:54 PM 02-09-2006:
    Oh yeah I know, this post has long since worn out its welcome. I just like to keep 'em going sometimes.

    I don't suppose what I was really looking for were movies that specifically and literally define our generation but, I guess speak for it, artistically. (?)

    For instance, Chinatown is film noir set in the fifties but it's still a movie OF the Raging Bull, Easy Riders era because it stars Nicholson, was directed by Polanski, it takes the film noir motif of the fifties and updates it with a bit of the rebellious attitude of the 70s (look at the ending.)
chrisx [email] said at 7:41 PM 02-09-2006:
Gee, how come no one is singing the ill-deserved praises of Doom Generation in this thread? C'mon Josh, I thought it was your fave flick!
reggie [email] said at 8:09 PM 02-09-2006:
Swingers
La Haine
andrew [email] said at 9:14 PM 02-09-2006:
The Usual Suspects
reggie [email] said at 4:59 PM 02-11-2006:
Memento
Trainspotting
Run Lola Run
reggie [email] said at 5:41 PM 02-11-2006:
This is probably what this post should have looked like the first time around.

If there's the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls Generation of movies (Godfather, The Graduate, Taxi Driver, Easy Rider etc.) then we get the Sundance Generation. I think that's more indicative of what I was going for and helps to trim the fat of naming movies for the sake of naming movies. These aren't necessarily films that debuted at Sundance but display the same independent "spirit" that those movies do and their ER,RB predecessors or are made by directors who did get there start at Sundance.

Pulp Fiction
Lost in Translation
American Splendor
Boyz n the Hood
Memento
Trainspotting
Run Lola Run
Slacker
sex, lies & videotape
The Blair Witch Project
Reservoir Dogs
In the Company of Men
Swingers
Being John Malkovich
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Ghost World
Sling Blade
KIDS
My Own Private Idaho
El Mariachi
Hoop Dreams
Fahrenheit 9/11
Citizen Ruth
Three Kings
Garden State
La Haine (Hate)
Boogie Nights

I will also add three movies that aren't really indie films but seem to fit in to me:
American Beauty (not a popular movie on this site I know)
Fight Club
The Matrix


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