Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

I thought Reality Bites captured the vibe of early 90s Houston surprisingly well, everyone was obsessed with not and inevitably crucified for selling out in so many contexts... it's hilarious now how bad my friends made each other feel for buying tickets to see a band on a national tour, because a multi-state tour meant they were by definition sellouts who couldn't possibly care about their art. Like it was an ideal nobody could really live up to but it was super present, whereas now that entire concept is just... quaint.

Also we liked it because the club scenes were filmed at Catal Huyuk, neé the Axiom!

Oh you mean the scenes where Hey, That's my bike (worst band name) were playing? Glen the skater guy from the Real World LA pushes past WR she's on a payphone in one of those scenes. I haven't watched it in about a decade but I think there's a couple of them in there.

I have never walked out of a movie except Garden State, what loathsome trash, tho I guess many Xers feel that way about Reality Bites. I have an abiding affection for Winona so

This does make me think about how my 40s have been characterized by “life’s too short to sit through bad art for the sake of critical authority “

life’s too short to sit through bad art for the sake of critical authority

i'm gonna hang on to this phrase tyvm

golden escalator

It's such a pathetic detail to constantly bring up re Trump's announcement for 2016. Serve me right for reading a WaPo piece on Bannon (he's read some books!).

“I would be up for a Big Chill style Gen X movie now tbh. 50-yr-old Xers dealing with….”

this generation is too economically weak for anyone to give a fuck, including its members. they dont spend because principle, they can’t spend because low volume

One of the saddest things I heard recently was a recording of Tony Hawk struggling to do an Ollie 540, finally doing it and realizing that was probably his last time ever.

this generation is too economically weak for anyone to give a fuck

The media has kept alive this narrative of 'boomers vs. millennials' and I always like 'hey, we're right over here! what are we, chopped liver?' which I guess we are

We are the chopped liver in a chopped liver sandwich.

St. Elmo's Fire was a big "how young adults cope with adulthood" movie from circa 1985. It has some claim to be a Gen X Big Chill, except it lacks the killer soundtrack

Yeah I did think of that the other day and I think it's close. They're post college and figuring out early adulthood so maybe a bit closer to 80s RB? God I love that movie. The scene where demi is on the phone talking about Arabs making her do coke is unintentionally hilarious and her pink apartment was an 80s dream.

xp: it has a killer soundtrack.

Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson were high schoolers and post-college in the same year

And Ally Sheedy too

Demi Moore is 61

I like that this whole five-day tangent came out of British people saying 'Gen Zee'.

I asked a friend what he thought the Gen X version of the Big Chill was and he said High Fidelity. I think maybe the characters in it are too young, but I don't remember it very well. I half jokingly offered Fight Club as my choice.

This isn't so annoying but I've seen this kind of headline many times, announcing someone's first book:

Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish new memoir

I understand how the implication is annoying, but the alternative, non-elided phrase would be "Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish new book, a memoir", which seems about equally annoying to me.

I don't see a reason not to just say "Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish memoir." If he's done one before this, then you say "Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish second (or third, or whatever) memoir."

My guess is that it's borrowing from this sort of sentence that you usually see in articles about someone's new book:

In a new memoir, comic artist Rob Liefeld says that...

'New memoir' is informative in that context: this is a newly or recently or soon-to-be published memoir. But it sounds odd when you import that phrase into an announcement. It's redundant.

Comic artist Rob Liefeld to publish soon-to-be published memoir

Right, I get that what is intended is "new to the marketplace" and I'm just reading it differently.

I asked a friend what he thought the Gen X version of the Big Chill was and he said High Fidelity. I think maybe the characters in it are too young, but I don't remember it very well. I half jokingly offered Fight Club as my choice.

I haven't seen it but looked up the Big Chill and I think John Cusack's character in High Fidelity was probably close to their ages, the rest would've been younger though yeah

I feel there’s an Xennial cinematic window that begins with High Fidelity, peaks with Mean Girls, and ends with the first season of Girls

I think I'm a year too old to be a Xennial (obvious caveats about these generations not mapping over to the UK exactly) but I prob have more attachment to films like Pump Up The Volume, Heathers, etc than those so I guess I am Gen X

if you arent factoring in empire records then.....

yeah and Clerks and stuff, I was about 18-19 when those came out

Reality Bites?

The American Pie/Can't Hardly Wait/She's All That era seems very xennial/cusp

xp Reality Bites is what started this whole tangent iirc

Empire Records was bad in the same way Reality Bites was. Sorry.

Reality Bites needed a GWAR cameo.

I saw Empire Records towards the end of a teen movie marathon so prob not fully fit to judge but I did wonder what the fuck was up with that movie.

Ferris Bueller seems an obvious gen X landmark

Office Space

That reminds me — Clockwatchers!

I literally have never seen Reality Bites! Watching Ferris Bueller felt as antiquaited as something like Grease.

I asked a millennial last night what the beginning, summit and end of his generational media window entailed and he said “Mean Girls beginning, Easy A summit, and there hasn’t been an end moment yet but it’ll probably have something to do with TikTok”

Huh I just read the Reality Bites thread. Does it really have “Baby I Love Your Way” in it? As did High Fidelity? I want the Frampton Lobby in my side

Big Chill is very different from Reality Bites imo. The characters in the Big Chill are in their 30s, it's a "Boomers deal with growing up" movie. I can't think of a Gen X equivalent off the top of my head.

nah the characters were in their 40s in that one weren't they?

I think I found it — Before Sunset is the Gen X Big Chill.

No I don't think that's right either.

Empire Records is wonderfully terrible in the same way as reality bites lol. Yesterday was Rex Manning day! The Gwar cameo/Mark were the best and I met the rocker character guy when he was DJing in LA one night around 2000 and he gave me a CD of his which I still have somewhere.

I mean obv Before Sunset isn’t like the Big Chill in having a large group of friends, but in terms of its Gen X leads entering their 30s and wrestling with compromises made, paths taken or not taken, etc.

Anyway, I suppose the real answer is there can’t be a Gen X Big Chill because the central drama of the Big Chill is specific to a Boomer sense of identity as young idealists coming face to face with worldly failures and disappointments. Gen X was never young idealists.

^ otm. I basically made the same point in the thread below when this same topic came up (and which might be a better thread in which to continue the discussion):

Why has there been no widespread 90's revival?

whats friends

/gollum voice