Just watched The Big Chill for the first time

I agree.

There's being open and then there's shock value.

There were other ways he could have provided a -- to use a word I learned from watching Y&R -- 'specimen.'

You had to be there.

She cheated on Harold and was trying to even the score?

I think r3 is right.

I forget the movie but didn't G cheat with the guy who committed suicide?

Still it was controversial at the time and a bit of a plot device. You don't get pregnant on the first try most of the time.

Invetro was already around at the time.

In Hannah and Her Sisters a few years later they ask Tony Roberts to father a baby for Woody and Mia and they say he won't be the dad he'll just have to masterbate into a paper cup.

Am I the only one who hates that movie with a passion? I found it ludicrous from beginning to end.

The characters are all very grating and the performances are all a bit affected (except for Meg Tilly. I like her innocence when she says she doesn't know many happy people, how do they act?)

R6 I agree. There’s not a likable character in the bunch.

They were all previously sixties hippies. You indeed had to be there.

R6–I totally disagree, I thought Meg Tilly was the most annoying character in the movie and William Hurt seemed particularly constipated. Jeff Goldblum was great. “Are we the first ones up?”

Kevin Costner played the dead guy. The director decided the flashback scenes didn’t work and his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

Sperm banks were not so common until late 80's. It was not unusual to have a friend or relative provide sperm or a one night stand for someone having difficulty conceiving.

R5, I hated it too.

Hannah and Her Sisters was 1986 and they knew about artificial insemination. The Big Chill was only three years prior.

Wouldn't this have made a great porn film? The videotaping, the 'wild' party in the kitchen, the insemination plot.

It was regarded as a ripoff of The Return of the Secaucus Seven. Sort of surprised it got a Best Picture nomination.

Kevin Kline uses an odd accent.

I love 80s Hurt and his sexy constipated look.

Sperm banks were around for a couple of decades before The Big Chill.

William Hurt had an amazing run in the 80s. Starred in 5 Best Picture nominees in 6 years and got an Oscar and 2 other nominations himself. Then it seemed to all go wrong for him.

I've been cradling my favorite mug so tight lately that I just broke it

No one has mentioned Glenn's teeny tiny titties yet.

They seemed bigger a few years later in Fatal Attraction.

Fun fact: I watched this movie on HBO while awaiting pregnancy test results.

Traumatic to say the least.

....

Not understanding the trama r21 Were you going to have to fuck your best friend's husband if your test came back negative?

R23, I was wondering if this was back when you had to wait for a rabbit to die.

Harold's shorty shorts make me giggle.

[quote]the performances are all a bit affected (except for Meg Tilly I like her innocence when she says she doesn't know many happy people, how do they act?)

You're nuts, R6. That's the most affected line reading in that entire film, and and that's saying a lot.

I found this while I was looking for the Tilly soundbite. Very funny.

We all know that G killed the rabbit.

I enjoyed the joke, or, conceit, if you will, of "The Big Chill".

Their comfy, affluent lifestyles are exactly what they want, they admit to selling out their ideals, and the punchline is, they wouldn't have it any other way.

I think Lawrence Kasdan is making fun of his characters and I went along with it.

[quote]Am I the only one who hates that movie with a passion? I found it ludicrous from beginning to end.

Not just you. I hate this movie. It’s so overrated.

I love hate watching it every few years.

And as mentioned above, Kline’s accent is odd.

Silkwood should have got its Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

(and I'm not saying that to start a M/G feud.)

Zelig > Silkwood

Then it seemed to all go wrong for him.

He probably shouldn't have beaten up Marlee Matlin.

And you know, the other women he abused.

Or did you forget that?

I didn't know that r 34. My elementary school didn't teach celebrity beatings.

Yentl > Zelig + Silkwood + The Big Chill

They really cast people on the verge of breakthroughs. Kline, Close and Jobeth Williams all had huge films in 1982. I wonder if they were cast after those successes. Even Tilly had Psycho 2 which was at least high profile.

Berenger and Hurt had been around a while.

Place must have been a friend of Kasdan's. She never had a movie career.

Goldblum too was kind of an odd choice.

My mom was obsessed with this movie. This is boomer movie central. I have tried to watch it and I can't make it through it. I can remember the soundtrack always blasting thought the house.

The best part of the this film is that the audience sees Kevin Costner in his best role ever...a corpse. He should have done more roles like this.

Meg Tilly did a youtube video about The Big Chill and who played the dead guy the other day. I haven't watched it yet.

My favorite line is the one where Hurt says "Wrong! Twenty years ago we knew each other for a brief time!" Basically telling the entire group they are full of shit when they are saying how close they still all are. It's so awesome!

Yes I like that line too r41. And Tilly's line no matter how she delivered it stuck with me also.

I really liked that GC trusted her friend so much that she let her husband have sex with her with a view to getting her pregnant. The phone conversation between the friend and GC's daughter showed how close they were and how much the friend wanted a child of her own.

The sex looked pretty dismal however. and Jeff Goldblum eagerly volunteering to do the business was ultra-creepy.

I lived the whole thing--couples, singles, a group of us from college moved to the big city. struggles. Falling in and out of love with each other and other people the group usually hated. Then the guys got haircuts, the women wanted kids, suddenly nobody was as liberated or liberal as we'd seemed. And I do feel nostalgia for the drinking, smoking pot, hanging out, having dreams, and being innocent in some way. I watch The Big Chill in tribute to that, although it is highly unrealistic to the people we were. The Secaucus Seven is more true to life and so a much better movie, and so more painful to watch.

r44, ok, boomer

I will check out Secaucus Seven. Never heard about it. I dislike movie that are fawning in their portrayal of nostalgia like The Big Chill.

Glenn was the only one to get a nomination. Who do you think deserved one?

None of them, R47.

The Right Stuff was expected to get lots of acting nominations too but only got one for Sam Sheppard.

Glenn got the nom for the shower scene where she was naked crying. I heard her say as much in an interview years later. Maybe Baba Wawa? Not sure...but she said every actress craves a scene like that to reveal something unknown about the character.

[quote]Of all the insufferable characters in this film, Karen (JoBeth Williams) is the leader of the pack. After marrying a wealthy, conservative Ad Schnook from Detroit, she gave up her dreams of being a writer so that she could raise children. And now, well, she’s regretting that decision. However, instead of actually going out and doing something, she tries to glom onto Sam’s celebrity by trading on the one thing she has left. And no, it’s not her brains. She’s a despicable individual, and I’m pretty sure that Larry Kasdan felt the same way about Karen.

God, I fucking HATED Karen. Hated her.

I hated how she lusted after Berenger’s character and her adenoidal voice and her fucking gauchos.

Plus Glenn had just loss the year before for The World According to Garp for which many people thought she should have won instead of Jessica Lange in Tootsie. She was on the Academy radar more than the rest of the cast.

[quote]Not sure...but she said every actress craves a scene like that to reveal something unknown about the character.

What, R50? That she had seal nose tittys?

Goldblum's character was a writer for People and he said he didn't write anything that couldn't be read longer than the time you'd need to take an average crap.

So magazine articles were short back in the early 1980s.

Now, there are barely any magazines.

No Oscar (yet again) for poor G. This was her 2nd nomination. She lost to lil' Linda Hunt (who played a man in The Year of Living Dangerously). LMAO!

I am a Linda Hunt stan!! And that movie with the deplorable Mel Gibson when he was HAF...I am shamed by my lust of him in this film...shamed!!

I love that Jeff Goldblum line. And think of it often. I am a writer...haha...

Linda Hunt would be cancelled nowadays for that performance. Wikipedia says she wore yellow makeup and altered her eyes for the audition (and the film too.)

I think Karen is definitely supposed to be the obnoxious one.

Also, I think Boomers ARE in love with themselves and their counterculture schtick. I only realized that in the last year or so and yes, I am R44. Even in Secaucus Seven it is obvious that the characters are jerking themselves off to "the glorious past."

Every generation has its clay feet.

I remember that this film (in 1983) sparked a renewed interest in '60s Motown songs, particularly "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by soon-to-be-dead Marvin Gaye.

"I didn't know that r 34. My elementary school didn't teach celebrity beatings."

Among many other subjects I'm sure.

R58 I didn't know that about the yellow makeup but wasn't Billy half Australian? I don't see that any ethnic makeup would be necessary.

Big Chill didn't impress us gay people because we already knew our "liberal" hetero friends in college were phonies who were not nearly as liberal as they thought. And not just on gay issues. Sure, they 'd give to the homeless, but to actually interact with them or help them, they weren't going to do that.

They were all certifiable.

Lawrence Kasdan must have spent all his time at the University of Michigan in the film editing room in the Frieze Building. He certainly never met any SDS type Ann Arbor political activists. They never lost their ideals, they never were into football (yecch!) and they would NEVER move down south.

Jeff Goldblum's character, however, is a tiny bit like Owen Gleiberman, who went to U-M at the same time I did. But that was a long time after Kasdan went there and I doubt he had him in mind.

Overrated.

R22, very good

An old colleague of mine was SDS at U of M. Helped burn down an ROTC building at another school. Still had his ideals at the time of Big Chill and afterward.

The characters are two dimensional and the acting is pretty flat. I think that without the soundtrack it would have been a flop. Hurt has the only performance I liked. I think he mostly was himself. I think he was the pal of Kasdan here--he was in other Kasdan films.

Secaucus Seven is a much different film--made on a shoestring budget, no one claimed to be an actual radical in the past and the characters are three dimensional.

Republicans say William Ayres is still trying to burn the country down.

Actually, R69, the title Secaucus 7 refers to when they were arrested for being radicals. Like the Chicago Seven.

Never heard of it.

No, they were arrested in Secaucus going to a big anti-war rally. In those days, you didn't have to be very radical to do that. It was fun.

Yeah, but R69 didn't say that. I'm not shilling for that movie, but let's be accurate. They were activists and that meant risking their student status, getting concussed or worse. But obviously now they're more into volleyball.

This movie is why people hate Boomers.

Yay, let's turn this into an "I hate Boomers" thread. I'll go first--they're old and soon to be dead.

I think I wore out three copies of the cassette soundtrack.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine

My Girl

Good Lovin'

The Tracks of My Tears

Joy to the World (Jeremiah was a Bullfrog)

Ain't Too Proud to Beg

(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

I Second That Emotion

A Whiter Shade of Pale

Tell Him

It’s been years since I’ve seen the Secaucus Seven, but I thought they were arrested for running over a deer. I think I need to rewatch this one. I do remember the last line of the movie, which I’ve quoted a few times over the years.

Both John Sayles and his wife are in it. I really like him, but S7 is a little navel-gazing?? I like Amigo and Men With Guns.

Why aren't more North Americans making films about now, reality, our society? Someone like German Christian Petzold (who I found out about on DL) is making films that critique/examine life in Germany not some galaxy far away or the Marvel universe.

When I worked in a Midwestern video (VHS) rental store long, long ago, I was always like WTF does Secaucus mean? Never watched the film but "intelligent" customers (educated film buffs) always rented the film! Also, as an aside, our movies rented at $3 per night. Can you imagine? That was 30 years ago.

At the time young gay ones, it was a different type of film with an awesome soundtrack that spoke to people of a certain age. Although not the best film ever made, I think it has its moments. The film is also 40 years old.

SO FUCK OFF

Entitled white cunt Boomers masturbating to themselves.

Glenn tries but fails to convince one that she’s an actress

That M shit has never, ever been funny. Like not even once.

I specifically can't stand Kevin Kline in anything, EVER. So that much of the cast definitely is annoying. I like Meg Tilly in it, however.

R85, FU. I won an Oscar. I was in a gay-friendly/empowering film in 1997. I was in M's (DL fave) Sophie's Choice. So GFY.

r80, Secaucus, New Jersey.

R87, I know that *now*. Silly.

Was the Kevin Kline character supposed to be the Nike inventor? He seemed to have a lot of money.

R86 1. You didn't deserve it. Phoenix & Guinness both gave better performances. 2. That movie is a disgrace, & the only good parts of it, are the scenes with Debbie Reynolds & Joan Cusack. A man comes out as gay because he exhibits stereotypical traits, & not necessarily because he's attracted to other men? So empowering. 3. Your histrionics ruined "Sophie's Choice".

Why did the guy kill himself?

That was never clear. Perhaps ennui?

Kevin Costner was the (dead) guy!

He's still a little on the stiff side.

Tom Berenger was always so hot but in this movie the mustache ruined it. (I guess he was supposed to be Tom Selleck?)

My parents and their friends would recreate "Big Chill" style weekends or that's what they called it.

Did this film inspire Marvin Gaye's (brief) comeback?

Boomers suck.

The good news is that Gex X and Millenials are set to inherit a lot of money from the boomer generation.

THEY'RE NOT DYING GODAMMIT!

Didn’t Kasdan’s “Grand Canyon” steal from John Sayles’ “City of Hope” too?

It's a great film. What so many of you don't seem to understand is that IT IS A FILM. It's not supposed to be reality, morons. I've known many people from that generation and they nailed it with style.

[quote] Did this film inspire Marvin Gaye's (brief) comeback?

no, dear. He had already come back the year before on his own with Sexual Healing.

I blame this movie for starting the trend of characters, dancing, singing (or lipsynching) and all around frolicking to oldies in movies.

The fucking worst.

Glenn.

If anyone should have been nominated from the cast, it was Mary Kay Place.

Actually, the movie made many people feel inadequate because their lives were nothing like that. They didn't travel in a pack, they didn't become wildly successful, they didn't sell out but worked as social workers or public school teachers or whatever. It's like SATC and Girls in that it's supposed to define an era but doesn't. it did sort of kick off the genre of reunion movies in which everyone is outwardly successful but inwardly miserable and the real agenda is to rekindle old flames.

William Hurt was felled by the Body Heat curse in which the three principals--Hurt, Mickey Rourke and Kathleen Turner all became hideous looking well before their time. Only Richard Crenna was exempt and he didn't become ugly just dead. Director Kasdan went on to showcase Kevin Kline as the annoying ham that he is and Kevin Costner fas a laconic cowboy. Then he ran out of both Kevins and gas, making the truly execrable Grand Canyon and French Kiss and realizing his days were better spent as a script doctor.

I love Body Heat but I've always found Kasdan overrated.

Body Heat is a perfect. film. The cast, script, direction, the score, and filled with stunning noir imagery..

[quote] Why did the guy kill himself?

Alex refused a "Rutledge Fellowship" during his college days, although he was a "brilliant physics student". I think we're to conclude Rutledge was an arms manufacturer.

The screenplay gives Chloe ( Meg Tilly) a very brief, yet key line that reveals that Alex, too, just like the rest of them, moved on from being a pseudo revolutionary activist when she says "he (Alex) thought maybe he should have accepted that Rutledge Fellowship".

Aha. All of his surviving friends built-up in their own minds that Alex never would have, like they did, sell-out, but, as Chloe reveals, he would have, too.

I think the screenplay leaves ambiguous why Alex killed himself, but as the character of Nick says, "we never know why somebody does something. I don't know why I chose these socks this morning."

I agree with every criticism of "The Big Chill" but I love it anyway. I think as I posted up thread, Kasdan isn't looking at these characters wanting them to be liked. I think he's deliberately making them shallow, upper middle class, affluent navel gazers and he's poking fun at them and himself.

If viewed in a certain way, one can perceive Kasdan's POV as conservative, although he'd probably dispute that and I'm certainly not declaring that. but still.

Forgot to add, I posted at r29.

R110: I have a simpler explanation: Kasdan is a hack. His best film was "Body Heat" which was basically a genre film---you can screw-up something like this (a neo-noir) but there are enough conventions that you have guard rails and the audience doesn't mind them, esp. if you have a good cast. He stumbled when he tried to take on big ideas like Big Chill and Grand Canyon. Judging from his interviews and his defensiveness around stealing the plot of "Secaucus Seven", I doubt that he has the depth you attribute to him. He's simply someone who had a hit with a good film and was given money to make not very good films, enough of which hit to give him a career. Sayles often has overreached but never on scale like Kasdan and he's always had interesting, often underrated actors in his films rather than mediocrities like Costner.

r112, this is r110.

I've never watched "The Return of the Secaucus Seven", but I'll see if I can find it and do so. I live in Wisconsin so there will be plenty of cold, snowy Saturday afternoons and it sounds perfect for that.

I'm not white. That's neither here nor there for the overall purpose of this thread.

For me, however, "The Big Chill", as well as all Christopher Guest films are contained in my own self-created genre I wordily call, "Comedic Films White People Make that Make Fun of White People."

I know that Lawrence Kasdan and Christopher Guest didn't deliberately set -out to have that effect, but that's the lens I see them through.

Christopher Guest sortof did consciously given the kinds of people he and settings he sent-up. Kasdan lacks a certain subtlety to even try something like that.

Sayles actually is interested in cultural interaction and occasionally succeeded as in "Passion Fish" which is everything that something cringeworthy like "Driving Miss Daisy" is not.

I Love You to Death (1990)

Just derail the thread for one more post, that self-created category also includes the ver dated, yet still hilarious to me, "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" by Paul Mazersky.

It's a Jukebox Angst Drama.

No wonder Boomers are so hated now.

[quote]I blame this movie for starting the trend of characters, dancing, singing (or lipsynching) and all around frolicking to oldies in movies

At lest they didn’t sing into hairbrushes like in that farkakte scene in Stepmom with CUNT Susan Sarandon, R104.

Kasdan is a straight?

The Big Chill was the inspiration for THIRTYSOMETHING that tv show about insufferable baby boomer yuppie types.

I watched it once. I tend to overthink things, and there were a few things about this movie that had my head spinning. One was why Alex died. I think that the biggest clue was when Meg was talking to Nick and told him that she and Alex fought just before he died. She told him that he was wasting his life. Alex was brilliant, but he held on to the principles that the rest of them threw out the window to make money. As a result he was the least successful of the group, money wise.

Next, Glenn Close offering up her husband to screw the best friend and give her a baby. Kevin Kline's character was obviously still having problems with that (seen in a conversation he had with Nick). Was this her way of saying that since she slept with Alex, and now her husband would sleep with Meg, they were even and she could stop being guilty? Plus the child that Kevin Kline's character was bathing when Glenn Close came in to tell him Alex committed suicide was about five years old. Was that Alex's child?

Next, JoBeth Williams character. It seemed like her main purpose to be there was to bang Sam. She told him that she and her husband were done, got him to fuck her, then the next day was like "If Richard and I make it to Cali, can you get us in the studio". I was like WTF. Sam had issues on who he could trust, and one of his oldest and best friends fucked him over like that?

Nick was an interesting character. To me, he was the next Alex. He had a lot of issues. I could easily see him taking his own life at some point. But to hook him up with Chloe, who had said before that Nick reminded her a lot of Alex? I'm sorry, but that doesn't seem like a Happily Ever After to me. Chloe was so in love with Alex that she fell for Nick less than a week after finding Alex dead.

Honestly, none of these people are likeable. That's the deal killer for me. Michael was the funniest character, but he spent most of the movie trying to nail Chloe when he had a significant other at home.

Thirtysomething could get annoying but it is closer to Secaucus Seven than Big Chill. Thee characters were well developed and they had some actually very good story arcs--Michael losing his father, the cancer arc with Nancy.

R110 I don’t agree that Kansan is poking fun at the characters and himself especially given that he made the over-earnest Oscar-bait dreck Grand Canyon.

My guess is they cut Costner's scenes because he was about a decade younger than the rest of the group he was supposed to have been in college with and looked it.

My least favorite scene in this film is when all the baby boomer/Yuppie types are making supper in the kitchen, all while dancing to Motown music.

Motown music? When there's not a BLACK face among the cast.

If The Big Chill were made today, the all-white cast would be very problematic. White people in today's movies and tv shows usually have a multicultural circle of close friends.

One must remember that these YUPPY BABY BOOMERS went to college in the late 1960's there were practically NO blacks attending elite universities at that time so how could they have BLACK friends.

r127, are you for real? there were plenty of black people at universities in the late 60's. I don't remember hearing any of these characters mentioned having attended Yale or Harvard or anything.

I think the characters in The Big Chill went to Michigan.

R129, correct.

R125, FU. Everyone loves Motown music. Stop stirring up the racial shit.

I HATE that jungle music from that crime ridden city.

I've always loved this movie. The soundtrack CD is one of the first CD's I ever bought, along with Eagles Greatest Hits and a few others I can't remember right now, but still own, bitches!

R133 = Taylor Dayne (waiting for a comeback)

The funniest scene is when they watch the opening credits to Sam's terrible cop show, J.T. LANCER, (a great riff on Magnum P.I.). A perfect expression of the feeling that they have sold out their 60's ideals for 80's materialism. The characters reactions are hilarious.

G in R135's photo...wow...tragic.

You did have to be there as it doesn’t hold up well. Think of it as a movie where you get together with your dear college chums and find most to be Trump supporters. Sorry, we are trying to forget that.

The film is about the realization that we are not necessarily the people we think are, or thought we would be. That's why Alex killed himself.

Sam's (Tom Berenger) famous "actor" character is the shallowest.

He says "That's cashmere! Give me that!" when Kline's character grabs it to to use it to hit and chase bats away. His phony agony of not knowing and wanting to know why Alex killed himself is called by out by Nick who is, as r121 points out, besides Chloe, the most interesting character.

Speaking of r121, I didn't see Karen as fucking over Sam. I saw Karen and Sam fucking and then her saying to him the next morning "If Richard and I make it to California maybe you can get Richard and the boys in to see one of the studios" and he says something like "Yeah, sure", and the her replying "Good. Richard would like that." is her awkwardly realizing that their having sex had "put up a wall in their relationship", just as Close's and Alex having sex did.

Remember, Sam is bored with domesticity and tells Karen that's why he left his wife.

As you may be able to tell, when I was younger I went through a "watch a movie repeatedly phase" and "The Big Chill" was one of them, although it's kinda funny because it's been several years since I last sat down and watched it beginning to end.

Who gives a fuck, Della?

I, for one, like Della.

You're sweet, r142. Smoooches, Doll.

R142, are you saying that most DLers do NOT like the insufferable Della?

She's a fat hag who's seen too much Will and Grace. Tiresome cunt.

[quote]Della

Attention WHORE CUNT

Welcome to the Dollhouse, I mean Datalounge.

It's a terrible dull ponderous movie full of kind of attractive people. My mother always says it's the movie about Glenn Close's Ass and a bit moustache.

The jogging, the insemination, the weeping in the shower. It's kind of an 80s horror movie. Meg Tilly remains unscathed, because her character is conceived as a soothsaying radiant moron. So she doesn't say or do much. She's fantastic in Agnes of God. Because of this same quality. I'm not sure if she's acting. But she is radiant.

Jobeth, Kevin Kline's shoelaces, William Hurt's drone and Glenn's ASS act their ass off in this film.

It was before my time. I've seen it TWICE.

William Hurt was pretty cute back then. Aged fast, though.

For those who don't like the scene where they clean up after dinner and dance to The Temptations, I can say that back in the day my old roomies and I would smoke a joint and clean our college rental house to The B-52's. It happens.

There's one line I quote occasionally:

"You're so analytical. Sometimes you have to let art flow over you."

It's from when Sam finds Nick watching some late-night movie.

This thread is fascinating. It's interesting to hear what appealed to the young boomers. How old are they supposed to be? Late 30's?

Costner's scenes were all flashbacks to when they were in college I believe. He is younger than the others as stated above.

Found this on Tilly's youtube page:

Going to watch it now.

Thirtysomething was insufferable. No one gets us! We are smarter and more self aware and socially conscious than any other generation ever in history! It's so hard being woke in 1985! We are really special! Adulting is hard!

Meg Tilly is so embarrassingly Meg Tilly-like that I just kind of love her. But her YouTube page puts me to sleep. zzzzz. I'm bored by her house, her scrubbed face, her fresh old lady way. Drinking tea is not a concept. Isn't she the DL definition of Mug Cradling? Girl needs a hot shot or some tequila.

William Hurt is super sexy to me in all his well known films. I'm at least 30 years younger than he is. Dude is kind of my type. A dyspeptic guy with a comforting demeanor and a damaged personality beneath. He must be a Virgo. I love them. I can heal them. Like Meg.

Meg is cute but a little eccentric. She couldn't do Flashdance because her husband wouldn't let her??

I'm surprised that almost 40 years later we have never seen the Kevin Costner scenes.

For some reason that was a recurring theme with Boomers, OP. It was supposed to be selfless and beautiful or some such nonsense. It's always creeped me out when any movie or TV show decided to use the "loaning out your husband to knock up a friend" plot.

[quote]Still had his ideals at the time of Big Chill and afterward.

A lot of Boomers did, but the filmmaker Boomers were mostly sell-outs and navel-gazers who wanted to explore (i.e. justify) why they flirted with radicalism and change and then decided to become Yuppies instead.

I remember that was in Hilary and Jackie r157. It was creepy.

As stinky as this cinematic suppository may be, it still isn’t as bad as Beyoncé’s film, Obsessed. I watched that shit a couple of days ago and I’m still angry with myself for watching the whole thing.

[quote]Thirtysomething was insufferable. No one gets us! We are smarter and more self aware and socially conscious than any other generation ever in history! It's so hard being woke in 1985! We are really special! Adulting is hard!

It wasn't "woke" at all. It was pre-woke.

OMG r153 she is so cute!

I'm 64, and when it came out in 1983, I loved it and thought it was sophisticated and insightful.

Now I think it's embarrassing, like all stuff that doesn't age well.

William Hurt at this age reminds me of Armie Hammer.

R23 has never taken a pregnancy test or had to contemplate carrying an unwanted pregnancy.

William. Hurt. Reads. His lines. Exactly the same way. In every. Scene.

It got enormous attention at the time.

People loved hearing the 60s music again. It was the music that really won people over. I found the music annoying. It's not like it was set in the 60s.

R165=unwelcome whore frau cunt.

Like the film, the music certainly helps it to be remembered. Best line in the whole thing:

" Ya' know, they'd never get a crowd like this at MY funeral."

" Sure they would, I'd come, and I'd bring a date."

These friends/former friends were sitting shiva for Alex, and it eventually dawned on them that they were doing it for what became of their idealism, and what their lives had become, much to their dismay: "Oh, what are you saying? We were good then, but we're shit now?" Kasden tried to wrap it all up pretty by the end, but the cracks they saw in each other, and in themselves as well, would always be there.

Hurt was a much better actor than Hammer. He clearly had some fun with the role, unlike all the others except maybe Goldblum.

Tilly has always seemed one anxiety attack short of a straight jacket in most of her roles. She had a fairly horrible childhood, with a pedophile stepdad, which she has replayed in several novels that she's written.

There was nothing sophisticated about this cookie cutter film when it came out in '83.

This film and the Motown 25 special kicked off the 1960s nostalgia boom of the 1980s (in the same way that American Graffiti and Happy Days did for the 1950s a decade earlier).

I was teaching back then. It wasn't just nostalgia--there was an uptick in interest in 60s music by college age people.

How do William's other '80s films hold up today? Children of a Lesser God, Broadcast News, Eyewitness, Altered States, Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Accidental Tourist, etc. I saw 'em all back then...but not since.

The Accidental Tourist is my favorite WH performance and my favorite Kasdan film.

Hurt makes a great modern mad scientist in Altered States. Peak form as an actor and so damn handsome and often naked throughout!

DL fave Drew Barrymore's (now talk show host) first film was Altered States!

DL fave Drew Barrymore's (now talk show host) first film was Altered States!

Hurt's mother was married to Henry Luce III (accused pedophile, fan of orgies) who was later married to batshit crazy and world class narcissist (but talented writer) Leila Hadley

From Altered States to rehab in only 6 years.

He was beautiful.

R3180- I NEVER found William Hurt beautiful nor do I think he was a good actor. He was especially bad in Gorky Park.

I wouldn't want to watch it again. The most non-cringe character was the Jeff Goldblum character. It was realistic that he would fall in love with the Meg Tilly woman-child character and that she would be 100% not interested in him.

"Self-congratulatory" is the word that comes to mind.

One of William Hurt's ex-girlfriends claimed they were common-law married because they lived together for 4 weeks in South Carolina, while Hurt was filming the Big Chill. Hence, she was entitled to half in the "divorce." I think Hurt was already married (to someone else) at the time, so, a very novel theory.

Love! Valour! Compassion! completely ripped off the opening scene of this film where everyone is packing. They did exactly the same thing.

William's '90s films include Lost in Space, The Doctor, and Second Best.

[quote]Broadcast News

I watched this last year. I thought the themes in love and work held up. The commentary on media was prescient, though less so than Network, and of course McLuhan. Remember falling in love with Joan Cusack, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks. William Hurt, not so much.

R186 Agree. I rewatched Broadcast News recently and it does hold up.

Holly Hunter is just grating. Hurt and Albert Brooks hold things up. Joan Cusack is the saving grace of so many moviews.

R188- Especially in Working Girl- Hold awl cawls Ms. Mcgill? I can get you anything Mr. Traina? Cawfee, tea , me?!

I love Broadcast News. I love Holly in it. Yes, she's a bit annoying but that was deliberate.

The writing is brilliant.

Holly Hunter is always annoying. I have a colleague who sounds just like her and is dumb as a fence post. Needless to say I can't stand her. At least Hunter does not appear to be stupid.

Holy Hunter is a legendary cunt. One female Canadian interviewer (can't remember which...there's only about 3 of any note) said HH could barely be bothered to make eye contact during an interview. This is the kind of dish I live for. And solidified why she irritates me nearly as badly as Our Supreme Cuntess, Julia Roberts.

I adore Holly Hunter, always have.

College activists/radicals hated football. Football games were violent & marching bands were militaristic & jocks supported the war. Radicals believed colleges’ money should be spend on merit scholarships, not sports. And for you yunguns, college football (and professional football) was nearly all white in those days.

I loved Holly in Broadcast News and would have given her the Oscar over Cher. I haven’t had the same reaction to her since. Her Oscar for The Piano should have gone to Angela Bassett.

BN was also the last film in which William Hurt looked remotely hot.

Angela Bassett definitely should've won the Oscar for playing Tina Turner. I think today, she would have.

I'll never understand why Angela Bassett looked like a body builder in that Tina Turner movie.

Tina was never so ripped. Odd choice on Bassett's part.

It is surprising though that "the first ever" narrative that swept Halle Berry to the podium didn't work for Bassett.

Yeah, the bodybuild look for Bassett/Tina was really distracting. I hated how the press made such a big deal about Bassett's transformation when it made Tina look like the Hulk I still don't get it. Tina was never overly muscular. Definitely fit and in great shape but not a gym queen.

Holly Hunter has always hated interviews and comes across as a bit cold in them. I will chalk it up to shyness or nerves.

Broadcast News (and the Oscar nom) should have been MINE, damn it!

Anyone know who this could be?

I heard James L. Brooks speak at a screening of Broadcast News. He said once Winger got pregnant he auditioned every actress around. He settled on one but wasn't totally happy with the choice.

He then saw Hunter and hired her .

I wonder who the second actress was.

Kathleen Turner said in an interview that she turned down the role that Jobeth Williams played.. That's one of the reasons she had such a great run in the eighties. She knew how to pick roles.

Kathleen Turner was much too young to have been in the same age range as the other actors.

Kathleen is two years younger than Jeff Goldblum, R202.

Goldblum looked older. Turner was too young to have been convincing as being in her late 30s, which is the age these characters were supposed to be.

Kathleen did “The Man With Two Brains” that year. She was great in it and it’s one of the most underrated performances of her career, IMO.

Kathleen Turner remains my favourite actress of the '80s. Every role she played in the '80s was different from each other.

It's a shame she wasn't able to sustain that success into the '90s.

Don’t get me started.

Turner was maybe 5 years younger than most of the cast---no one would have noticed the difference and she was a far better actress than Jobeth Williams, although there probably would be a long line of people for whom the same could be said.

Baby Hillbilly look!

I think JoBeth is a good actress (fantastic in Poltergeist) but Turner is definitely a far superior actress. She would have been good in this film but presumably she turned it down for Romancing the Stone and/or Crimes of Passion which were much more worthy of her talents.

Kathleen was a star, baby. No ensemble roles for her.

Turner was too young, and looked it. She was still in her twenties.

V.I. Warshawski (1991ish) killed Kathleen's film career. Pity.

JoBeth Williams got a career out of this and [italic]Poltergeist[/italic]. She fucked it up by raising her "ask" to something ridiculous. She works regularly, she just doesn't star in big movies any longer.

Nah, JoBeth proved she couldn't open a movie on her own when her first starring vehicle, American Dreamer, flopped at the box office. She was not the typical leading lady and was a "mom" type pretty much out of the gate, so she took what she could get.

Glenn's hair @ r209 is a poor imitation of la Streisand's poodle perm of the same era. And her ass also can't hold a candle to Streisand's...for the record.

My ass (and hair) on and for the record.

For years I thought JoBeth Williams and Veronica Hamel were the same person.

[quote] For years I thought JoBeth Williams and Veronica Hamel were the same person.

In that you had no interest in fucking either of them, Danny?

Veronica Hamel had more of a glamor thing going. JoBeth always seemed like a suburban mom--Barbara Billingsley only less interesting.

JoBeth has transitioned into Karen!

Better than transitioning into Kathleen!

Jobeth also appeared in Kramer vs Kramer as Kramer's girlfriend. She appears naked. WHO CARES though. We're GAY.

I would have been so offended if I were Mary Kay Place and my hot, slutty friend Tom Berenger suddenly grew a conscience and refused to fuck me.

This film did not win any 1983 Oscars. I mean, it was no Terms of Endearment or The Right Stuff. Meh.

I hated The Big Chill the first ten or twenty times I watched it. Then some 20-30 years later, I caught it again and really enjoyed it.

The tensions, while sometimes far-fetched, simmered throughout the film until the very end. The actors were superbly cast, which is why so many people have visceral feeling about the characters. I even like Jeff Goldblum in it, and I loathe him.

A poorly made film is forgotten. The Big Chill engenders strong opinions these almost forty years later. It is a very good movie.

R226, why in the world would you watch a film you hated ten or twenty times?

Who watches a film 20 times when it's first released? Wow. GET. A. LIFE.

It was on cable alot, fools.