Smoke-filled, flannel optional (Gen X Lounge)

[NakedStoryLover]

I've come to realize that my GenX street cred is surprisingly important to me.

Music, movies, thought, and (yes) nostalgia from that time can often lift my spirits as I navigate the full-time world of adulting in middle age.

So, I invite my fellow GenXers to share their favorite cultural and life recollections from that messy period of latchkey afternoons, grunge, MTV, Cold War, etc.

Or not. Whatever.

 

[NakedStoryLover]

the inspiration for this thread was looking for a GenX gif to support another comment and having to choose between one from Singles and one from Reality Bites. Before Sunrise and Heathers were also in the mix.

I chose the Reality Bites gif, but may watch Before Sunrise this weekend.

Thoughts on favorite Gen X movies?

 

[lavendersilk]

Thoughts on favorite Gen X movies?

At the risk of sounding cliché af... The Breakfast Club
https://media.tenor.com/qqXqcaEjNaMAAAAM/goodmorning-the-breakfast-club.gifhttps://media4.giphy.com/media/r963bkXmjEV4Q/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952zfsc991t6wbluai82f4fbdz20v95oubrjxf1xqtz&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
I kinda love this movie. I was 4 when it came out and didn't watch it until I was 16.

But you could choose any Brat Pack film at that time honestly.

 

[NakedStoryLover]

At the risk of sounding cliché af... The Breakfast Club
https://media.tenor.com/qqXqcaEjNaMAAAAM/goodmorning-the-breakfast-club.gifhttps://media4.giphy.com/media/r963bkXmjEV4Q/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952zfsc991t6wbluai82f4fbdz20v95oubrjxf1xqtz&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
I kinda love this movie. I was 4 when it came out and didn't watch it until I was 16.

But you could choose any Brat Pack film at that time honestly.

Not cliche at all. A perfect Gen X/Brat Pack movie!

My stepfather (see?! Peak GenX) took me to see this one, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Stop Making Sense while building our relationship. He's a good guy.

Love this pick!

 

[NakedStoryLover]

At the risk of sounding cliché af... The Breakfast Club
https://media.tenor.com/qqXqcaEjNaMAAAAM/goodmorning-the-breakfast-club.gifhttps://media4.giphy.com/media/r963bkXmjEV4Q/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952zfsc991t6wbluai82f4fbdz20v95oubrjxf1xqtz&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
I kinda love this movie. I was 4 when it came out and didn't watch it until I was 16.

But you could choose any Brat Pack film at that time honestly.

BTW: I was a freshman in high school, so the perfect age to see this movie and miss its underlying message.

 

[lavendersilk]

BTW: I was a freshman in high school, so the perfect age to see this movie and miss its underlying message.

Which was?

 

[NakedStoryLover]

Which was?

Freaks can be pretty and bullies are bullied, I think

 

[inkandiridiumnibs]

the inspiration for this thread was looking for a GenX gif to support another comment and having to choose between one from Singles and one from Reality Bites. Before Sunrise and Heathers were also in the mix.

I chose the Reality Bites gif, but may watch Before Sunrise this weekend.

Thoughts on favorite Gen X movies?

Early Gen X, and though the Brat Pack Films and the Broderick Films, Fast Times etc. have fond memories, the films that really stuck with me the most were the Live Action Disney films like:
The Shaggy DA, the Herbie Films, Cat From Outer Space, Candleshoe, Escape From and Return to Witch Mountain, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Apple Dumpling Gang, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, Flubber, Absent Minded Professor etc

Late 60's, early 70's sitcoms:
Dick Vandyke, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Welcome Back Kotter, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller, The Muppet Show, I love Lucy, the Lucille Ball Show, Greene Acres, Newhart, Maude

Non-Sitcoms: Emergency, Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, BJ and the Bear, Fall Guy, Quincy M.E., Columbo, Baretta, Rockford Files, Kojak

Variety Shows:
Sonny and Cher, Carol Burnett, Hee-Haw, Donny and Marie

And yes, all of those came just off the top of my head, I didn't need to look any of them up.

 

[lavendersilk]

Early Gen X, and though the Brat Pack Films and the Broderick Films, Fast Times etc. have fond memories, the films that really stuck with me the most were the Live Action Disney films like:
The Shaggy DA, the Herbie Films, Cat From Outer Space, Candleshoe, Escape From and Return to Witch Mountain, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Apple Dumpling Gang, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, Flubber, Absent Minded Professor etc

Late 60's, early 70's sitcoms:
Dick Vandyke, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Welcome Back Kotter, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller, The Muppet Show, I love Lucy, the Lucille Ball Show, Greene Acres, Newhart, Maude

Non-Sitcoms: Emergency, Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, BJ and the Bear, Fall Guy, Quincy M.E., Columbo, Baretta, Rockford Files, Kojak

Variety Shows:
Sonny and Cher, Carol Burnett, Hee-Haw, Donny and Marie

And yes, all of those came just off the top of my head, I didn't need to look any of them up.

I'm a late GenX'r and thanks to the early years of The Disney Channel and Nick at Nite, I was enamored with those movies/television shows.

 

[UnquietDreams]

the inspiration for this thread was looking for a GenX gif to support another comment and having to choose between one from Singles and one from Reality Bites. Before Sunrise and Heathers were also in the mix.

I chose the Reality Bites gif, but may watch Before Sunrise this weekend.

Thoughts on favorite Gen X movies?

The Band of the Hand. It isn't a good movie (currently 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, for what that is worth) but it is a fantastic bad movie, and I love it. The story is that a bunch of juvenile delinquents that the system has given up on are sent to the Everglades to live with a semi-rogue councilor to "learn how to live together or die." Which probably was not a phrase in his grant proposal. And after they survive the swamps, can they learn to take the streets back? It is Miami Vice with teenagers! Laurence Fishburne as a villain pimp! Lauren Holley as a teenage coke dealer! John Cameron Mitchell, of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, with a machine gun fighting drug dealers (and I can not state enough how wonderful that part is)! And the soundtrack is unironically brilliant, including the theme by Bob Dylan and the Heartbreakers.

It is the most 80s movie to ever 80s movie.

 

[NakedStoryLover]

Early Gen X, and though the Brat Pack Films and the Broderick Films, Fast Times etc. have fond memories, the films that really stuck with me the most were the Live Action Disney films like:
The Shaggy DA, the Herbie Films, Cat From Outer Space, Candleshoe, Escape From and Return to Witch Mountain, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Apple Dumpling Gang, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, Flubber, Absent Minded Professor etc

Loved the Disney Sunday Night movie era (except for Easter when Sound of Music played, though I now adore it and all things Julie Andrews)

Late 60's, early 70's sitcoms:
Dick Vandyke, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Welcome Back Kotter, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller, The Muppet Show, I love Lucy, the Lucille Ball Show, Greene Acres, Newhart, Maude

Non-Sitcoms: Emergency, Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, BJ and the Bear, Fall Guy, Quincy M.E., Columbo, Baretta, Rockford Files, Kojak

Staples of the latchkey kid era: afternoon reruns, including watching the transition from black & white to color for shows like Lucy and Gilligan

Variety Shows:
Sonny and Cher, Carol Burnett, Hee-Haw, Donny and Marie

Fortunately, I missed most of these except for Hee Haw

And yes, all of those came just off the top of my head, I didn't need to look any of them up.

Welcome, @inkandiridiumnibs . This is your place, too!
https://media0.giphy.com/media/DQl3qelRCaVyM/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b9523qy189yuimdjqvuepr94iqza8qjtbb4kssem379j&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

 

[NakedStoryLover]

The Band of the Hand. It isn't a good movie (currently 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, for what that is worth) but it is a fantastic bad movie, and I love it. The story is that a bunch of juvenile delinquents that the system has given up on are sent to the Everglades to live with a semi-rogue councilor to "learn how to live together or die." Which probably was not a phrase in his grant proposal. And after they survive the swamps, can they learn to take the streets back? It is Miami Vice with teenagers! Laurence Fishburne as a villain pimp! Lauren Holley as a teenage coke dealer! John Cameron Mitchell, of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, with a machine gun fighting drug dealers (and I can not state enough how wonderful that part is)! And the soundtrack is unironically brilliant, including the theme by Bob Dylan and the Heartbreakers.

It is the most 80s movie to ever 80s movie.

I've never heard of this and that is quite the accomplishment!

So this was Fishburne between Apocalypse Now and Boyz in the Hood?

 

[NakedStoryLover]

Which was?

https://media4.giphy.com/media/SWN6nYgyodVKw/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952pszz1p0pab1aruwiuclqzzdhlmm7uwlqw8lkru1l&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

 

[UnquietDreams]

Early Gen X, and though the Brat Pack Films and the Broderick Films, Fast Times etc. have fond memories, the films that really stuck with me the most were the Live Action Disney films like:
The Shaggy DA, the Herbie Films, Cat From Outer Space, Candleshoe, Escape From and Return to Witch Mountain, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Apple Dumpling Gang, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, Flubber, Absent Minded Professor etc

Late 60's, early 70's sitcoms:
Dick Vandyke, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Welcome Back Kotter, M*A*S*H, Barney Miller, The Muppet Show, I love Lucy, the Lucille Ball Show, Greene Acres, Newhart, Maude

Non-Sitcoms: Emergency, Starsky and Hutch, CHiPs, BJ and the Bear, Fall Guy, Quincy M.E., Columbo, Baretta, Rockford Files, Kojak

Variety Shows:
Sonny and Cher, Carol Burnett, Hee-Haw, Donny and Marie

And yes, all of those came just off the top of my head, I didn't need to look any of them up.

I'm a late GenX'r and thanks to the early years of The Disney Channel and Nick at Nite, I was enamored with those movies/television shows.

And you have that whole wonderful period where Disney had a live action studio, but they had moved past The Apple Dumpling Gang and "anyway we can get a young Kurt Russel in front of a camera" movies, but weren't sure what they wanted as an identity, so you ended up with these wonderful, really different, and very dark movies like The Black Hole, Dragonslayer (which had one of the most horrific death scenes ever in a kids movie, and of a sweet, wonderful, brave princess), Return to Oz, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Watcher in The Woods, just some solid, and sometimes truly fucked up kids movies. I miss that a lot.

 

[UnquietDreams]

I've never heard of this and that is quite the accomplishment!

So this was Fishburne between Apocalypse Now and Boyz in the Hood?

1986, so yeah, I think he was still going as "Larry Fishburne." Small, but memorable role.

 

[inkandiridiumnibs]

BTW: a Little Side Fact
I went to one of the Rival High Schools to the Inspiration for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Which made watching that film very interesting at the time.

And you have that whole wonderful period where Disney had a live action studio, but they had moved past The Apple Dumpling Gang and "anyway we can get a young Kurt Russel in front of a camera" movies, but weren't sure what they wanted as an identity, so you ended up with these wonderful, really different, and very dark movies like The Black Hole, Dragonslayer (which had one of the most horrific death scenes ever in a kids movie, and of a sweet, wonderful, brave princess), Return to Oz, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Watcher in The Woods, just some solid, and sometimes truly fucked up kids movies. I miss that a lot.

I had to do a Dramatic Interpretation for a Public Speaking Competition, and used Mr. Dark's Speech from SWTWC. It got me a Silver Medal.

 

[UnquietDreams]

BTW: I was a freshman in high school, so the perfect age to see this movie and miss its underlying message.

I like the fan theory that Alison is the only one in detention, and everything else is just her imagination, which is why you have each stereotype, no one gets busted for smoking pot in an enclosed room, and the other weird things (Emilio Estevez singing loud enough to shatter a glass door being my favorite), and she ends up with the popular boy.

 

[UnquietDreams]

I had to do a Dramatic Interpretation for a Public Speaking Competition, and used Mr. Dark's Speech from SWTWC. It got me a Silver Medal.

That is just a solid adaptation of a remarkable novel. I reread it every October (along with Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October and Jim Butcher's Dead Beat).

 

[inkandiridiumnibs]

That is just a solid adaptation of a remarkable novel. I reread it every October (along with Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October and Jim Butcher's Dead Beat).

I shall look for Zelazney's book
Long Live the PizzaaaLord!!!

 

[cheekygirl75]

I’m late GenX and grew up on Nickelodeon. Did anyone else in the US (or Canada maybe?) have lots of British shows on Nick - like the Tomorrow People? Or maybe that was on PBS. Or do any Brits remember late 70s/early 80s kids sci-fi/fantasy shows?

 

[inkandiridiumnibs]

Nickelodeon was after my adulthood, but, before my children were old enough to comprehend...wait, let me amend that, before my Male Children were unable to really comprehend Television. ((At that same age, my Daughter, the youngest of my children was Reciting Bugs Bunny's "Pronoun Trouble" word for word, with different voices for Bugs, Daffy and Elmer))
I did however get to see Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and Blake's 7 on the Independent Broadcast Channel, which also did "Kung Fu Theater" on Saturdays and Sundays, showing Hong Kong, subtitled, Martial Arts Films.

 

[lavendersilk]

I’m late GenX and grew up on Nickelodeon. Did anyone else in the US (or Canada maybe?) have lots of British shows on Nick - like the Tomorrow People? Or maybe that was on PBS. Or do any Brits remember late 70s/early 80s kids sci-fi/fantasy shows?

Oh, I loved that show It was remade in the US horribly.

 

[joclfc]

I’m late GenX and grew up on Nickelodeon. Did anyone else in the US (or Canada maybe?) have lots of British shows on Nick - like the Tomorrow People? Or maybe that was on PBS. Or do any Brits remember late 70s/early 80s kids sci-fi/fantasy shows?

The Tomorrow people, Blake's 7, Space 1999, UFO, all them?

 

[joclfc]

Used to watch Hammer House of Horror, and back to back Horror movies on the weekend with my Gran on BBC2 in the summer holidays
Boris Karloff , Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee

 

[RosewoodTulip]

Watcher in The Woods,

Holy shit I haven't thought about that in years! I used to love it and be scared of it too.
Similar love/fear movies from way back were Watership Down and The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Honourable mention to The Dark Crystal of course but Supergirl too weirdly