Rating: 
Summary: A Real "Remember When...."
Review: For those who grew up in this time period, THE BIG CHILL brings back lots of memories. With all the major upheavals going on in society, it's not surprising that lives that were originally going to "save the world" turned out just struggling to save themselves. There are no "yuppie scum" in this movie, just honest-down-to-earth (some of them) types who have, as William Hurt's character says, "been still evolving" throughout their lives. Add also a tremendous soundtrack, it all becomes very believable and brings that post-college, post-idyllic world let-down back with a vengeance. Where did the hope go? It's still there in some, missing in others, and lying dormant for the rest. A great ensemble cast tops off the perfection that is "THE BIG CHILL."
Rating: 
Summary: Truly a waste of celluloid
Review: This is another of the many films that create the self-examining (ie: 'personal inventory' [hint, hint 12-steppers]) genre where highly-powered "yuppie" couple, or single, travels back "home" to re-connect with friends and finds *gasp!* it/they have changed. Or, regrettable a friend--whom no one has spoken to in ten years--has some terminal illness or suicides [it could never be HIV/AIDS?] and monetary-successful Wall Street broker returns to confront their lost idealism or the struggling artist, or academic professor, that has married their college [or high-school] significant other [yes, some writers in the 80's did possess the ability to use significant others as metaphors]. Can we call it "the Big YAWN"? Someone says the wrong thing; someone spills a nasty secret. Someone cries; someone storms out of the room [horribly over-acted, as if this were Sunset Boulevard]; someone slams the door of their BMW/Porsche (depending on whether the car salesman convinced them they were a Gordon Gecko or a Joel Goodsen) and speeds off (barely able to hold car onto the road) to some dark watering hole where their former significant other will just happen to arrive minutes later to tempt them (ie: life-crisis when our Baby Boomer realizes how trite and droll their life differs from their youthful ideals). Part of the plotline we're supposedly believing (or is it suspending belief?) is the late-1950's and the early 1960's as a sublime period of time--full of optimism [nevermind the Cold War, lack of personal freedoms, and violence of the period]. The music could have been the only redeeming factor for this movie, but many 80's films seem to choose between 60's soundtrack or hyper-synthesized melodies [see "Beverly Hills Cop"] and unfortunately, this film lacks music score to distinguish it from the many 80's films of similar content and scores. 105 minutes. Inhumane treatment of moviegoers.
Rating:
Summary: The Big Chill
Review: I think it is a great movie with a great cast of great actors. So those of you out there who did not like it maybe it is over your head. I think it is very on the money for that generation, the only thing that is too Hollywood is the scene where the wife sets her friend up with her husband to get pregnant. That is just a little to much, in my mind I will always wonder if her husband liked it more then he is letting on, like the comment: (you don't have to be so happy). I just love the movie, I just wish we knew more about Alex then was let on.
Rating: 
Summary: A film that has aged with reasonable grace...
Review: After re-viewing "The Big Chill" on DVD, after not seeing it for a few years, I find that it has aged well for a film that is significantly time-stamped.
The lack of freshness that I experienced, was due mostly to the intervening years of exposure to other movies that are soundtrack-driven (in which this film played a pioneering part).
I do NOT understand the negative remarks from several other reviewers, regarding the DVD release. In my opinion, there's nothing at all wrong with either the video or audio aspects. And what's with the several negative remarks concerning the inclusion of the trailer for "Silverado", another Lawrence Kasdan film? So what??? Don't we buy or rent a DVD for the value of the film itself? The extras are just that...extras.
Rating:
Summary: Grief Counselling
Review: As a 1971 graduate of a student movement campus, I feel for the characters in this movie. The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor was one such campus, and all the characters in this movie are alumni from there.
In 1969 they thought their parents and authority figures were wrong about everything. They thought formal clothing was wrong. They thought Time Life publications were full of baloney.
Now, in 1983, these Ann Arbor alumni dress formally, especially if they're going to a funeral. And one of the gang writes for People Weekly, the Time Life publication.
I'm a writer myself. I do my best to revive late 60's New Left political arguments on my web site:
www.realhistoryarchives.com
The ex - flower children in "The Big Chill" ponder their transformation into the people they used to hate, the people they once accused of killing the Kennedys.
Not only that, they also hear their biological clocks ticking. They try playing touch football only to wince at the injuries they likely will sustain from a single game. The character played by Mary Kay Place realizes she soon will become unable to bear children. The character of Alex, though never seen, haunts a group of his friends throughout the film. He has chosen to follow the advice of Pete Townshend and die before he gets old.
Group members revisit their erstwhile promises to help every single African American and Latino kid in the slums. Mary Kay Place's character broaches this subject. She is an attorney working in real estate law in the Atlanta area. When we first meet her we see her luxurious office with a beautiful view out the window.
She explains to the group that she switched to this lucrative field after becoming frustrated as a public defender in the juvenile court system of Philadelphia. She became frustrated there after realizing that the kids wanted to commit crimes instead of receive charity. They chose to hurt people. So it was time for her to do what she wanted to do.
If you haven't seen this movie, you should see it. You can't change the world as a few college students in 1969 wanted to do, but you can cry with those people as they grieve the shattering of their hope. The only possible sequel to this movie would take place in the year 2020 as the characters join the Grey Panthers. At that point they'll have to fight just to survive. Forget the Peace Corps. Their own survival (meals, medical care, etc.) will become paramount.
Rating:
Summary: Crystallizes everything obnoxious about "yuppies" /"boomers"
Review: The term "yuppie" originally referred to middle-class Americans who had come of age in the 1960s, had been hippies, and by the 1980s were financially successful. That term and the term "baby boomer" both entered the American lexicon not long after this egregiously influential film came out in 1983.
"The Big Chill" was one of the first manifestations of the navel-gazing, self-absorbed, self-pitying subset of the "baby boomer" generation who around this time came to the horrific realization that they were beginning to age, that their lives had turned out to be much more cynical and materialistic than their '60s youthful idealism, blah blah blah, yada yada. The manner in which this film and its characters treat the Meg Tilly character, who is not in "their" generation (and so is portrayed as a shallow nitwit), is a prime example of certain baby boomers' self-righteousness and self-aggrandizement.
This film made me want to vomit when I saw it in 1983, and the mere idea of it makes me want to vomit today. Still when I hear any of the classic songs which were desecrated by appearing on its soundtrack, I get cold chills down my spine at the memory of this crapfest.
Those cold chills only last for a moment, but the societal problems and stagnation the selfishness of this subset of the "boomers" wrought for post-boomer generations -- McJobs, draconian student-loan repayment plans, "safe sex", the anti-aging industry -- these are forever. And this film crystallizes them all in a shiny happy package fit for consumption by (to paraphrase Don Henley) Deadheads driving Cadillac...Escalades.
Rating:
Summary: Ok, let's adress some complaints . . .
Review: First of all, if you think the film is too "WHINY" then PLEASE GET OVER YOURSELF!!! I love how people who complain about others "whining" always do it in such a whiny fashion: "Oh, i just had to leave the theater, it was SUCH torture". If youre too self-absorbed and smug to gain insight or inspiration from hearing about other people's sincere doubts and dissatisfactions then you're just plain shallow and crass as a person. Go watch some reruns of "Freinds" and keep pretending this bears some relation to real life. Second, the "their grief wasn't convincing" complaint comes up again and again. I can understand this take on it, but consider this: Everyone grieves in their own way; when i was but a mere twenty-one years old, one of my closest freinds died suddenly and unexpectedly. I cried at his funeral, but within a few hours of the service i was at a restaurant drinking and having a good time with all our other mutual pals - that night we stayed up getting drunk and high on the roof of an apartment building as much in celebration of our dear comrade's life as in grief over his and our loss. I talked to a buddy that night saying, "It just hasn't sunken in yet", and it hadn't. And it never did hit me the way i thought it would, at least partly because people don't always mourn the same way they so often do in movies. I loved my freind like a brother, but i only ever wept for him once, very breifly, at the funeral service - after that I was as normal as ever, even while discussing him posthumously with other freinds. I find this movie to be quite realistic and endearing - even profound in certain moments. I am of a much younger generation than the one portrayed, but their conversations (whininess, self-pity, intellectual conceit and ALL) still resonate with me and my veiw of the world. If that makes me a whiny gen X archetype then so be it - but i'm still smart enough to take any of your bogus "self-absorbed slacker" accusations throw them right back in your face to reveal you as the vapid, unreflective, self-righteous, self congratulatory, and plain-old SELFISH jerk you are . . . plus, i can probably kick your ass. This is a great film with some amazing, career-defining performances by some equally great actors - especially Goldblum. I highly recomend this to anyone else who has ever had the presence of mind to doubt yourself, what youve become, or your station in the world. If youre willfully ignorant enough to feel totally secure in all those areas already, then by all means, write a book and share your secret with the rest of us - otherwise shut the hell up.
Yeah, i suppose my life story isn't all that helpfull, but it was meant to illustrate a point (that people mourn in many different ways, and that doesn't make them shallow)which i was making in response to one of the more frequent criticisms of the film found on these pages. As for the rest - i stand by it: you can dislike this film for any number of reasons, but simply labelling these characters as whiny and shallow is narrow-minded, ignorant, and indicative of some serious flaws in your approach to other people. Keep those unhelpful votes coming!!!
Rating:
Summary: Glenn Close's "sacrifice"
Review: A common thread in the reviews of this film take issue with Glenn Close's "sacrifice" at the end of the movie. Anyone who understands the character understands that it's not a "sacrifice" at all. Just what the consequences are (if any) to her marriage and friendship are not spelled out, but it is totally appropriate for her character to make the decision that she did. (Incidentally, people do things like this qutie often, both for the sake of procreation and pleasure, and yes they do it even after AIDS). The sixties were about sexual freedom, among other things. It is interesting to me that the character's marriage and gentrification made a hypocrite and a liar out of her -- though she STILL believed in "free love," she and her husband (Kline) assumed the traditional, monogamous, middle America model for marriage. What did it do to her? It made her a cheat. Part of the message of the movie is that we need to be honest with our friends, partners, and above all, ourselves. Not only did the characters lose their "hope," they lost the courage that it takes to live by one's own standards instead of society's.
Very well filmed movie. Good performances. Very true to life.
Rating:
Summary: Can't Imagine This Without This Cast!
Review: A satellite tv review recently had this synopsis for The Big Chill. It read:A group of friends reunite for a funeral, play records, drink, and talk. This is pretty much what unfolds in the film which is a lot like Return of the Seacaucus Seven that was made earlier(a fine film shot in 16 mm!) It is this cast that makes the film. I cannot imagine another group of actors who could pull this one off. I think that the Big Chill is one of those rare films that may not seem like much, but with the right cast and some fine writing it is superb on all levels. Some of the best scenes in the film involve the scenes where the group drinks, plays records, smokes pot(courtesy of William Hurt's character) and talks. I think it is easy to see why the flashback scenes were cut from the final print. By not seeing what Alex looked like, other than his forehead and stitched-up writsts in the casket, we are really able to visualize Alex better in the context of his surviving hippie cohorts. Some of the key dialouge involves the words of the minister during the opening funeral scene("Where did Alex's hope go?"), and that is the theme which perpetuates through the context of this film. The musical score is wonderful and includes Three Dog Night, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys to name a few, although I have yet to see a COMPLETE soundtrack album released yet! The cast is so great I have got to list them here. Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Mary Kay Place, William Hurt, Tom Berenger, Jeff Goldblum, Jobeth Williams(Babe!), and Meg Tilly.
Rating: 
Summary: The Big Enema
Review: I wish I had a buck for everyone who told me this was their life story when this movie first came out. Do they still feel that way I wonder? On viewing it some 20 years later I'm struck by how smug & supercilious these characters all are, particularly Kline & Close. Were they supposed to be depicting such shallow vain self-satisfied characters? Or has time altered perspective? The platitudes spouted right & left that were amusing then are laughable at best now. And what would happen if all that great top-40 1960s & 1970s R&R background music was eliminated?
What might have given this movie a more lasting edge (at least for me) is if the director had taken the running gag of the various characters performing for the found camcorder & used it as a general theme; that is have the whole film be a "staged for the camcorder" performance. Then this saturation of self-consciousness carryings-on might have been warranted.
As always, fine performances by Hurt, Goldblum & Place. And a very lovely Meg Tilly.
|
