Comment on molly for better socials
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 days agoI’m around the age group that connects to it, but I simply never saw it at that age, so it totally missed me. A lot of people around me did, and have a strong affinity for it because they connected with it while in high school.
It’s worth a watch just to know what other people are talking about. Objectively, it’s well-made and tells an interesting story. That being said, you’re probably not going to connect with it. It’s a product of its time and the social issues affecting mostly Gen X kids. Exploration of young people’s personal traumas and issues was, at the time, sort of novel. Today it might seem trite and surface-level.
It’s a little bit like the movie St. Elmo’s Fire, where it’s a “one of each type of people” ensemble movie before that became an over-used trope, haled as a classic, but if you don’t connect to the characters or the time, it’s easy for it to overshoot you entirely on an emotional level.
lobut@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I’m an 80s kid (so barely Gen X) but I did miss a lot of movies … didn’t have the ability to see whatever movie I wanted at my age. However, there’s been so many references to these “formative” movies I’ve noticed throughout the decades … so recently, I don’t know what’s wrong with me but instead of going through a lot of the soulness Netflix movies (yes, I know there are a LOT of gems too) … what I’ve decided to do is watch a lot of these classics and then I watch YouTube analysis/review videos of them. So even though I may not get to see people talk about the impact it had on them.
You just listed St Elmo’s Fire so I may have to add that to my list.
hansolo@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Understood. We’re probably about the same age then, and might have grown up in similar circumstances. I missed maybe half of those same “formative” movies. Goonies. Dark Crystal. Labyrinth. Flight of the Navigator. Karate Kid. Breakfast Club, the ones I can think of off hand. Simply never saw them, or never saw more than 10-15 min of them until I was an adult.
It sounds like you’re being thoughtful about this, which is great. Many are worth watching since they’re well made on top of their cultural significance. And Netflix doesn’t have that many gems. Don’t feel bad about what you’re doing, you’re doing it right.
And At. Elmo’s Fire is maybe a curiosity at best. I didn’t care for it much, but the 80s had some terrible fear of Yuppies, and it was basically the Breakfast Club dynamics in a post-high school world. Who goes to college, who drops out, who gets a job, who stays cool, who becomes the dreaded Yuppie. Meh. It was fine as a Brat Pack cultural artifact and not much else, IMO.