I was down the local markets, flipping through some old vinyl and came across the Big Chill soundtrack. The Big Chill was massive film from my childhood with a soundtrack that was ubiquitous as it was instrumental to the film. The conceit of the film is a bunch of thirty-somethings spend a weekend together after the suicide of a friend* and basically act like a bunch of arseholes. The music in the film is a selection of 60's tracks which were the soundtrack to their university years and the whole thing plays like a sickening exercise in nostalgia. The pivotal music scene is all the merry middle class people dancing around the kitchen to the Temptations' Ain't too Proud to Beg. It played into that whole 80's thing that music will never be better than anything than what was produced in the 60's.
Anyhow, it got me thinking that now Gen X is asserting control over the movies that are being made, sooner or later someone will make a modern update of the Big Chill (if it hasn't been made already, I bet someone's thinking about it). I was thinking about how weird that music would be in that context - all that 90's angst compiled into a soundtrack to mid-life nausea. Do we want to see a bunch of thirty somethings dancing around the kitchen to Beck's Loser or sitting drinking whiskey while listening to Radiohead or playing air drums to Smells like teen spirit? No we don't and if anyone wanted to compile that soundtrack, it already exists - it's called the Singles Soundtrack. Matter of fact, you might as well get Cameron Crowe to direct a sequel to that film called Couples and we can watch how my generation is every bit as dickish as the baby boomers. I'm sure this will happen and it makes me think I should be working in the film industry. Shit ideas - I cater.
*Fun fact: The dead friend in the Big Chill is Kevin Costner who originally had some flashback scenes but they were edited out. As such, Kevin only appears in the film as a corpse at the funeral - his most convincing role to date (thanks for the joke that's been told a million times, Captain Obvious).
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Anyhow, it got me thinking that now Gen X is asserting control over the movies that are being made, sooner or later someone will make a modern update of the Big Chill (if it hasn't been made already, I bet someone's thinking about it). I was thinking about how weird that music would be in that context - all that 90's angst compiled into a soundtrack to mid-life nausea. Do we want to see a bunch of thirty somethings dancing around the kitchen to Beck's Loser or sitting drinking whiskey while listening to Radiohead or playing air drums to Smells like teen spirit? No we don't and if anyone wanted to compile that soundtrack, it already exists - it's called the Singles Soundtrack. Matter of fact, you might as well get Cameron Crowe to direct a sequel to that film called Couples and we can watch how my generation is every bit as dickish as the baby boomers. I'm sure this will happen and it makes me think I should be working in the film industry. Shit ideas - I cater.
*Fun fact: The dead friend in the Big Chill is Kevin Costner who originally had some flashback scenes but they were edited out. As such, Kevin only appears in the film as a corpse at the funeral - his most convincing role to date (thanks for the joke that's been told a million times, Captain Obvious).
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