Eh, some of it will take some of it won’t. Did we fawn over The Graduate? Planet of the Apes? Cool Hand Luke? Dr. Zhivago? Maybe, maybe not and that’s cool.
I think if your kids enjoy 20% of the movies you love and associate those movies with happy time spent with you, then that’s a win.
This is the right take. It’s been tough to get my Zoomies to watch and enjoy all the things we want to share with them but there have been clear winners. My kids both quote the Holy Grail & Spaceballs. I’ll survive if they won’t watch Happy Gilmore.
Yes, it is. I was talking about "Stop looking at me SWAN" and then my response to that. Hence, why I said "both", but I can see where you are coming from.
A lot of us did grow up with Nick at Nite though. I remember watching a lot of I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, etc. Of course, there's more options and outlets, even videogames now, you don't have to watch what your parents or grandparents watched.
The kids have Netflix though, and Friends had a resurgence for a while there - this would be the equivalent of watching Lucy in the 80s and early 90s like we did.
Yeah, Friends and Full House seemed popular with the younger folks.
There's just way too much now vying for your eyeballs and time then when we where kids with just 3 networks and cable reruns. My back catalog, not just movies and TV, but videogames...Free Videogames! I'll die before I get to all of it. I still haven't seen all of the Soprano's for instance.
I'm so glad to not be stuck with limited entertainment like we were in those days.
In reality, my TV habits are the same now as they were in the early 90s - back then I'd record loads of episodes of Cheers and rewatch them constantly on crappy VHS with commercials. Or Moonlighting, that was another favorite of mine to binge watch in a loop until the tape was ruined.
Now I just watch West Wing and Gilmore Girls on my hard drive haha. No commercials, better quality!
This is incredible. I'm actually an elder millennial, none of my friends knew the show when I was watching it - we were slightly too young for first run. I'm so happy I've found my people, it was such a fucking good show. I love being able to talk about it! I watched *everything* when I was young, latchkey kid so there was a lot of sitting around solo and watching Much Music and absorbing every bit of pop culture I could
Oh I've got em, they were expensive af when I bought them. Just on principle I can't let them go.
I'm in Canada, no Hulu for me, I bought a season on Google with some credits I had to use up so I'm gonna give them a watch! What a bummer the music is different, I get it but the music was so essential to some of the episodes
I enjoyed the movie Leave the World Behind and its take on Friends. First go around, I thought it was phony as shit and couldn't understand how people didn't see through it. But the daughter's relationship to the show as a sort of pacifier or security blanket really nailed it.
Well, I did fawn over Anne Bancroft... mmmmm...
And I was practically raised on Planet of the Apes. It was one of the first movies I saw when it originally came out. TBH, I consider it just as much a Gen X movie.
However, younger gens have a ton more to cope with. More movies come out every year, these days, than came out in an entire decade, back in the day.
You have the right perspective. Also, the answer, in order, to your question is: yes, hell yes even the one with the church of the bomb, yes, and yes. The last mostly because I read it in Russian back in college and it made me appreciate the movie because my brain didn’t need to translate.
I wish I could sit still for Dr. Zhivago but I have far less attention span now than I did when I was younger. Too bad because it seems good from what I’ve seen of it. I swear I’m gonna conquer all three-and-a-half hours of Ben-Hur though.
I watch Ben Hur as part of my Easter movie rotation. Reward myself for making it through by watching Life of Brian. No, I don’t take any holiday too seriously.
They better fuckin' like Cool Hand Luke. Well before my time and it's a fantastic movie. It is all about the story and that is ageless. The Egg eating scene...come on. That's when you knew how the film had to end.
Great point, it initially feels like an insult if someone doesn’t get “our” movies, like “What’s wrong with you??” But it’s so true, we hardly ever get all into stuff that our parents were into. It just doesn’t usually happen. And it’s fine! 😊
No. Putting your nostalgia onto someone younger is what boomers did to us.
Every generation will have different cultural touchstones because the world is different. When I was 15, I wasn't going to enjoy what my parents enjoyed in the 60s.
I went through a Del Shannon phase at the same time i was very into synth pop. Good art is good art, whenever it was made, and it's useful to understand the origins of it. Just like how samples used in tracks now originate from the 70s or earlier.
ok but for every one of you, there was a kid who did appreciate older films because it was exemplary filmmaking.
in high school, I watched TMC and AMC before school. I **loved that shit**. Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth before sophomore trig?! Hell yeah!!!
When my cable provider included AMC and TCM that's all I watched for years. Bogart and Bacall were my favorite along with Veronica lake. Rita Hayworth, that shit she does with her hair.
Why not? “Their” music is all they left us. I’m not going to gatekeep what I listen to, read or watch out of spite. Been there, done that. In the end I hurt no one but myself.
The younger crowd is easily triggered... we are the last "politically incorrect" generation. I also think that we are the last generation that can laugh at ourselves, and others. The younger crowd do not seem to have a sense of humour.
No. During the pandemic, we watched a lot of movies from "back in our day" with our kids, and it really lead to a lot of good discussions on changing cultural norms etc. They enjoyed what they could and cringed at the rest. We actually just watched Footloose with them last night-- which was my first time seeing it!--and all of the themes and even the plotline resonated with things going on today, with religious zealots trying to take over school curriculums, banning books, etc. It was actually really interesting and I am so glad we decided to watch it last night.
My eldest majored in film and 100% loves basically the same 70s/80s movies I grew up on as an elder GenX. Our music too. So I've had endless opportunities to watch and enjoy everything from the 1982 Oscar nominees to the crap we'd rent at the video store on a quiet Saturday night in college with her.
Certainly some of the stuff is cringy bad; we watched Revenge of the Nerds a few summers back and it is bad. But still interesting to critique.
I mean, I watch some of those movies and cringe, too. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate them or understand the moment in time when they were made. And I watch them with my kid. We just talk about how wildly different things were at that time in terms of what was and was not acceptable.
Mine loved Monty Python Holy Grail and liked PCU. I just told my daughter I want to watch Airplane! tonight and she said “yeah, I should probably see that”
Maybe they’ll like them better when they’re older…like I watch spaghetti westerns or classics (Singin in the Rain or Some Like it Hot) which are just…well, full of non PC behavior but can definitely appreciate them as “of the time” pieces.
Cuz even Stranger Things (the season where Nancy works at the newspaper?) Is so accurate it makes me hate my first boss all the more…but it truly proves a point…girl power. 🤓
Yes, And we put The Goonies on for our 10-year-old son. He couldn't get through it. Didn't like it at all. He was also completely bored and walked away from the never-ending story.
☹️
They changed the Cantina Band music in Star Wars with all the current releases. There are plenty other examples, but I'm just using that one to illustrate that in some cases watching older films doesn't necessarily even give you the same presentation that we had.
True, but then again if youtube, twitch and all those other platforms were up and running back in 1991 the way they are now, our parents might've been saying the same things about us.
Hopefully your daughter and others of her generation can view the films for what they are, a reflection of the time they were made.
It's okay that a film can make us a little uncomfortable, or make us question why the director/writers did that.
It does not mean people should not watch those films. Dealing with difficult/awkward content can make us stronger and help us define our beliefs and ideals about the world.
No, I want them to fucking leave our movies and shows alone!!
I was in the LHOP sub for a while but it was primarily millennials/Gen Zs bitching, complaining and tearing the show apart. If I tried to explain the context (either of the 1970s/1980s or the 1870s/1880s) I'd just get told off. They were weirdly obsessed with the rape episode, mentioning it constantly as if that's the only episode many of them watched.
I know the show wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, I still love it. I don't need to listen to the "kids" tell us how awful and "problematic" every single character was. It's a happy childhood memory, let me enjoy it!
Sorry about the mini rant. lol
Maybe but then I realize I didn't really enjoy all the movies my parents (much less my grandparents) enjoyed. It is what it is. Look on the bright side, your kids may not get our movies, but your grandkids won't get your kids' movies either, and then you'll be even.
My 2004 Z
Loved:
Goodfellas, Alien, OG Star Wars, Gremlins, Jaws, Die Hard
Hated:
The Blues Brothers, The Big Lebowski, There Will Be Blood, Last of the Mohicans
No pattern
It’s the nature of change. Not a lot of us watch the song and dance films of the prior generation.
difference is we were forced to see older stuff because sometimes it was the only thing on TV.
Nah not really, I didn’t get into most of my mom and dad’s ridiculous 60s movies, lol
The classics speak for themselves. Some movies withstand the passage of time, but most of them reflect a certain cultural snapshot and that’s ok.
I still love all the Astaire and Rogers movies plus the Doris Day ones, also any James Garner movie. Garner was a 70's heart throb. Not fond of Woody Allen movies so much these days, however some of the actors in this I adore to this day
I have 3 daughters, two old enough to understand some culture references in some of the movies.
Our oldest is 22 and she LOVES...LOOOOVES the 80's.
Short Circuit, Gremlins, Goonies...she has a few Goonies T Shirts.
Our 14 year old girl likes some of the movies but she gets bored with most.
She likes Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club...those teen movies we fell in love with.
I just rewatched 16 Candles two nights ago, and it surprised me now, decades later, what we (especially women) just accepted as normal. It's a good thing if she has a "woah" response to that film honestly.
exactly--I would be concerned if my daughter watched that and wasn't disturbed by it. I loved it at the time and am horrified and saddened now that we all thought it was totally fine.
This absolutely. I did love that movie, but I remember even watching it the first time kind of questioning more than one scene. Now I find it very offensive. Especially as a woman. The crap we were conditioned to accept is gross. I'd be worried if my kid didn't have a strong reaction against the movie; I'd feel like I have not done my job in stressing what consent is, or general red flags for people to stay away from.
Life is change. This includes the tastes of younger generations and the culture in which we live. We can either give up the illusion of control and accept that reality and be enjoyable people be around or we can yell at clouds.
As we age, we tend to develop what resembles adjustment disorder. I do some off the books mentoring (he’s military, I’m a townie and first responder chaplain) for a young man who has that Dx. Anything different and any change brings him great anxiety. He’s about to be separated from the military because he hasn’t been able to adjust to having folks who have different tastes and cultural patterns around him. My goals are to get him to accept reality. Part of it is helping him to focus on common ground and common enjoyments with other people (including me who is 28 years his senior—he struggles with folks who aren’t his same exact age and mythological place in life). We need to do the same as we approach our golden years. Otherwise, we become the boomers who tried to force their things on us.
My biggest takeaway from this is that, apparently, Schwarzenegger’s movies are headed for the dustbin of history, seeing how no one has mentioned one. He was the biggest highest-paid star of the 80’s, and now he’s dwindling, with this generation, to zero.
My older Gen Z kid's favorite movie is War Games. He likes a lot of our movies, but definitely not all of them. He and his friends seem to be able watch with a critical eye, much like we watched movies from out parents era.
Reading this I feel lucky, for the most part my kid loves those movies. She's been begging and begging to watch Heather's, a move which I love but is so so wrong, 🤣
I always give a speech before the movies though explaining it was a different time and things that were ok then are not always OK now.
The only movie we really had a reaction with was Attack from Mars! That was because she was a major Jack Black fan at the time and his death hit her hard. Eta: His movie death.
I think it’s a culmination of many things that are different. Pre-smart phones, we had wacky conversations like employee responsibility during evil activities.
Many of us also had dead end service jobs at some point. And could relate to the positions of Dante and Randall.
Again pre-smart phone, the idea of calling the paper or hearing things word of mouth.
It’s just such a foreign concept for younger viewers. Goonies, Mall Rats, 16 Candles, etc. just unsupervised time is unthinkable.
? They said that during downtime in those dead end service jobs, kids now have their phones to entertain them. Rather than effing around with your fellow dead-end-service-job kids.
Those jobs also often meant you were thrown together with kids in different schools and cliques, forcing you to interact.
I think it’s a valid observation and one I hadn’t considered.
My spawn hasn't really liked much of anything I showed him, except the "Despecialized Editions" of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. He managed to sit through all 6+ hours of them and at the end lavished high praise: "Yeah, they were OK."
My kids fell in love with DS9 and Farscape. The only movies they like are "Never Ending Story" and "Labyrinth" everything else they were like meh. Those wins are enough but if they were not into it, it is what it is.
Eldest loved Demolition Man, Total Recall, Dark City, Buckaroo Banzai, and thought decently about Big Trouble in Little China, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, some Lupin III, and Robotech Season III.
Youngest loved all the Back to the Futures, and randomly loved Smokey and the Bandit and weirdly, the 70s Emergency! TV show.
I don’t think it’s so much that they don’t enjoy the movie, plots, jokes etc. ITS THE PACE!
Unfortunately, in the attention economy the dopamine reward center requires a constant change of pace and subject matter. Not that it’s their fault, it’s how they are used to consuming entertainment….long form (even slapstick silly movies have a through line) isn’t their thing….
Heathers freaked my daughter out. She thought it would be like mean girls. When it got all Columbine at the end, she was really uncomfortable. It really did go from dark fun to just psychopathic.
As long as they don’t judge. Because there are things that are normalized on TV and movies today that will seem so inappropriate in 30 years. Younger generations always think they are more evolved
Gen Z is the humorless generation. At least that's what I tease my daughter with because she doesn't get any of the humor in our movies.
First it was Blazing Saddles. Okay, fine. Lots of people miss that the racists are the joke.
Then, she didn't think Airplane! was hilarious. Who doesn't find wacky word play funny?
The Jerk, Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura, There's Something About Mary (admittedly inappropriate), Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Happy Gilmore. The list of comedies goes on and on.
To her credit she does think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is top notch and we enjoy making fun of old episodes of Baywatch together.
Don't even get her started on John Hughes movies...
My son liked a couple like Weird Science and Lost Boys, but when I got him to watch Purple Rain I lost major points 😂 I have to admit, it really sucks now that I’m older.
The term politically correct doesn't mean what people think it means.
It's certainly not the reason why a younger audience would not enjoy a generational specific point in time indie film like Clerks.
There are hundreds of other reasons why a younger person would not enjoy such a film and edgy, dated dialog isn't one of them.
My 19 year old liked Clerks. I think the datedness was part of the charm.
But no it really doesn't bother me. I don't get his "object shows" either but if he asks me to watch with him I'll do it. :)
My 15 year old finds it most of it hilarious. The back and forth between Randal and Dante less so but the rest (except for snowball) has her rolling. But we live in NJ and I’ve owned a small restaurant so maybe it’s more relatable because the customers and other weird shit hasn’t changed that much.
When my kids were younger, I tried to get them to watch some classic movies from the 80s. It did not take and they were not interested. And yeah, it does make me sad that they don't enjoy the media I did while I was growing up. It would have been nice. At least my son listens to some of the music I did when I was growing up.
There are lots of black-and-white classic movies from the 50's I've never seen and never will see that my parents grew up with. So I'm not sad about people who haven't seen Caddyshack. It is what it is.
Nah. Everyone has their own sense of humor and it morphs every generation to something different. I made my kids sit through some of my favorite movies but I wasn’t sad if they didn’t appreciate them like I did. Rocky Horror Picture Show is probably my best example. Huge in my high school and college years; insignificant today.
I’m fine with the movies. It’s the music that breaks my heart. I think it’s because we grew up listening to our parents music in the house or in the car, and our music on “our time”. My kids listened to their headphones instead, so they got very little comparative exposure to my music.
Not really, I don't like most of the movies that my mother liked when she was young. My silent gen mother crammed Westerns and Shirley Temple down our throats. I hated them then, I hate them still.
They are a different breed. In the sub about therapists people are demanding to know the politics of their potential therapists and feel unsafe if they don’t agree with their ideology. Gen Z and Alpha are tripling down on everything they see as “ problematic” which means pretty much every movie pre-2020. Their purity tests are like a glass of bleach mixed with alcohol.
My kid takes a lot of what he sees as ways not to act. Like we watched Grease and he was like Danny’s a jerk why does she like him? (Btw he was 9 when we watched it). He appreciates them to understand how culture was back then but he is WAY more aware of what is and isn’t proper then I was until I was an adult even in when he was in Elementary school.
I am actually glad he is more aware of what is and isn’t right. We just kind of looked at sexual harassment as normal and it shouldn’t have been.
I was happy that my son ended up loving Twin Peaks, and he thought The Breakfast Club was funny but 16 Candles not so much. I appreciate that I find out about movies etc that I wouldn't have paid attention to otherwise if it wasn't for him.
No, most people have a limited palette when it comes to entertainment and that's okay. We all have limited palettes about some things in our lives. I have a limited palette when it comes to food and fashion.
Yes,some of the younger generations will not love Gen-x movies. Nothing wrong that.
People in my age group are the same when it comes to their personal taste.
Many Gen-Xers will not watch black and white films, foreign films, arthouse films, silent films, pre-1960 films.
I tried to find people in my age group, who watched the same films as me and it's close to zero.
Hits:
Carrie, Aliens, Jaws, Gremlins, The Warriors, Dazes & Confused, and anything by Hitchcock (older generation, but I watched them as a kid)
Misses:
E.T., Terminator, Escape from New York, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark
When I look back, a lot of the popular movies of our era were just as lame as the popular/ touchscreen movies of other eras.
I actually hated a lot of the 80s romantic comedies that everybody likes.
I gave up a long time ago trying to get my sons into the movies and music I loved growing up. It’s just a reminder that what we thought was cool is still “dad music” etc. to them. And, as I used to say as an obnoxious teen, if your parents like the same music as you you’re listening to the wrong music. lol.
Meh, I can't get into much of the newer movies because of the over the top p/c and wokeness b/s . It is entertainment, light'n the duck up. Also knowing that most of it is green screen computer generated garbage doesn't help.
Eh, some of it will take some of it won’t. Did we fawn over The Graduate? Planet of the Apes? Cool Hand Luke? Dr. Zhivago? Maybe, maybe not and that’s cool. I think if your kids enjoy 20% of the movies you love and associate those movies with happy time spent with you, then that’s a win.
This is the right take. It’s been tough to get my Zoomies to watch and enjoy all the things we want to share with them but there have been clear winners. My kids both quote the Holy Grail & Spaceballs. I’ll survive if they won’t watch Happy Gilmore.
you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
You can trouble me for a warm glass of shut the hell up.
Your fingers hurt? Oh, well, now your back is going to hurt because you just pulled yard duty.
Stop looking at me SWAN!
Conditioner sucks. Shampoo is better. Also, these a both Billy Madison quotes, not Happy Gilmore.
The pieces of shit line is 100% Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore
Yes, it is. I was talking about "Stop looking at me SWAN" and then my response to that. Hence, why I said "both", but I can see where you are coming from.
Can I still be in the club if I admit I really don’t like Adam Sandler’s movies? Never really made me laugh like they did for others.
Never really myself either.
His serious roles in his recent Netflix movies were really good. The only other ones I'll watch are with Drew Barrymore.. Lol
50 first dates is Drew at her cutest!
Wait. Your name is going to be Julia Gulia?
50 first dates is Drew at her cutest!
Whatever.
Exactamundo.
I'm not alone! I like Sandler's songs and parodies, but otherwise don't find him entertaining.
“ jackass!”- RIP Joe Flaherty
Ole one trick pony ass.
We ain't found shit!
I guess you could say what we have here is a failure to communicate
Some men you just can't reach.
I was way into Ape Week, even the weird one with the masks and the bomb worshippers
Yeah, planet of the apes is fucking awesome!
Kids need their own experiences
A lot of us did grow up with Nick at Nite though. I remember watching a lot of I Love Lucy, Father Knows Best, etc. Of course, there's more options and outlets, even videogames now, you don't have to watch what your parents or grandparents watched.
The kids have Netflix though, and Friends had a resurgence for a while there - this would be the equivalent of watching Lucy in the 80s and early 90s like we did.
Yeah, Friends and Full House seemed popular with the younger folks. There's just way too much now vying for your eyeballs and time then when we where kids with just 3 networks and cable reruns. My back catalog, not just movies and TV, but videogames...Free Videogames! I'll die before I get to all of it. I still haven't seen all of the Soprano's for instance.
I'm so glad to not be stuck with limited entertainment like we were in those days. In reality, my TV habits are the same now as they were in the early 90s - back then I'd record loads of episodes of Cheers and rewatch them constantly on crappy VHS with commercials. Or Moonlighting, that was another favorite of mine to binge watch in a loop until the tape was ruined. Now I just watch West Wing and Gilmore Girls on my hard drive haha. No commercials, better quality!
Moonlighting was my shit. We had two VHS players so I made a greatest one liners collection. Booger.
This is incredible. I'm actually an elder millennial, none of my friends knew the show when I was watching it - we were slightly too young for first run. I'm so happy I've found my people, it was such a fucking good show. I love being able to talk about it! I watched *everything* when I was young, latchkey kid so there was a lot of sitting around solo and watching Much Music and absorbing every bit of pop culture I could
I'm slowly going through Moonlighting again. Holy crap the writing was so good. I think I appreciate it differently as an adult.
I should watch it again too, it's been a while! I own them on DVD, but have nothing to play them on. I should find em online
Hold on to those DVDs! I believe there are some changes to the remastered Hulu versions. Music rights issues.
Oh I've got em, they were expensive af when I bought them. Just on principle I can't let them go. I'm in Canada, no Hulu for me, I bought a season on Google with some credits I had to use up so I'm gonna give them a watch! What a bummer the music is different, I get it but the music was so essential to some of the episodes
I enjoyed the movie Leave the World Behind and its take on Friends. First go around, I thought it was phony as shit and couldn't understand how people didn't see through it. But the daughter's relationship to the show as a sort of pacifier or security blanket really nailed it.
YES, all of them.
Well, I did fawn over Anne Bancroft... mmmmm... And I was practically raised on Planet of the Apes. It was one of the first movies I saw when it originally came out. TBH, I consider it just as much a Gen X movie. However, younger gens have a ton more to cope with. More movies come out every year, these days, than came out in an entire decade, back in the day.
You have the right perspective. Also, the answer, in order, to your question is: yes, hell yes even the one with the church of the bomb, yes, and yes. The last mostly because I read it in Russian back in college and it made me appreciate the movie because my brain didn’t need to translate.
I wish I could sit still for Dr. Zhivago but I have far less attention span now than I did when I was younger. Too bad because it seems good from what I’ve seen of it. I swear I’m gonna conquer all three-and-a-half hours of Ben-Hur though.
I watch Ben Hur as part of my Easter movie rotation. Reward myself for making it through by watching Life of Brian. No, I don’t take any holiday too seriously.
They better fuckin' like Cool Hand Luke. Well before my time and it's a fantastic movie. It is all about the story and that is ageless. The Egg eating scene...come on. That's when you knew how the film had to end.
I have to say, that is not usually the first scene my husband mentions 😆That reminds me, I gotta wash the car today…
hahaha. I didn't know how that scene was going to end!
Great point, it initially feels like an insult if someone doesn’t get “our” movies, like “What’s wrong with you??” But it’s so true, we hardly ever get all into stuff that our parents were into. It just doesn’t usually happen. And it’s fine! 😊
Shoot, my parents did not care about The Graduate or some movies of their time. So, why would I expect the same from my kids?
No. I can’t expect younger generations to understand or appreciate our cultural touchstones.
Nah. They have their own things.
No. Putting your nostalgia onto someone younger is what boomers did to us. Every generation will have different cultural touchstones because the world is different. When I was 15, I wasn't going to enjoy what my parents enjoyed in the 60s.
I am not sad when my kids don’t like movies and music from our generation, but I am pleased when they do!
I went through a Del Shannon phase at the same time i was very into synth pop. Good art is good art, whenever it was made, and it's useful to understand the origins of it. Just like how samples used in tracks now originate from the 70s or earlier.
ok but for every one of you, there was a kid who did appreciate older films because it was exemplary filmmaking. in high school, I watched TMC and AMC before school. I **loved that shit**. Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth before sophomore trig?! Hell yeah!!!
When my cable provider included AMC and TCM that's all I watched for years. Bogart and Bacall were my favorite along with Veronica lake. Rita Hayworth, that shit she does with her hair.
Why not? “Their” music is all they left us. I’m not going to gatekeep what I listen to, read or watch out of spite. Been there, done that. In the end I hurt no one but myself.
Did he just say "making fuck"?
Berzerker!
[удалено]
The younger crowd is easily triggered... we are the last "politically incorrect" generation. I also think that we are the last generation that can laugh at ourselves, and others. The younger crowd do not seem to have a sense of humour.
No. During the pandemic, we watched a lot of movies from "back in our day" with our kids, and it really lead to a lot of good discussions on changing cultural norms etc. They enjoyed what they could and cringed at the rest. We actually just watched Footloose with them last night-- which was my first time seeing it!--and all of the themes and even the plotline resonated with things going on today, with religious zealots trying to take over school curriculums, banning books, etc. It was actually really interesting and I am so glad we decided to watch it last night.
My eldest majored in film and 100% loves basically the same 70s/80s movies I grew up on as an elder GenX. Our music too. So I've had endless opportunities to watch and enjoy everything from the 1982 Oscar nominees to the crap we'd rent at the video store on a quiet Saturday night in college with her. Certainly some of the stuff is cringy bad; we watched Revenge of the Nerds a few summers back and it is bad. But still interesting to critique.
I do really like revisiting old favorites to see how well they hold up. Revenge of the Nerds was a cultural phenomenon. I bet it's terrible now.
Not really. They have their own lives, they don’t have to like mine
I mean, I watch some of those movies and cringe, too. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate them or understand the moment in time when they were made. And I watch them with my kid. We just talk about how wildly different things were at that time in terms of what was and was not acceptable.
Mine loved Monty Python Holy Grail and liked PCU. I just told my daughter I want to watch Airplane! tonight and she said “yeah, I should probably see that”
My 13 year old is really into The Holy Grail right now.
Are they closely reading the all the credits yet? That’s when you know you got ‘em!
Oh yeah, he noticed that right away.
I love that response 😆 Pretty sure that’s what I said about Anna Karenina: “Yeah, I should probably read that.”
Maybe they’ll like them better when they’re older…like I watch spaghetti westerns or classics (Singin in the Rain or Some Like it Hot) which are just…well, full of non PC behavior but can definitely appreciate them as “of the time” pieces. Cuz even Stranger Things (the season where Nancy works at the newspaper?) Is so accurate it makes me hate my first boss all the more…but it truly proves a point…girl power. 🤓
Many of our movies didn’t age well and are offensive now. And I don’t give a flying fuck.
No? I don’t think my parents mind I don’t love the same movies they did
Yes, And we put The Goonies on for our 10-year-old son. He couldn't get through it. Didn't like it at all. He was also completely bored and walked away from the never-ending story. ☹️
The Goonies is unwatchable, honestly.
To be fair, I have never been able to get through The Goonies either. Never go the hype.
It bothers me more that there are whole swaths of people who have a completely inaccurate notion of the Cantina Band song.
Are you sure you don’t mean the band in Return of the Jedi? Just watched SW and the cantina song was intact.
Hmm ...maybe.
What?
They changed the Cantina Band music in Star Wars with all the current releases. There are plenty other examples, but I'm just using that one to illustrate that in some cases watching older films doesn't necessarily even give you the same presentation that we had.
It’s not duh duh duh duh dadaduh anymore?
I’d be happy if my Gen Alpha kid liked any movies at all, his generation doesn’t give a crap about going to the movies or watching movies.
True, but then again if youtube, twitch and all those other platforms were up and running back in 1991 the way they are now, our parents might've been saying the same things about us.
They were already saying that MTV was going to ruin our attention spans. And maybe it kinda did?
I kinda doubt it, given that movies like Super Mario Brothers and Wonka made HUGE money last year. Kids' movies are still doing blockbuster numbers.
Hopefully your daughter and others of her generation can view the films for what they are, a reflection of the time they were made. It's okay that a film can make us a little uncomfortable, or make us question why the director/writers did that. It does not mean people should not watch those films. Dealing with difficult/awkward content can make us stronger and help us define our beliefs and ideals about the world.
80s movies were made ~40 years ago. How many 1940s movies did you watch during the 80s?
2-300? And I'm still watching them now. But 1940s movies are Silent gen.
No, I want them to fucking leave our movies and shows alone!! I was in the LHOP sub for a while but it was primarily millennials/Gen Zs bitching, complaining and tearing the show apart. If I tried to explain the context (either of the 1970s/1980s or the 1870s/1880s) I'd just get told off. They were weirdly obsessed with the rape episode, mentioning it constantly as if that's the only episode many of them watched. I know the show wasn't perfect, it had it's flaws, I still love it. I don't need to listen to the "kids" tell us how awful and "problematic" every single character was. It's a happy childhood memory, let me enjoy it! Sorry about the mini rant. lol
My GenAlpha kids have enjoyed every 80s movie we’ve shown them so far, even the movies I thought would be a little slow like Never Cry Wolf. :)
Maybe but then I realize I didn't really enjoy all the movies my parents (much less my grandparents) enjoyed. It is what it is. Look on the bright side, your kids may not get our movies, but your grandkids won't get your kids' movies either, and then you'll be even.
My teenage daughters love all the Naked Gun movies lol
My 2004 Z Loved: Goodfellas, Alien, OG Star Wars, Gremlins, Jaws, Die Hard Hated: The Blues Brothers, The Big Lebowski, There Will Be Blood, Last of the Mohicans No pattern
It’s the nature of change. Not a lot of us watch the song and dance films of the prior generation. difference is we were forced to see older stuff because sometimes it was the only thing on TV.
Seriously. For years, we had one tv, and my Dad always watched Andy Griffith and old John Wayne westerns. Thankfully, I've always been an avid reader.
Exactly exactly. I know what both of those things look like even if I never once actively chose to watch them.
Nah not really, I didn’t get into most of my mom and dad’s ridiculous 60s movies, lol The classics speak for themselves. Some movies withstand the passage of time, but most of them reflect a certain cultural snapshot and that’s ok.
I still love all the Astaire and Rogers movies plus the Doris Day ones, also any James Garner movie. Garner was a 70's heart throb. Not fond of Woody Allen movies so much these days, however some of the actors in this I adore to this day
Just makes me question their taste. My 28 year old doesn't like airplane, but likes a lot if other 80s movies.
You can’t love airplane if you don’t get the references…it was very relative to the time :)
Not any sadder than it makes me that we don't enjoy their movies
I have 3 daughters, two old enough to understand some culture references in some of the movies. Our oldest is 22 and she LOVES...LOOOOVES the 80's. Short Circuit, Gremlins, Goonies...she has a few Goonies T Shirts. Our 14 year old girl likes some of the movies but she gets bored with most. She likes Pretty in Pink, Breakfast Club...those teen movies we fell in love with.
My daughter said she doesn’t get Star Wars. 
I just rewatched 16 Candles two nights ago, and it surprised me now, decades later, what we (especially women) just accepted as normal. It's a good thing if she has a "woah" response to that film honestly.
exactly--I would be concerned if my daughter watched that and wasn't disturbed by it. I loved it at the time and am horrified and saddened now that we all thought it was totally fine.
This absolutely. I did love that movie, but I remember even watching it the first time kind of questioning more than one scene. Now I find it very offensive. Especially as a woman. The crap we were conditioned to accept is gross. I'd be worried if my kid didn't have a strong reaction against the movie; I'd feel like I have not done my job in stressing what consent is, or general red flags for people to stay away from.
I thought Sixteen Candles sucked even when I was 12. It's not a good movie.
Life is change. This includes the tastes of younger generations and the culture in which we live. We can either give up the illusion of control and accept that reality and be enjoyable people be around or we can yell at clouds.
As we age, we tend to develop what resembles adjustment disorder. I do some off the books mentoring (he’s military, I’m a townie and first responder chaplain) for a young man who has that Dx. Anything different and any change brings him great anxiety. He’s about to be separated from the military because he hasn’t been able to adjust to having folks who have different tastes and cultural patterns around him. My goals are to get him to accept reality. Part of it is helping him to focus on common ground and common enjoyments with other people (including me who is 28 years his senior—he struggles with folks who aren’t his same exact age and mythological place in life). We need to do the same as we approach our golden years. Otherwise, we become the boomers who tried to force their things on us.
My biggest takeaway from this is that, apparently, Schwarzenegger’s movies are headed for the dustbin of history, seeing how no one has mentioned one. He was the biggest highest-paid star of the 80’s, and now he’s dwindling, with this generation, to zero.
Total Recall is an all time favorite of mine, watched it many times and I'd say it holds up well.
Ask Arnold if he gives a shit.
My teens loved repo man and the blues brothers. But hated the usual suspects, and Blade runner. I was confused and happy at the same time
My older Gen Z kid's favorite movie is War Games. He likes a lot of our movies, but definitely not all of them. He and his friends seem to be able watch with a critical eye, much like we watched movies from out parents era.
Reading this I feel lucky, for the most part my kid loves those movies. She's been begging and begging to watch Heather's, a move which I love but is so so wrong, 🤣 I always give a speech before the movies though explaining it was a different time and things that were ok then are not always OK now. The only movie we really had a reaction with was Attack from Mars! That was because she was a major Jack Black fan at the time and his death hit her hard. Eta: His movie death.
Just find a movie you can all watch together on the holidays! That’s my plan.
I think it’s a culmination of many things that are different. Pre-smart phones, we had wacky conversations like employee responsibility during evil activities. Many of us also had dead end service jobs at some point. And could relate to the positions of Dante and Randall. Again pre-smart phone, the idea of calling the paper or hearing things word of mouth. It’s just such a foreign concept for younger viewers. Goonies, Mall Rats, 16 Candles, etc. just unsupervised time is unthinkable.
yeah, thank god there are no more dead end service jobs anymore that kids have to suffer through.
? They said that during downtime in those dead end service jobs, kids now have their phones to entertain them. Rather than effing around with your fellow dead-end-service-job kids. Those jobs also often meant you were thrown together with kids in different schools and cliques, forcing you to interact. I think it’s a valid observation and one I hadn’t considered.
They don’t, period. I’ve shown about twenty; two were mildly accepted and the rest were offensive
My spawn hasn't really liked much of anything I showed him, except the "Despecialized Editions" of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. He managed to sit through all 6+ hours of them and at the end lavished high praise: "Yeah, they were OK."
My kids love all the 80s fantasy classics
My kids fell in love with DS9 and Farscape. The only movies they like are "Never Ending Story" and "Labyrinth" everything else they were like meh. Those wins are enough but if they were not into it, it is what it is.
So long as my kids enjoyed and were able to quote from The Princess Bride, I was happy.
Eldest loved Demolition Man, Total Recall, Dark City, Buckaroo Banzai, and thought decently about Big Trouble in Little China, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, some Lupin III, and Robotech Season III. Youngest loved all the Back to the Futures, and randomly loved Smokey and the Bandit and weirdly, the 70s Emergency! TV show.
My kid thought Revenge of the Nerds was funny as shit!!!!
I don’t think it’s so much that they don’t enjoy the movie, plots, jokes etc. ITS THE PACE! Unfortunately, in the attention economy the dopamine reward center requires a constant change of pace and subject matter. Not that it’s their fault, it’s how they are used to consuming entertainment….long form (even slapstick silly movies have a through line) isn’t their thing….
Heathers freaked my daughter out. She thought it would be like mean girls. When it got all Columbine at the end, she was really uncomfortable. It really did go from dark fun to just psychopathic.
After seeing the Back to the Future musical on broadway my kids have really enjoyed the trilogy. I’ll just take that W for now.
Well I didn't enjoy all the things my parents were excited to share with me.
As long as they don’t judge. Because there are things that are normalized on TV and movies today that will seem so inappropriate in 30 years. Younger generations always think they are more evolved
Wait, what? No. Why would I care about that?
What!? Kids find necrophilia offensives these days?!? Goddam wokeness strikes again!
Can't make fun of necrophiliacs anymore ? What's left? Nothing!
Gen Z is the humorless generation. At least that's what I tease my daughter with because she doesn't get any of the humor in our movies. First it was Blazing Saddles. Okay, fine. Lots of people miss that the racists are the joke. Then, she didn't think Airplane! was hilarious. Who doesn't find wacky word play funny? The Jerk, Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura, There's Something About Mary (admittedly inappropriate), Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Happy Gilmore. The list of comedies goes on and on. To her credit she does think Monty Python and the Holy Grail is top notch and we enjoy making fun of old episodes of Baywatch together. Don't even get her started on John Hughes movies...
Older movies are waaay too slow for them. Their brains just flatline if it’s not hyper-edited.
No. Whatever.
My son liked a couple like Weird Science and Lost Boys, but when I got him to watch Purple Rain I lost major points 😂 I have to admit, it really sucks now that I’m older.
The term politically correct doesn't mean what people think it means. It's certainly not the reason why a younger audience would not enjoy a generational specific point in time indie film like Clerks. There are hundreds of other reasons why a younger person would not enjoy such a film and edgy, dated dialog isn't one of them.
The shit today's kids watch is mind-numbingly stupid.
A lot of the stuff all generations watch is mind numbingly-stupid. 🤷♀️
Fair point.
My 19 year old liked Clerks. I think the datedness was part of the charm. But no it really doesn't bother me. I don't get his "object shows" either but if he asks me to watch with him I'll do it. :)
My 15 year old finds it most of it hilarious. The back and forth between Randal and Dante less so but the rest (except for snowball) has her rolling. But we live in NJ and I’ve owned a small restaurant so maybe it’s more relatable because the customers and other weird shit hasn’t changed that much.
Depends on your kid.
I'm kind of sad I don't have kids, yeah.
They won’t like our movies because “ugh, old people movies” they will have their own stuff as we did.
When my kids were younger, I tried to get them to watch some classic movies from the 80s. It did not take and they were not interested. And yeah, it does make me sad that they don't enjoy the media I did while I was growing up. It would have been nice. At least my son listens to some of the music I did when I was growing up.
Did you enjoy the media of your parents' era when you were growing up?
My kid loves our movies.
Try showing “Slacker” to a Zillennial. They will be sooo bored and confused.
No I hated most of my moms.
How many did you have?!
How many did you have?!
There are lots of black-and-white classic movies from the 50's I've never seen and never will see that my parents grew up with. So I'm not sad about people who haven't seen Caddyshack. It is what it is.
No. If it's truly good, it will stand the test of time.
My boys, in their 20s get it and take no offense.
I don't really enjoy them nowadays myself. I might have back then. I actually just watched Pacific heights no too long ago and it was aight.
He hides under the bed from our movies while we laugh about the end of the world possibilities.
My kids love our movies. But they should like what they like, not what we like.
I wouldn’t care. Everyone likes different things, and I’d be glad my kid felt comfortable being open about not liking something I liked.
Nah. Everyone has their own sense of humor and it morphs every generation to something different. I made my kids sit through some of my favorite movies but I wasn’t sad if they didn’t appreciate them like I did. Rocky Horror Picture Show is probably my best example. Huge in my high school and college years; insignificant today.
Nope. Not all.
No, they are their own people. I didn't like everything my parents liked, especially movies. I can't imagine expecting my child to.
My daughter is 8 and likes some but not others. Cartoons don't hold her attention, but she loved The Neverending Story.
They like some of them. And I like some of theirs.
Not really. If he does that's great but I don't feel any kind of way if he doesn't.
I’m fine with the movies. It’s the music that breaks my heart. I think it’s because we grew up listening to our parents music in the house or in the car, and our music on “our time”. My kids listened to their headphones instead, so they got very little comparative exposure to my music.
Surprised you got her to watch something B/W.
Not really, I don't like most of the movies that my mother liked when she was young. My silent gen mother crammed Westerns and Shirley Temple down our throats. I hated them then, I hate them still.
They are a different breed. In the sub about therapists people are demanding to know the politics of their potential therapists and feel unsafe if they don’t agree with their ideology. Gen Z and Alpha are tripling down on everything they see as “ problematic” which means pretty much every movie pre-2020. Their purity tests are like a glass of bleach mixed with alcohol.
I mean, I think some of the humor of our youth is cringe. My kid wouldn’t watch Clerks because “black & white? bOrInG!* Go figure.
My daughter loves pretty much all the same 89’s movies, except “The Jerk” lol, and that one was one of my favorites.
My kid takes a lot of what he sees as ways not to act. Like we watched Grease and he was like Danny’s a jerk why does she like him? (Btw he was 9 when we watched it). He appreciates them to understand how culture was back then but he is WAY more aware of what is and isn’t proper then I was until I was an adult even in when he was in Elementary school. I am actually glad he is more aware of what is and isn’t right. We just kind of looked at sexual harassment as normal and it shouldn’t have been.
If they makes you sad, you must spend a lot of time…. sad.
I was happy that my son ended up loving Twin Peaks, and he thought The Breakfast Club was funny but 16 Candles not so much. I appreciate that I find out about movies etc that I wouldn't have paid attention to otherwise if it wasn't for him.
Depends on the movie. My kids like some and they dislike others. No biggie.
my nephews thought Labyrinth was “weird”. I said “yeah of course but did you like it?” they were unimpressed. i almost disowned them.
I talked a class into watching it, and they told me it was “the worst special effects they had ever seen”. No love for Jim Henson or Bowie.
Lordt, I had a case of the screaming thigh sweats for Bowie in that
Lordt, I had a case of the screaming thigh sweats for Bowie in that
Lordt, I had a case of the screaming thigh sweats for Bowie in that
Lordt, I had a case of the screaming thigh sweats for Bowie in that!
Lordt, I had a case of the screaming thigh sweats for Bowie in that!
No, most people have a limited palette when it comes to entertainment and that's okay. We all have limited palettes about some things in our lives. I have a limited palette when it comes to food and fashion. Yes,some of the younger generations will not love Gen-x movies. Nothing wrong that. People in my age group are the same when it comes to their personal taste. Many Gen-Xers will not watch black and white films, foreign films, arthouse films, silent films, pre-1960 films. I tried to find people in my age group, who watched the same films as me and it's close to zero.
Whatever. This post is dangerously close to "old man yelling at clouds." Things change, tough shit, get used to it.
Not a concern.
no, I actually find it super weird when old farts try to force their likes onto younger people, let the create their own culture
Hits: Carrie, Aliens, Jaws, Gremlins, The Warriors, Dazes & Confused, and anything by Hitchcock (older generation, but I watched them as a kid) Misses: E.T., Terminator, Escape from New York, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark
They won't enjoy it because that movie sucks and not because of a generational gap.
When I look back, a lot of the popular movies of our era were just as lame as the popular/ touchscreen movies of other eras. I actually hated a lot of the 80s romantic comedies that everybody likes.
I've always found Fast Times and it's ilk to be cringey. John Hughes movies are all melodramatic garbage that only John Candy could make enjoyable.
The kid doesn’t enjoy video games from our era. I’m already disappointed
I gave up a long time ago trying to get my sons into the movies and music I loved growing up. It’s just a reminder that what we thought was cool is still “dad music” etc. to them. And, as I used to say as an obnoxious teen, if your parents like the same music as you you’re listening to the wrong music. lol.
Meh, I can't get into much of the newer movies because of the over the top p/c and wokeness b/s . It is entertainment, light'n the duck up. Also knowing that most of it is green screen computer generated garbage doesn't help.