I half-hardheartedly watched The Big Chill on Sony TV last night. It was shit but also totally fascinating because of the very specific period details and reference points that pervade every single aspect of the film and are all perfectly observed because the people making the film are basically making a film about themselves.
It's a period that is inherently interesting anyway, for all sorts of reasons: that is, the transition of American baby boomers from radical youth to materialistic middle age, which was both a personal, generational and national cultural and economic journey, from JFK and SDS to wealth, neurosis and Reagan (the film was released in 1983). One of the characters, for example, talks about leaving criminal legal aid to become a real estate attorney in Atlanta because she was tired of her clients always "being so damn guilty" and the money was better, and her ex makes a crack about her old self expecting to represent "Huey and Bobby".
It was like a combination of Thirtysomething and Destructive Generation. Like I say, all the good things about the film are now in the details of a generational nervous breakdown and how it expressed itself through reference points (e.g. the conversation above and also the 60s soundtrack) as well as material objects and obtainment (clothes, cars, careers, etc) and also the fallout of failures and addictions.
So I enjoyed this shit film in a very specific way.