Big Chill vs. Return of Secaucus Seven

[Auggie27]

Posted: 5/27/08 at 10:55pm

Discuss, if you can muster the energy. Once, there was a big debate about CHILL being the phoney Hollywood version of the more plain-spoken and perceived to be authentic SECAUCUS. Add FIFTH OF JULY and LOOSE ENDS to the mix and stir. The sub-genre of 20 some years ago -- plays about counter culture-ites as they "age" and faced their reality-based 30s. Oh yeah, somebody made a tv series outta the idea, too. SECAUCUS still has the bona fides for me, tedious and poorly paced as it is (though -- full disclosure, I know one of the major players in the film) -- though CHILL has that extraordinary cast, all delivering (except Glenn Close, who is uncharacteristically ill at ease from the first shot to the last. Her famous weeping-in-the-shower moment aside, she's arch and pretty awful -- never more so than in her 'vulnerable' moment at the dinner table. Strange that Kasdan couldn't help her more. Maybe she was too perfectly cast? If she and one of the others had changed roles, there might have been air around the scenes.)

Is there a comparable genre for the gen X? Is it, what, KNOCKED UP? Movies about men locked in lets-collect-action-figures facing up to biological imperitives? At least the burnt-out, blear-eyed boomers had lost ideals (see anyone in FIFTH OF JULY). It's harder to invest in accounts of the pain associated with giving up the bedroom you grew up in, and having to to work at the Wiz. I think.

Updated On: 5/27/08 at 10:55 PM

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 5/27/08 at 11:08pm

Secaucus Seven could have been me and my friends. I definitely "knew" each character. The beauty of the film was that it was comfortable and fit so well, and it avoided taking it up a notch to where it would have bourne a sense of fictionalization. I think it's a masterpiece just the way it is.

The Big Chill, an enjoyable film, too, but they weren't MY people...they were glossier and wealthier. I never felt the sense of intimacy that engages me with Secaucus.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/27/08 at 11:46pm

Secaucus 7 is undoubtedly the better movie, but Big Chill is easier-to-like.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 5/28/08 at 9:23am

SECAUCUS SEVEN is a smaller, independent movie and it is a little rough around the edges. BIG CHILL is slicker in general. I'd probably take SECAUCUS SEVEN over BIG CHILL, which now seems terribly treacly and preachy.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/28/08 at 9:27am

Like 'em both.

[blueroses]

Posted: 5/28/08 at 9:34am

"Is there a comparable genre for the gen X?"

I thought that was Singles (Cameron Crowe).

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 5/28/08 at 9:56am

The gen-X thing would probably be SUBURBIA (Bogosian, not Spheeris). Gen Y? They don't seem to be the pondering type.