A dozen definitive Generation X Movies

A word about the word:
Before Douglas Coupland dubbed my generation "Generation X", the term was the title of a photo essay by the great photographer Robert Capa on youth people coming of age just after World War 2, the young people of the 1950s. The term never caught on. This was my parent's generation, ironically. The term could have fit them just as easily. As we stand twixt the Boomers and the Millennials, they stand between the Greatest Generation and The Boomers, they, too are, in the words of Tyler Durden in "Fight Club", the middle children of history. My dad's older brother served in the war, my dad was only 16 in 1945. My dad was in the service during the Korean conflict, at the same time, my mom was in high school with bobby socks and poodle skirts. My dad's older siblings had Glen Miller, my dad had Stan Kenton. My mom's younger siblings had the Beatles, my mom had Tony Bennett. They married in 1956. They saw the civil rights era. My mom's younger sisters went to Woodstock. In 1969, my parents had me.

Just for fun, I created a list of the definitive movies of and about my generation. They are in a semi-chronological order ranging from the seventies to the the end of the nineties.

1: The Bad News Bears

I'm talking about the original one, of course, with Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal. In spite of (or because of) all the fighting, and the cursing, and Coach Buttermaker's drinking problem, this movie shows a surprisingly sympathetic look at childhood in the 1970s, even if, like me, you didn't play little league.

2: The Legend of Billie Jean 

First of all, the scene with oh-so-lovely Helen Slater at the swimming hole (right before the jerks started messing with brother Binx's scooter) had my 16 year old adolescent head spinning. I don't think I ever really recovered. H.S.'s Billie Jean Davy goes on to lead a full blown youth rebellion that had us all cheering. Fair is fair!

3: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Why did I include this popular comedy? They called our generation slackers, and nobody put as much effort and talent into the fine art of slacking as Ferris.

4: The Breakfast Club

Throw a bunch of students from completely different high school cliques together in Saturday detention and they learn that they are all equally outsiders and misfits. Nothing defined Generation X better.

5:  Heathers

Wynona Ryder and Christian Slater team up to kill off the snobby popular kids in school only to see the plan backfire when their victims become even more beloved in death. This very black comedy is a defining movie for a generation characterized by bleak irony and practiced nonchalance.

6: War Games
Thanks to genius boomers such as Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak, we were the first kids to grow up with our own computers (Sorry, millennials, it's true). A cyberpunk thriller before there was a word for it. Mathew Broderick plays a teenage hacker invading pre-internet bulletin boards looking for free games to download, only to inadvertently activate a NORAD war game scenario that nearly begins world war three.

7: Reality Bites
Lives of the overeducated and underemployed in the 1990s. Gen-X queen Wynona Ryder documents the romantic and career troubles of her friends with a camcorder.

8: Slacker
The very title of this movie is that hated word that the Boomers used to define us with. You've seen the "Keep Austin Weird" T-Shirsts. In this series of vignettes, Gen-X director Richard Linlater takes us to Austin, TX and gives us a grand tour of the weird circa 1991.

9: Clerks
Kevin Smith filmed this no-budget flick in black and white at the convenience store where he worked. It gives us a day in the life of no-future 20-somethings in Leonardo, NJ who spend their time doing such things as debating the ethics of blowing up the second Death Star and judging people by the movies that they rent.

10: Grosse Point Blank
A movie about growing up to realize that life doesn't turn out the way you imagined. This film tells it's message using the unlikely scenario of John Cusack as a hit man with an existential crisis going to his 10 year high school reunion.

11: Swingers
Struggling Brooklynite trying to get his shit together as a comedian in LA while sampling the mid-1990's neo-lounge scene. The film has some hilarious scenes for anyone who lived through that time period, the most uncomfortable answering machine scene ever put to film, and a cameo by swing revival band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

12: Fight Club
Rounding off the list, we finish the journey from The Legend of Billie Jean's fantasies of youth rebellion to "the middle children of history" beating the living shit out of each other in order to feel alive for just five minutes.

I'm going to leave this list at a dozen. What movies would you include?

    

So, What's Up?

As you see below, I just posted another camera review. It's been a few months, but, that doesn't mean that I haven't been shooting. I'm posting most of my photos to Flickr now. My day to day activities are typically survival mode (work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat). I got tired of complaining about politics and decided to do something about it. I met someone running for congress in my district and will be volunteering for her. My incumbent congressman really has to go. Ever since he rose to party leadership, he lost touch with the people he's supposed to represent. He's become too comfortable to be a good politician. I'll write more on that as things develop.

Olympus Stylus Epic

I was cleaning out my basement when I came across my old Olympic Stylus. This was one of my first favorite cameras. I hadn't seen it in years and thought I had thrown it out or sold it. In short, I thought that it was lost to me forever. Well, there it was, with a dead battery and a 24 exposure roll of Fujicolor Superia 200 in it. The first thing I wanted to do, of course was finish up this old roll of film. I put a new battery in the camera and it started right up.

The Stylus Epic was introduced in 1997 as part of Olympus' popular Stylus line of 35mm cameras. Olympus made some terrific, clever 35mm compact cameras. The stylus cameras from this era had gorgeous, artistic lines and a funky sliding clamshell cover. I've already told you about my Trip 35. Other Stylus models had zoom lenses, but the Epic has a fast and sharp fixed Olympus 35mm f2.8 lens. Not only is it a great lens, but the lack of a zoom mechanism allows the camera to keep it's pocket size. The shape of the body is very attractive and helps you easily slip it into a pocket, but I prefer the leather belt pouch. The plastic body is covered in a nice, creamy gold paint. The shutter button is gold colored. The camera turns on by putting open the clamshell cover and turns off by closing it. The back door has a window to let you know what kind of film you have loaded. The viewfinder is surprisingly clear. When closed, the shell protects everything in the front of the camera, the lens, the viewfinder, and the light and focus sensors.

The camera is very simple. It has a smart multi-point auto focus The controls in the back include buttons for flash modes and a self-timer. It has "quartzdate", which allows the camera to imprint the date on the film, which would show up on one of the lower corners of your prints. This was a thing in the nineties. You don't want to use it.

It has a "panorama" switch, which causes two plastic leaves to block out the top and bottom sections of the film. Film is rewound by pressing a little button with a tip of a pen. And that's all the camera does. No crazy modes, just a simple little pleasant point and shoot which looks really nice.

So, I was shooting a roll of film that was at least ten years out of date and probably more, so I didn't have a clue as to how the pictures would come out. I thought that it would be interesting to surprise myself. The washed out colors of the expired film gave the photos a wonderful vintage look which I love.