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If you're unhappy and you know it...
The Times of London Online ^ | June 16, 2005 | KEVIN MAHER

Posted on 06/20/2005 11:38:37 AM PDT by Tamar1973

. . . clap the board. Generation X has become Generation Zzz — a new gang of mature, cinematic whingers.

THERE is a spectre haunting Hollywood. It’s a terrifying vision of well-dressed fortysomething urbanites drifting aimlessly around city streets, staring at total strangers and ruminating on the nature of human intimacy, then returning home to sham marriages and alienated children, eating their dinner in silence and spending most of the night staring into the bathroom mirror, wondering in quasi-poetic internal monologue about the fact that we are all, on some unspeakably profound level, like, totally connected to everyone else.

This angsty archly reflective world view, once the preserve of the occasional Hollywood ensemble piece like Magnolia, is becoming common currency at the multiplex. We Don’t Live Here Anymore and Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (note unwieldy titles , often a dead giveaway of philosophical project contained therein), both reviewed on pages 12 and 13, are typical examples, according to The New York Times, of “a genre that has been flourishing in recent years, but still lacks a name”. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: angst; genx; movies; zeitgeist
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To: Tamar1973
If these people are Blue state Gen X, how would you describe Red state Gen X? I am thinking of P. J. O'Rourke's Republican Party Reptile. That book describes how many of my conservative Gen X friends and I think and approach political issues.
21 posted on 06/20/2005 12:50:48 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: Tamar1973

Let's see...me and my under 40, but over 35 year old friends:
Go to Karoake, go bowling (no leagues),have costume parties, go to fairs and amusement parks, have dinner parties, play poker at home, go to casinos, play bloodsport Monopoly, go to steak frys, join private clubs, go to concerts, do crafts, and work.

Entertainment lasts longer when its active and not passive. Movies are passe.

Oh, and we all surf the 'net of course.


22 posted on 06/20/2005 6:20:36 PM PDT by mabelkitty (Lurk forever, but once you post, your newbness shines like a new pair of shoes.)
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To: Tamar1973
If you're unhappy and you know it...

Show your Democratic Party voter registration card and clap you hands on your head, repeatedly. (closed fist optional)
23 posted on 06/20/2005 6:22:39 PM PDT by TheForceOfOne (My tagline is currently being blocked by Congressional filibuster for being to harsh.)
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To: Tamar1973; RedRover

"Maybe he has been in contact w/ too many British Gen X folk."
"Film critics also assume that movies that no sees actually count as a popular phenomenon."

Methinks you both have unwittingly hit on the real meaning of this article:

1) Gen X Brit males are almost universally whiny in disposition, for good reason. They knew Maggie, and Maggie LED Britain back to world leadership instead of just being an EU speed bump off the coast. Now all they have is a dorky git named Blair--a far better name for a girl than a PM. You'd be bitter, too.

2) Nobody watched these movies. To say Gen X has anything to do with them is like judging American youth by Cop Rock.

3) Columnists are often paid by the word, and editors aren't paid to check columnists' facts.


24 posted on 06/20/2005 6:45:22 PM PDT by LibertarianInExile (<-- sick of faux-conservatives who want federal government intervention for 'conservative things.')
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To: mabelkitty
Oh, and we all surf the 'net of course.

Which is passive, don't you think?

25 posted on 06/22/2005 10:44:08 AM PDT by Tamar1973 (Read the red! www.readthered.com)
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To: Tamar1973

How so?
I spend my time in forums debating.


26 posted on 06/22/2005 5:57:27 PM PDT by mabelkitty (Lurk forever, but once you post, your newbness shines like a new pair of shoes.)
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