Reality Bites (1994)

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Ironic slacker college grads confront real-world hijinks.

Interesting re-watch for me.

 

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

So I conflate this movie with Singles, everyone probably does, but the one I was thinking of as this played was St Elmos Fire, which was also about recent grads with their heads up their asses.

But the St Elmos crowd couldn't wait to be a part of the boomer world they were inheriting, while the cynical Gen Xxxers of Reality Bites were completely against that shit. 

While totally overdoing that point the flick did a good job of forecasting where reality TV was going. People were worried about AIDS and coming out. Ben Stiller directed, it was his first, and it wasn't great.

Winona winds up with the wrong guy,

The movie had to have been backed by Phillip Morris--incredible amount of gratuitous smoking. Steve Zahn is funny but hardly gets any lines.

Some contemporary songs get played but big moments are for the oldies like My Sharona.

In summary you should watch it again and relive 94 magic

 

Somehow my poll has only 2 choices so pretend 1 = it totally bites and 2 = it doesnt bite

[Edgy MD]

I skipped this movie in its own time because my brother said there was a miserable young guy (Hawke) who totally reminded him of me, which made me miserably hate the movie without seeing it and miserably hate my brother.  But I've probably seen most of it by osmosis in the interim.

I remember it feeling pretty Breakfast Club hopeless in the inevitability of either joining the system you hate or being destroyed by it.

I appreciated the Janeane Garofalo character, in that there was a whole world of people in the nineties with college diplomas who found no fit for themselves in the corporate world and became retail workers, and despite the seeming underemployment, found themselves small-time thriving in the microcosms of their stores, maybe developing creative side-hustles in their non-work hours, and perhaps clashing with former peers who found the corporate niche that they missed.  That spoke to my stunted maturity, but such folks are obviously still around, even as brick-and-mortar retail has largely become a post-Amazon wasteland.

I feel like, well into the 21st century, Progessive's Flo had became an avatar for this class.