New Classics?

[sbeath]

My boss's daughter (the same one with the blog) is at an age where she can watch most of the classic movies and wants more cultural literacy. What should she watch?

Comments

[kid_prufrock]

I'm not sure how classic we're talking here. '30s to '50s? '70s? '90s? Classics in English or classics in all languages? Each group has movies that (a) one wouldn't know to watch unless one sought them out and took advice; (b) are really wonderful; and (c) enable one to participate in a certain culture in a sensitive and sophisticated way. But the cultures one becomes literate in differ: I think mainstream culture, even its more educated and cosmopolitan parts, have mostly moved past old movies, for example: they're increasingly becoming actively relevant only to aficionados (though appreciatively nodded at by lots more people), maybe like the way 19th century Continental literature is.

Thus, if I wanted to recommend films to a young person that would both enrich her and enable to have a shared point of cultural reference with educated and cosmopolitan people, I'd make sure she understood, say, the early independent and cult films of the late 1980s and 1990s. Start with David Lynch, maybe.

[sbeath]

Very good points. Not terribly classic--looking for general cultural literacy, so perhaps "New Classics". I think Clueless and The Usual Suspects might be new classics. I could be wrong.

The daughter in question is in middle school, smart but not nerdy. The pool you suggest sound fabulous, but I'm not literate enough to know who David Lynch is without a google search :( I might follow your advice for myself, but do you have other specific recommendations I can pass along, now that I've been more clear?

[kid_prufrock]

I think both of those movies are great choices! Some other movies in a similar vein (which you've probably already seen): The Big Lebowski (probably the biggest "new classic" of them all), Groundhog Day, Fargo, Dangerous Liaisons, Adaptation or Ghost World (though these are a bit later), any of the Christopher Guest movies (e.g. This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, etc.), and the first two big Wes Anderson movies (Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums). These aren't really cult films, but they're certainly New Classics.

Whenever I talk about movies what I really learn is that I probably know a lot less about movies than I thought I did. :|

I think your intuitions are probably better than mine are, here, all things considered.

[kid_prufrock]

And come to think of it, she might really get more out of TELEVISION. (Freaks and Geeks? Daria? Buffy, even? She may well not have been BORN until The Simpsons had already jumped the shark!)

[sildra]

I think I may have developed a better sense of the Old Classics than the New Classics in the 10 years that I've been interested in watching movies. People really do still refer to the Old Classics. I also have a better sense of the New Classics of serious television than movies (for example Twin Peaks or BuffyI'm also not sure where your cutoff is, so I'll go with 1990-2005 (hard to say something's a classic immediately), and I'm getting a lot of help from Wikipedia. These are ones that kind of stand out in my mind as being referenced a lot. I've seen most but not all of these movies, but the remaining ones are on my Netflix queue for cultural literacy reasons

[sildra]

I listed Fargo above, but really most of the Coen brothers' movies have become cult classics, and so may belong on a list like this.

For stuff from the past 5 years, Judd Apatow's movies, and ones like them, seem to stand out as being really popular, although I can't stand most of them.

[sildra]

My dad also suggests:

Jurassic Park
Memento
Johnnie Depp movies (specifically Edward Scissorhands, but really any of them, because my dad has a crush on Johnnie Depp)
Amelie
Finding Nemo (and other Pixar and/or Disney animated movies, especially Pixar movies)g

[darlingviolenta]

This sounds like a question for Ben. I will try to remember to bring it up with him (and think of my own suggestions as well), but you might want to shoot him an e-mail or facebook message.