The Big Chill (1983)

[Akijama]

The Big Chill Blu-ray PRE-ORDER

DIRECTOR-APPROVED EDITION:

New, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by cinematographer John Bailey and approved by director Lawrence Kasdan, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate remastered 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray
Reunion with cast and crew, including Kasdan, actors Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams, from the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival
Documentary from 1998 on the making of the film
Deleted scenes
Trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by writer, director, and actor Lena Dunham

After the shocking suicide of their friend, a group of thirtysomethings reunite for his funeral and end up spending a weekend together, reminiscing about their shared pasts as children of the sixties and confronting the uncertainty of their lives as adults of the eighties. Poignant and warmly humorous in equal measure, this 1983 baby boomer milestone made a star of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan and is perhaps the decade’s defining ensemble film, featuring memorable performances by Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams. And with its playlist of hit songs from the sixties, The Big Chill all but invented the consummately curated soundtrack.

[evilswift]

AWESOME.

One of my faves. Love Kevin Kline in this!

[format916]

nice. this movie just popped in my head the other day. looks like ill be buying. i love how the line 'im feeling a little frosty myself' is used in a cannibal ox song.

[BluPat]

Can't remember if I've ever even seen this. The cast is great. Will have to get this.

[cakefactory]

Huh, this is a surprise to me. That movie seemed almost too popular to get a Criterion release. I've heard a lot about it from older people (like my parents, who definitely are not movie buffs!) who saw it when it was new and who liked it a lot, but I never got around to watching it cause I just assumed it was some kind of 80s "rich people with soap opera problems" movie like St Elmo's Fire. This was compounded by Ebert's fairly negative review. Maybe I was wrong! Now I'm curious.

[moviebuff75]

I wonder if the deleted scenes are any of Kevin Costner?

[octagon]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Huh, this is a surprise to me. That movie seemed almost too popular to get a Criterion release. I've heard a lot about it from older people (like my parents, who definitely are not movie buffs!) who saw it when it was new and who liked it a lot, but I never got around to watching it cause I just assumed it was some kind of 80s "rich people with soap opera problems" movie like St Elmo's Fire. This was compounded by Ebert's fairly negative review. Maybe I was wrong! Now I'm curious.

Heh, not just any rich people...baby boomers.

Every generation is self-absorbed in their teens and twenties. At that age everybody think they're the first ones to have their hearts broken or to get high or have sex. Stuff like The Big Chill was when we should have realized that boomers weren't planning on outgrowing that belief

That said, it's still a pretty good movie. It's a great cast, great soundtrack and while some of the angst is a little forced and melodramatic most of it works fairly well.

[cooney]

Originally Posted by cakefactory

Huh, this is a surprise to me. That movie seemed almost too popular to get a Criterion release. I've heard a lot about it from older people (like my parents, who definitely are not movie buffs!) who saw it when it was new and who liked it a lot, but I never got around to watching it cause I just assumed it was some kind of 80s "rich people with soap opera problems" movie like St Elmo's Fire. This was compounded by Ebert's fairly negative review. Maybe I was wrong! Now I'm curious.

Same here. I remember seeing small bits on TV clip shows but never got around to seeing it for the same reason. I assumed it was just a bunch of yuppie friends making dinner dancing around the kitchen to cool tunes. This was solidified by the "immediate disqualification because of its involvement with The Big Chill" line in High Fidelity.

Because of comments here, I will check it out. Plus, regardless of how inaccurate those notions were, I'm now 33 and fear I can't keep up on good music so I should no longer have anything left against it.

[KrugerIndustrial]

Originally Posted by DickieT

Better than average. Far superior to St. Elmo's Fire. Stellar cast. Fantastic soundtrack. Boomers loved it.

Ebert's review: 2.5 out of 3 three stars hardly qualifies as negative.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-chill-1983

I believe Ebert's score for The Big Chill was a pretty modest 2.5 / 5. Les petits mouchoirs 3.5 / 5.

[StLouisRibs]

Originally Posted by DickieT

Better than average. Far superior to St. Elmo's Fire. Stellar cast. Fantastic soundtrack. Boomers loved it.

Ebert's review: 2.5 out of 3 three stars hardly qualifies as negative.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-chill-1983

It's a 2.5 out of four, actually.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by DickieT

Better than average. Far superior to St. Elmo's Fire. Stellar cast. Fantastic soundtrack. Boomers loved it.

Ebert's review: 2.5 out of 3 three stars hardly qualifies as negative.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-chill-1983

It's 2.5/4 which is "slightly above average" but the tone of the review was quite snarky.

"They eat, they drink, they pair up in various combinations, and they ask themselves questions like, Who were we? Who are we now? What happened to us? What will happen to us?

Because they are all graduates of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, they phrase these questions with style, of course. The dialogue sounds like a series of bittersweet captions from New Yorker cartoons. And at the end, of course, nothing is really discovered, nothing is really settled and they go back into holding patterns until the next funeral.

"The Big Chill" is a splendid technical exercise. It has all the right moves. It knows all the right words. Its characters have all the right clothes, expressions, fears, lusts and ambitions. But there's no payoff and it doesn't lead anywhere."

He seems to admit that maybe that was the point of the movie and that maybe he just didn't get it, though. I'll check it out. It's a favorite of a lot of older college professors around here (probably cause of the ann arbor thing) and I often have had it recommended to me.

[Elvis]

Originally Posted by DickieT

Better than average. Far superior to St. Elmo's Fire. Stellar cast. Fantastic soundtrack. Boomers loved it.

Ebert's review: 2.5 out of 3 three stars hardly qualifies as negative.

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-big-chill-1983

Big Chill /St. Elmos fire ....two different generations. And nothing alike for any type of comparison. For me the big chill was ok..but since I was a teen in the early 80's this was more for my parents; so at the time I couldnt connect with the central theme. However I did like the soundtrack.

[PatrynXX]

just from a point of being a geek I had to look up wetgate Oxberry film scanner... Which the datasheet says only runs on Windows 2000 and XP. So in 2014 they were still using XP I guess. which when you make the perfect OS it tends to be rather reliable. Especially if you don't need to be online. But just thought to include that bit for anyone looking it up, Considering wetgate as a name I assume (right or wrong) the negative was wet when it was scanned. My negative scanner allows this but its a $60 addon for a $700 scanner.

[cdmaniac]

Any rumors about this getting a 4K?

[Brayden96]

Originally Posted by cdmaniac

Any rumors about this getting a 4K?

Bit of a surprise it hasn't given it was remastered in 4K for this release.

[Cremildo]

Originally Posted by cupboy

I wanted to trade in a Blu-ray to get the price down a little and he said since it was region-free it would require the use of a region-free player. I told him all Warners Bros. Blu-rays are region free. I decided just to leave.

Why didn't you explain to him that region-free discs play in any Blu-ray player, which is precisely why they're region-free?