The Big Chill (1983): review: 3.5/10

Following the suicide of a friend, a group of seven eartwhile college friends meet in a lovely big house in the country.

Here they dress in horrible 80s styles with "mullet" hairstyles.They are not interesting or mysterious. They take drugs, mainly marijuana, occasionally a strange pill... Do you care? I don't.

They have poor table manners. Many shots feature socks.

The film supposedly examines value changes and disillusiion over the years, but actually characters are merely annoying and narcissistic (they very much enjoy videoing themselves) and have no depth. The film does not give not enough background shading, and their style of conversation is  too superficial. The soundtrack is given too much prominance, as if the makers imagined that having catchy songs playing throughout the film would compensate for plot development or character analysis.

When I was a child I hoped life was not like this, I still hope it isn't: empty pointless people slopping about conducting vacuous affairs and talking rubbish and showing off: no glory or joy, no challenges or real compassion, no love, glory or honour. A pox on these people.

The Year of Living Dangerously (1983)- 9/10

An Australian journalist begins his first foreign assignment in revolutionary Indonesia, assisted by a mysterious Indonesian photographer dwarf, and conducting a romance with an English woman.

The film describes excellently the ex-pat community but the most interesting element is the relationship between the journalist and his Indonesian friend, who behaves with an unusual mixture of kindness and egoism.

The film is very good at touching on the "unknowability" of others: this theme of "unknowability" can be seen as extended to an entire country.