Friday Night Rentals: Which Classic are we taking home? (2)

[claws]

Round two. You're standing in front of the Classic Section (again). Which one are you taking home tonight?

[Rev. Powell]

Better selection than last time (although the store's definition of "classics" still mystifies me... I'm guessing it means any movie released before 2000).

[claws]

According to AI

Movies are often called classics because they serve as a perfect time capsule for a specific decade's aesthetic. When a young viewer calls an 80s film a "classic," they are often acknowledging that it represents the peak of that specific "old" look, regardless of whether the movie is actually a masterpiece.

A movie often earns the "classic" label when it is no longer part of the active cultural conversation.

Contemporary: Everyone is talking about it now.

Modern: It came out in the last 10–15 years; your older siblings or young parents remember it clearly.

Classic (Old): It belongs to the "parents" or "grandparents" generation. If a teenager sees a CRT television or a corded phone in a movie, it is immediately categorized as "classic" because it represents a world they don't recognize.

It helps to distinguish between the two ways we use the word:

Critical Classic - A film that changed cinema or had massive cultural impact.

Chronological Classic - A film that is simply old enough to feel like it's from a different world.

I guess the store is mixing both, Critical and chronological (old), under the "classics" umbrella term.