Tag: American culture
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10 Radical 90s Movies That Captured The Decade
O 1990s America, where art thou? This fantastic decade – the last of the American Century that found the country at the height of its powers economically, socially, and politically – can easily be considered a high watermark in American history. With a booming economy, a culture that was dominating the world through its film…
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10 Garbage TV Shows From The 1990s
The 1990s was a golden age for American culture and the last truly great decade this country has seen. Every week there was a new album, movie, or TV show to enjoy and both the quality and quantity of this media output would become the stuff of history. But with this largesse came a lot…
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Video Stores: Shared Spaces (retrospective)
Let’s hop into our nostalgia-fueled mental time machine and travel back before the internet became so omniscient nobody ever had to leave the house or directly interact with another human being again. Unless I have a readership comprised of kids on other kid’s shoulders wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses going by the name Mann Adultguy,…
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TGIF Revisited: Full House – “Honey, I Broke The House”
Well, here we are: recapping an episode of the much-beloved, much-hated show Full House. I’ve been dreading this one, since I absolutely cannot stand this show and never have been able to. Oh sure, I watched it when I was a kid but would also rage at the TV when it was on because I…
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Awesome Garbage: Mac and Me
True story: I saw Mac and Me in theaters when I was 6 years old. I was visiting my grandparents in Virginia Beach and spending the day with my grandma, mom, and sisters, and since everything else out in the theater was definitely not kid-friendly (the weekend it opened, August 12, 1988, here were the…
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Cult Classics: Better Off Dead
Lane Meyer wishes he were dead. He tries over and over – self-immolation, carbon monoxide poisoning, jumping from a bridge, even hanging. But like most things in his life, it never quite goes his way. Did I mention this is a major plot point in an 80’s teen comedy? Better Off Dead isn’t just another…
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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
In 1974, a horror movie came out that forged a divergent path for the entire horror genre to follow and has since been so widely imitated that if you had never watched it before by now, you may wonder what the big deal is about it in the first place. This is a somewhat unavoidable…
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Perfect Movies: Back to the Future
Is this yet another Gen Y/early “Millenial” (ugh) article about the movies people of my age watched as children back in the 1980s? Of course it is. To clarify: I do not identify as a Millenial. I have previously written on this site about my dislike of how people of my generation have been conflated…
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Introduction: Totally 80’s!
Flashy, shiny, commercial, and money-driven, the 1980’s in America is now viewed through a powerful nostalgic lens by generations who either lived in, were born in, or now look wistfully back at this decade as a representation of Post-World War II America at its height. The Baby Boomers–having started with an idealistic counterculture mindset–grew up,…
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Perfect Movies: Goodfellas
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” This wry confession comes from the narrator and protagonist of the film–who will soon be formally introduced as Henry Hill–hovering over a body in the trunk of his car, bathed in the red light of his brake lights in the darkness…
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TGIF Revisited: Conclusion (America In The 1990s)
Well that was…something. Having watched 12 different episodes from the TGIF lineup that spanned both the beginning and end of my childhood (1988-1996, or from 6 to 14 years old in my life), I can honestly say that I miss the concept of TGIF programming as a cultural institution and wish that something like it was…
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