Stupid script! Nearly Wrecked Jim Carrey's Career!

My top 10 movies of the 1990s, as told to the world in 2008:

10. The Full Monty

9. Groundhog Day
8. Barton Fink
7. Election
6. Quiz Show
5. Seven
4. The Hudsucker Proxy
3. Glengarry Glen Ross
2. Festen
1. Magnolia

And my view on this today:

I stand by #1, Magnolia is an absolute behemoth of a film. It's like what I imagine the film equivalent of Infinite Jest to be, if I ever get around to reading that novel. Beyond that, the list is too provincial. I think I was trying to be some kind of anti-establishment bohemian, and the result was being a snob. A drunk snob. The worst kind of snob, and nearly the worst kind of drunk.

Having Festen so high is probably just some ill-hearted attempt to get Emerson to cut me some slack with my student loans. Glengarry Glen Ross was an excellent play (I think I read it?), but in a pre-Kevin Spacey is cancelled era, it seems weird to have it so high but exclude Usual Suspects. 

This list is dry and pretentious as hell. What was wrong with me? Seven should be #2, right? Where is Good Will Hunting? That movie is great. It's like the best wannabe arthouse mainstream movie of that time. No Fargo, but Barton Fink is on there? That's the Evan Williams talking, for sure. No Fight Club or Heat? 

This is pretty stream of consciousness, but I think I could make a strong argument for Jackie Brown being top 5. I didn't put Boogie Nights on this list? 

Quiz Show? I never even cared about the Oscars, I don't understand why I would let an award show from over a decade earlier influence me so much. 

I don't even care about leaving Pulp Fiction off, I'd do it again. Boom. I said it. 

Did no one make movies without male leads in the 90s? I'm pretty sure I saw Little Women in the theaters when I was 9. For some reason, my mom did not take me to see the Piano though. I'd be shocked if more than two of these films passed the Bechdel Test.

I think Office Space should be on this list, and I don't believe that's me just being culty. And no, I still don't care about Shawshank. Lastly, I think the original Wayne's World or Ace Ventura could genuinely crack the top 10 movies of the 1990s. Take your pick. 

-Edmund

Oh No, I said Steamed Hams. That's What I Call Hamburgers

Continuing my look into the time capsule that are 2008 blog posts, I am left perplexed by my understanding and perception of time. In the year 2000, I was 15. The year 1983 seemed like a vastly different time to me, at that age. Whether it was photos, tv clips, ads, or printed media from the early 80s, teenage me viewed nearly everything from 17 years earlier as dramatically...ancient? I remember thinking that there was a distinctly different aesthetic to the world in the 80s, as compared to what I knew as my reality in the early 2000s. 

I don't feel that way about 2008, today. Maybe because there haven't been nearly the same level of technological advancements between 2008-2025 as there were from 1983-2000? Yes, HD television is the standard now, video quality is surely better, everyone has a smart phone, etc., but I don't feel like the world looks that different to me. Maybe it's because I just don't want it to? I'd like to think the answer is something simple, like that overall video and photography technology was advanced enough in 2008, so as that my brain is recognizing nearly the same visual contrast between that 17 year block and the one from 1983-2000. Still, I wonder if I am just unable to accept an underlying sense of nostalgia that is cratering my perception of how things used to be. 

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Blurst of Times

Looking over old blog posts we wrote 17 years ago certainly is an eye-opening experience. My initial reactions are mostly along the lines of, "What in the actual fuck?" and similar expressions derived from this surreality that I am experiencing. Here is what I learning:

I'm terrible at reading these days. My old posts feel like they last forever. Has my brain eroded that much? Was I that arrogant and wordy in 2008? Or is society to blame? Perhaps the short form language which has overcome most of our written communication has finally gotten the best of me? Or, as an early to mid-millennial, maybe it's possible that it always had the best of me. 

That being said, time to revisit some takes from the decade before the decade before this one!

I will never pay $5 for a slice of pizza.

Unsure as to how clairvoyant this take was, we need to find out how much a slice cost in 2008:

https://money.cnn.com/2008/03/19/smbusiness/Chernoff_pizza/index.htm

"Over here people come to buy pizza, working people. How much [am] I going to raise the pizza now?" asks Vicari. "Somebody come in here for two slices, and I take $5. I feel very, very bad for the person."

Heath Ledger is dead. But he sure is used in a Pizza Hut commercial.

Evidently, I was skeptical of Hollywood's relationship with capitalism and advertising at the time. Based on what I know now, I can summarize this viewpoint as painfully optimistic. 

Joe Biden screws up all the time. Don't worry about this one. Biden knows it, the Obama campaign knows it, and it is not at all a secret weapon for Palin.

Drano.

Super Bowl Prediction: Arizona 27, Pittsburgh 23.

Whoops. 

As much as it pains me to make people aware of this, apparently FrankTV is an actual program.

I think I got the Men In Black treatment for this one. Good to be reminded of things, sometimes. 

-Edmund