A quick glimpse into my life at 40

Me, a little drunk, yelling at a cat: 

Go! No! Get outta here! You're being a dick! In this house, we're nice! If you're not gonna be nice you can go back on the street! 

Yeah, there are a whole lot of cats in my house right now. As is the slogan for most of the big and small picture situations in my life, I'm not sure how we got here. What I do know is for all of the horribleness going on around me, the cat thing makes sense. No matter how much and how many bad things feel out of my control, I try to keep finding ways to do some good in this world. I can do right by these cats. All 4+ of them.

The official policy of Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy is we still only have four cats. Yes, I am fully aware of the absurdity of using "only" as the adverb in that sentence. Like I said, I'm not sure how we got here. Anyway, we have four cats* and two long term houseguests. There's also Edgar who comes around for food, refuses to sleep in the shelter I bought and assembled for him, and gives me gentle head rubs followed by violent slashes. He's a good boy. 

I like to tell myself that one of the core truths of growing up is realizing you, or anybody else for that matter, have no idea what they're doing. I'm just doing my best, trying to do something positive, no matter how much of the world burns down around me. These cats don't know and don't care about credit scores, imaginary borders, or any other manmade nonsense we convince ourselves should dictate the way we live. They just live. If I can help them do that, maybe I can help myself do the same. And if I can't help myself, then at least I'm doing something to help these ungrateful beasts feel a little more comfortable in the world we've built around them. 

*If you're my landloard, four means two and six means what am I, the number police?

Do you want to see Broken Arrow?

It’s hard to have complete memories of a night that happened 29 years ago. We fill in the gaps with interpretations of flickers of how we remember it happening. The details might be fuzzy, but some of those feelings linger with a clarity that never fades away. I remember that musical was fucking awful. 

I know this might be hard to believe for some of the younger generations, but there was a time when you could get things for free. One of the perks of growing up in a building for performing artists was we would get access to previews of Broadway shows and all sorts of other live theatre. You would simply look on the bulletin board of available tickets and go to the main office. One day in 1996, my dad decided to get tickets to a show at the recently revived New Victory Theatre. 

I don’t remember much of that show. I can’t tell you the title, the setting, or any of the characters’ names.* What I can tell you is by the time we reached the part where the main character (who may or may not have been wearing overalls) sings a whole song about playing football on a farm during his youth, we had just about had enough of this show. Mercifully, intermission soon followed, and we agreed that one act was more than enough to endure. We were not the only audience members to reach this conclusion. 

So, there we were, out on a Saturday night, both with an unscratched itch for some quality entertainment. What do you say to your 11 year old son in this situation? If you’re my father that night, you ask, “Do you want to see Broken Arrow?” You’re god damn right I want to see Broken Arrow and build some core memories with my father. I don’t know if this is exactly what my dad said. What matters is the sentiment, the feeling that never fades away, even if my hairline does. I do remember Broken Arrow, though. 

Listen, Broken Arrow is no masterpiece. What it is is an honest to god red blooded ‘Murrican action movie. It’s a remnant of a simpler time when the idea of a potential nuclear disaster could be cheesy fun because Christian Slater is here to save the day. It remains ingrained in my memory as part of a night that I’ll always look back on fondly, despite and oh so slightly because of that dreadful musical. 

Broken Arrow will not be in list of the best action movies of the 90s. However, spoiler alert, Terminator 2 most certainly will. Dad didn’t need to walk out of musical to take me to see that one. I don’t remember what got us into the theatre that night. What I do remember is dad deciding six was old enough for my first R rated movie. He wasn’t wrong and obviously chose the perfect movie for that experience. Beyond the multitude of iconic action sequences and the best CGI of all time, it has that pitch perfect father/son dynamic that makes it one of the most enduring cinematic experiences of my life. 15/10 will rewatch and think about my dad for the rest of my life.  

My Top 10 Action Movies of the 90s

10. Die Hard with a Vengeance 
9. Goldeneye 

8. Point Break
7. Mission: Impossible 
6. Face/Off
5. The Rock 
4. Speed 
3. Heat 
2. The Matrix 
1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Omitted due to being too much of another genre: Batman Returns, Independence Day, Men in Black, The Fifth Element, Total Recall, The Mummy

Honorable Mentions: Demolition Man, Broken Arrow, True Lies, Con Air, Ronin

*I think I found it! A show called Different Fields opened on February 17, 1996 and closed on February 18, 1996. We walked out of the one and only showing of Different Fields. Ain't it cool?

Turns out I really need to rewatch Unforgiven and Saving Private Ryan

If this comeback is going to have any kind of theme or connective tissue, it's this: I want to go back. I want to go back to a time when life was simpler, the American dream felt real, and art was made for art's sake. I'm saying nothing new by complaining that the majority of film and television these days feels more like IP than art. But it would be nice to sit down and watch a movie without feeling like the narrative is being driven by marketing executives or some anonymous private equity ghoul. Of course, corporate influence was a very real thing in the 90s as well, but there's no comparing to the overly managed, algorithm driven hellscape we all doomscroll though today. 

I suppose I can take some comfort in knowing that the art and culture of yesterday remain frozen in time. Not just as a memory, but also as a reminder of a time that was, a time that we all experienced. Unless you're somehow 24 and find yourself looking up blogs that haven't been active for 14(!) years. 

Just as the 90s exist in the past, so does this blog. Once Hot Sauce with Everything and now back to how it all began, we circle back to our past with an eye on the future, hopefully without the whole doomed to repeat it part. What's that? We're speedrunning to another holocaust!? Well, shit. 

Anyway, as inspired by Edmund, here's my Top 10 movies of the 90s: 2025 Edition!

10. Trainspotting
9. Boogie Nights
8. The Matrix
7. Fargo
6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
5. Jurassic Park
4. Dazed and Confused
3. Pulp Fiction
2. The Silence of the Lambs

1. The Shawshank Redemption

Tough cuts and honorable mentions: The Usual Suspects, Groundhog Day, Heat, Jerry Maguire, Office Space, Toy Story, Scream, Apollo 13, Goodfellas

I begrudgingly omitted Fight Club from this list. I acknowledge its structural flaws and somewhat oversimplified presentation, but I firmly stand behind my belief that the core message is just as potent today, just as much as it was and is misinterpreted. While Fight Club is clearly parodying the toxic masculinity that so many misguided men took as gospel, the way it synthesizes the increasingly valid frustrations many of us are experiencing with late stage capitalism makes it even more relevant than it was in 1999. Also, Brad Pitt is electric and so overwhelmingly attractive in this movie. I don't care how woke you are or claim to be. Every man ever has wanted to look, act, and yes, fuck like Tyler Durden at some point in his life. 

How many glaring omissions can you spot on my list? Comment and let me know I suck. Just don't come at me talking about Boondock Saints or some other nonsense you loved to watch in college. 

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