Image by Wiki Commons
Guess who's back, back again
Blog is back, tell a friend
Guess who's back, guess who's back?
Guess who's back, guess who's back?
Guess who's back, guess who's back?
Guess who's back?
That’s right dudes, I’m back! I have had a few setbacks since February. Some alarming events in my personal life took place. There's also a lot that's been going on outside of my little personal world as well. Life sucks. The world sucks right now. But I’m happy and anxious to get back into writing these blogs again and watching the movies from my childhood that go along with them. I may not have been posting blogs, but I sure as heck have been watching stuff and writing about it over the past few months. Now you get to read it, again! Oh also, I made the move from Los Angeles to Portland.
I haven't actually had the chance to venture into downtown Portland yet, the lock-down went into effect days after I got here, but I hear that this kind of coordinated singing and dancing is a thing that happens.
Image from Genius.com
That said, there have been some changes. I want to expand this blog from being more than just a cinema blog, I want to turn it more into a 90s pop culture blog. So let me take some time and talk about some of the things I will be trying to incorporate into this retro thing I have going on here.
Television
This is how we used to watch TV back in the 90s. Sitting at a 90 degree angle. Also, we had no eyes.
Image from Flicker
So, when I originally started this blog, I said I was going to do some TV shows, and I meant it. I just never got around to it. But you will, going forward. You’ll probably get 1-2 of those a month. The selection criteria, however, is going to be a little different than the movies. See, for a movie to be eligible for the blog, it needed to be released between January 1st, 1990 through December 31, 1999. But that doesn’t work for TV. Certain iconic TV shows from the 90s started running in the 80s. You can’t talk about television in the 90s without talking about The Simpsons, Seinfeld, or Baywatch. Likewise, programs like The Sopranos, Spongebob Squarepants, Family Guy, and The West Wing technically started in 1999, but I think we all associate those with the 00s. So pretty much, if a show seems to fit, and I want to watch it, I’ll try to get around to it.
The “want to watch it” part is also important. I’m up for doing any movie from the 90s because most are really only a couple of hours long. But a TV show that lasts more than a season? That’s a time commitment. And there are plenty of shows that I don’t want to spend dozens of hours watching, even important ones like Friends and Home Improvement. With shows like that, I’ll probably do a retrospective at some point, watch a handful of the famous episodes, but I’m not doing all of Law & Order, sorry.
Each show will get a 0-5 star rating for the whole run and I’ll try to include my top 10 favorite episodes or segments if it was a shorter run show.
Music
Every time I hear a Millennial talk about how they prefer cassette tapes, I want to strangle them with this.
Image from WallPaperFlare.com
Music is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while. Music is so ingrained in society and culture, especially in movies and TV shows. Think about the last time you saw a trailer for something and got all excited based on the one killer tune they picked to play in the background. Remember all those incredible scenes with just the perfect song playing to accompany them. So for this blog, I’ll start talking about various bands and performers in the 90s. Popular groups mostly, but also underground artists, some groups that had started in the decade but might not break through until the 00s, and older, vintage groups that were in their twilight, but still produced content in the decade.
The format will consist of briefly talking about the band’s history and origins, followed by a quick rundown of the music produced during the decade, and then a look at all their music videos. We’ll follow it up with a short rundown on their post 90s career. And like the movies, any music, and video released from 1/1/90 to 12/31/99 is up for discussion. I’ll try to do a band every week, but I might miss a week or so here and there. All genres are up for grabs, I’ll be going back and forth between grunge, alternative, the “Lilith Fair” scene, Britpop, Pop, Metal, Hip-Hop, Country, R&B, Swing, Punk, SKA, and maybe even a splattering of “classic” rock and blues. Perhaps some jazz. Whatever strikes my fancy!
I’ll give a 0-5 star rating for each video, as well as the band as a whole. And probably do my favorite album and Top 5-10 songs.
Pro Wrestling
Did you take your vitamins and say your prayers and believe in yourself in the 90s? No? Oh, well, neither did I...
Image from Flicker
A highly significant part of 90s pop culture and television, especially from around 1996 to the end of the decade, was pro wrestling. I also love and adore pro wrestling, so writing about it is more for me than it would be for anyone else. But I guess you could say that about the blog as a whole.
I’ll be doing this a little differently. I’ll be talking about pro wrestling events in chronological order. So every month, you’ll get a post for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as well as various other promotions when they come around, like Smokey Mountain Wrestling (SMW) and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). But the posts will be in order as of 30 years ago. So in October 2020, you’ll get “WWF: October 1990” and “WCW: October 1990” and talk about the shows from that month.
90% of what I’ll be using is from the WWE Network, which I know is not all-inclusive, but I don’t want to look online for every episode of every wrestling show. For one, they’re not all out there. It's impossible to find every show from the 90s on the internet, believe me, I've tried. For two, I want to try to keep whatever I review as legal as possible. I don't want to use pirate websites and torrents to download movies and TV shows, I want to use streaming services and, in some cases, track down actual physical video copies.
For the wrestling shows, I’ll be reviewing each match and major segment on a 0-5 scale, as well as each show 0-5 overall.
If you’re wondering if I’ll have time to do this one, in addition to everything else, well… eventually, it’ll get hard. But there are only 35 individual shows from 1990 on the WWE Network, I’m pretty sure I’ll have time to get through this year. By 1995, there will be multiple weekly shows and monthly Pay-Per-View events, so that might be a little harder to keep up on. But we'll cross those bridges when we come to them. I'd be watching these anyway, some of them I haven't seen, and others are from my favorite era of wrestling. So I might as well write about it as well. Oh, and since this is May 2020 and January 2020 has come and gone, I’ll be doubling up the months until we get caught up. So this month, expect January and February 1990 content, and it'll be like that for a while.
Other Things
Let us never forget... Sega does what Nintendon't!
With all this, how will I ever find the time to talk about anything else! I don't know. But I will probably, occasionally, talk about other things from the decade. Video games, comic books, board games, toys, commercials, snacks. Fads like POGs and Beanie Babies. News and sports. Fashion trends like bowl cuts and the dominance of overalls in teenage girl fashion. Did you know that Dunkaroos are making a return and you can still get Tamagotchi? I might even talk about more personal stuff like I did in my football post.
This kind of stuff will pop up sporadically here and on my Instagram account.
Final Thoughts
This will still be primarily a 90s Cinema Blog. Movie reviews and discussions are still the priority. Other topics will be done as I get them done, depending on my time. Maybe I’m being ambitious, but I love writing and talking about this era. And the fact is… I’m already consuming stuff from this time period. I'm watching movies and television shows, listening to music, watching wrestling, playing video games, reading comics, etc. So I might as well take some extra time to write about them. I hope you enjoy it and stick around for the ride.
You can make fun of Justin Timberlake's Top Ramen hair here, but he sold a lot of records and scored with a lot of girls with that look, back in the day.
Image from Getty Images via Men's Health
Check back in a bit, later today I’ll be posting my first review coming back. Now, I said it would be Bio-Dome originally, back in February, but I’m going to put that on hold for now. My return review will be a movie that has some relevance to events today. The 1995 pandemic thriller, Outbreak. Does this Dustin Hoffman drama deliver the antidote to boredom? Or is it as dull the common cold? Find out later today!
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