Movies I've never seen but now know the ending thanks to VH1's "I Love the 90s."
- Armageddon (Bruce Willis stays behind)
- Blair Witch Project (psycho standing in corner)
- Fight Club (Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are the same guy)
- The Sixth Sense (Bruce Willis is dead)
"I Love the 90s" doesn't have the power-packed nostalgia of the previous installments, but it does continue VH1's new marketing strategy of taping obscure comics and C-list actors doing quick bits on whatever the die rolls.
It reminds me of a comedy version of A&E's "Class of the 20th Century," which was completely stupid for two reasons. First, it ran in frigging 1991 or 1992, which was nowhere near out of the 20th century... although I suppose they had to rush production so we could get Julia Child's memories of pioneer days before the inevitable occured. Secondly, they put the damn thing in a time capsule, not to be opened until the year 2099. Good luck finding somebody with a working VHS deck in the year 2099.
I was thinking of where I was during the notable events of my lifetime... the linchpins and ripplepoints, if you will. This will be boring for you, I'm sure, but invaluable when I am senile and looking for something to trigger happiness. Or anything.
March 1982 - Death of John Belushi
I was at my grandparents. It was on the news. It may not have been the actual day his body was discovered in that seedy hotel room, but it was definitely during the resultant media coverage. I distinctly remember the shot of the Chateau where they found him, framed by my grandparents' living room. I don't remember Elvis or Groucho or Lennon dying, but I do remember Belushi. My first big media death.
January 1986 - Challenger Disaster
Coming back from lunch during sixth grade. Even by 1986, shuttle launches were so blase that we no longer watched them live during the school day. When we got back in the room, my pal Josh was already there (he ran) yelling "The shuttle blew up!" We saw the replay a dozen times, and we all figured that the Challenger Disaster would be this generation's JFK assassination.
September 1997 - Death of Lady Di
I was playing WarCraft 2, in our first apartment. Rhonda was flipping around and stumbled onto the news... Tom Cruise was talking about paparazzi stalkers and it took us a little to figure out what the hell was going on that Tom Cruise would be doing a phone interview on CNN.
April 1999 - Columbine Rampage
At work. The best part was one of the phone interviews - while we all watched rows of kids being directed out of the school - when some unnamed student proclaimed on-air that the "Trenchcoat Brigade" was "a homosexual group." It takes pure sand to toss a homophobic insult towards the nutsos currently painting the school library in blood.
September 2001 - 9/11
I didn't know what had happened until I got to work that morning and saw a small gathering of people watching the Today Show on the TV in the lobby. Just as I walked in the door, one of the sales execs ran in and said "Did you see another plane has hit it?" to the group. I headed down to my office and enjoyed those brief innocent minutes when we all thought it was a terrible, tragic accident.
