14 DAY TRIAL // Yes it's about nostalgia. About the things you suddenly miss and it's only then that you realize are gone,have disappeared or just don't function anymore. Things, feelings, people that just pop into your head and you realize how much time has already passed. It's about them.
Dolph Lundgren. Do you remember Universal Soldier? Masters of the Universe? Do you remember HE-Man? He just faded away into oblivion sometime and somewhere in the mid '90s. Yes, it was him Grace Jones brought to Hollywood. A perfect oddball couple of interesting, yet bizarre creatures. Do you remember The Punisher? Joshua Tree?
I suddenly remembered all these movies while watching Retrograde, a B-series movie from 2004 starring the old Dolph Lundgren.
Entertainment. As talking about movies I just couldn't help it. I just remember that up till 6 years ago Hollywood sold entertaining flicks. Not brilliant, not over the top, not art movies. Yet no matter the gender, the products were entertaining. The comedies were fun, the sci-fis were silly yet enjoyable? now (blame it on the post 9/11 world or not I couldn't care less) America's dream factory lost its ability to entertain. Just think Peter Jackson's megalithic King Kong, the sad and unfortunate beginning Nolan created for the Batman movie saga, the new brainless, tasteless and pointless comedies.
Paul Verhoeven? It's been years since I last heard about him shooting any new movie. Basic Instinct was daring and yet sometimes silly, Showgirls a sexy flop, but Starship Troopers was totally worth some attention. So where is he? What is he doing? And as we're talking movies: what the hell is wrong with these producers, always running desperate to perpetrate another idiotic sequel? Has everybody in the LA area run out of ideas?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello &co have vanished so long ago. The cult icons of the early '90s have totally and positively gone into the deepest oblivion. That's sad. Because they were fun. And because now kids will not even know that names such as Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo ever existed. Not that they might have gained any Renaissance painting knowledge from the series. But it's still sad.
Latoya Jackson? Remember the filthy dirty Jackson? The black sheep of the family? Now given Michael's trial and Janet's recent extra weight she should be rehabilitated. At least she didn't feed alcohol to the kids or tried to eat an entire cow a day.
The dinosaurs craze? Jurassic Park's side effects that made every kid in the mid '90s desperately search, purchase, collect any kind of dinosaurian imagery. Yes, later came the Harry Potter mania, the Lord of the Rings mania (that sold loads of merchandise), the Star Wars mania (that sold even more loads of merchandise).
Do you remember any of these things? They happened within the last 20 years. Details, parts, items of the pop culture you will say. Why remember them? Because they mean something. They are parts of the identity of a generation. The generation the ones fast in labeling anything have already labeled as the Y generation.
The Y Generation is so different of the X Generation... they say the regular, normal, common Y gen. prototype is selfish, self absorbed, cares about things such as money and image and fakes every emotion because its upbringing didn't teach him how to relate to such things as emotions. Honestly I don't like this idea of a Y Generation. I know I'm selfish but I just can't believe anything of the things sociologists say. And I don't want to be labeled as a Y. Not because I am very different from the regular Y gen. prototype, but because I don't like my image and person threatened with melting into something bigger.
