The 1990s (pronounced "nineteen-nineties"; shortened to "the '90s") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 1990, and ended on 31 December 1999.
In the absence of world communism, which collapsed in the first two years of the decade, the 1990s was politically defined by a movement towards the right-wing, including increase in support for far-right parties in Europe[1] as well as the advent of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party[2] and cuts in social spending in the United States,[3] Canada,[4] New Zealand,[5] and the UK.[6] The United States also saw a massive revival in the use of the death penalty in the 1990s, which reversed in the early 21st century.[7] During the 1990s the character of the European Union and Euro were formed and codified in treaties.
A combination of factors, including the continued mass mobilization of capital markets through neo-liberalism, the thawing of the decades-long Cold War, the beginning of the widespread proliferation of new media such as the Internet from the middle of the decade onwards, increasing skepticism towards government, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a realignment and reconsolidation of economic and political power across the world and within countries. The dot-com bubble of 1997–2000 brought wealth to some entrepreneurs before its crash between 2000 and 2001.
The 1990s saw extreme advances in technology, with the World Wide Web, the first gene therapy trial, and the first designer babies[8] all emerging in 1990 and being improved and built upon throughout the decade.
... that Univel was an early-1990s attempt to compete with Microsoft on the desktop, but one industry consultant said of the company's goal, "they're dreaming"?
... that Bulkboeken ('bulk books') were cheap reprints of Dutch literary classics, published from 1971 to the late 1990s, and again from 2007?
... that Derek Jeter discusses his biracial upbringing and experiencing racism in Michigan in the 1980s and 1990s in The Captain?
Image 28The compact disc reached its peak in popularity in the 1990s, and not once did another audio format surpass the CD in music sales from 1991 throughout the remainder of the decade. By 2000, the CD accounted for 92.3% of the entire market share in regard to music sales. (from 1990s)
Image 62The catsuit became a trend in the late 1990s. Normally made of latex, PVC, or spandex, it was often worn with high-heeled boots. (from 1990s in fashion)
Image 84Rwandan genocide: Genocide victims in Murambi Technical School. Estimates put the death toll of the Rwandan genocide as high as 800,000 people. (from 1990s)
Image 85Flag map of the world from 1992 (from 1990s)
Image 94Go-go boots became fashionable again in 1995. They were worn by women of the hip-hop, alternative, and dance subcultures. (from 1990s in fashion)
Image 120The federal building that was bombed in the Oklahoma City bombing two days after the bombing, viewed from across the adjacent parking lot. (from 1990s)
Image 121The 1999 İzmit earthquake, which occurred in northwestern Turkey, killed 17,217 and injured 43,959. (from 1990s)
The film was written by Jeanette Winterson, directed by Beeban Kidron and produced by Phillippa Gregory, the same creative team that collaborated on Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit in 1990. Winterson intended the screenplay to be reminiscent of a fairy tale, and was unhappy at being asked to write a new ending for its American release. (Full article...)
The plot follows the interrogation of Roger "Verbal" Kint, a small-time con man, who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. Through flashback and narration, Kint tells an interrogator a convoluted story of events that led him and his criminal companions to the boat, and of a mysterious crime lord—known as Keyser Söze—who controlled them. The film was shot on a $6 million budget and began as a title taken from a column in Spy magazine called The Usual Suspects, after one of Claude Rains' most memorable lines in the classic film Casablanca, and Singer thought that it would make a good title for a film. (Full article...)
Sagan and Druyan began working on Contact in 1979. They wrote a film treatment over 100 pages long and set up the project at Warner Bros. with Peter Guber and Lynda Obst as producers. When development stalled, Sagan published Contact as a novel in 1985, and the film reentered development in 1989. Roland Joffé and George Miller had planned to direct, but Joffé dropped out in 1993, and Warner Bros. fired Miller in 1995. With Zemeckis as director, filming ran from September 1996 to February 1997. Sony Pictures Imageworks handled most of the visual effects. (Full article...)
Following the release of Return of the Jedi (1983), talks of a follow-up were proposed, but Lucas was unmotivated to return to the franchise. During the hiatus, the backstories he created for the characters, particularly Anakin's, sparked interest in him to develop a prequel trilogy during the 1990s. After he determined that computer-generated imagery (CGI) had advanced to the level he wanted for the prequel trilogy's visual effects, Lucas began writing The Phantom Menace in 1993, and production began in 1994. Filming started in June 1997—at locations at Leavesden Film Studios and the Tunisian desert—and ended in September. The film marked Lucas's first directorial effort after a 22-year hiatus following the original Star Wars[a] in 1977. (Full article...)
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GoldenEye is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the James Bond Series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell, it was the first in the series not to utilize any story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming. It was also the first James Bond film not produced by Albert R. Broccoli, following his stepping down from Eon Productions and replacement by his daughter, Barbara Broccoli (along with Michael G. Wilson, although Albert was still involved as a consultant producer; it was his final film project before his death in 1996). The story was conceived and written by Michael France, with later collaboration by other writers. In the film, Bond fights to prevent a rogue ex-MI6 agent (Sean Bean) from using a satellite weapon against London to cause a global financial meltdown.
Paramount Pictures sought a change of pace after Star Trek: First Contact (1996). Michael Piller was asked to write the script of the next installment, which was created from story ideas by Piller and producer Rick Berman. The story's first drafts featured the Romulans, and the Son'a and Ba'ku were introduced in its third draft. After Ira Steven Behr reviewed the script, Piller revised it and added a subplot involving a romantic interest for Jean-Luc Picard. The film's ending was further revised after test screenings. The special effects depicting outer space were completely computer generated, a first for a Star Trek film. The Ba'ku village was fully built on location at Lake Sherwood, California, but suffered weather damage. Sets from the television series Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were reused and redressed. Michael Westmore created the make-up for the new alien races, and Robert Blackman revised the Starfleet dress uniform designs. Sanja Milkovic Hayes created costumes for the Ba'ku from cellulose fibers, which were baked and glued together. Jerry Goldsmith produced the film's score, his fourth for the franchise. (Full article...)
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Surf Ninjas is a 1993 American family comedy film involving martial arts, directed by Neal Israel and written by Dan Gordon. The film stars Ernie Reyes Jr., Rob Schneider, Nicolas Cowan and Leslie Nielsen. Surf Ninjas follows two teenage surfers from Los Angeles who discover that they are crown princes of the Asian kingdom Patusan and reluctantly follow their destinies to dethrone an evil colonel who rules over the kingdom.
Surf Ninjas was filmed in Los Angeles, Hawaii and Thailand. A video game was also developed and released in conjunction with the film. Surf Ninjas was released in the United States on August 20, 1993. The film was released on VHS in January 1994 and re-released on DVD in September 2002. (Full article...)
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Parasite Eve (Japanese: パラサイト・イヴ, Hepburn: Parasaito Ivu) is a 1997 Japanese science fiction film that was directed by Masayuki Ochiai and is based on the 1995 novel Parasite Eve by Hideaki Sena. Kiyomi (Riona Hazuki), the wife of Toshiaki Nagashima (Hiroshi Mikami), is left brain dead after a traffic accident on the day of their first wedding anniversary. Nagashima attempts to make Kiyomi live again by making a deal with a doctor who wants to harvest Kiyomi's kidneys for transplanting into a young girl in the same hospital. Nagashima agrees on the condition that he can have his wife's liver. While Nagashima experiments with the organ, the doctor finds one night the samples have emerged as a gelatinous form in the form of Toshiaki's dead wife and reveal themselves as an organization of sentient mitochondria that are bent on making a new species that will wipe out humanity.
In 1997, Kadokawa Shoten decided to use the film production side of its business to develop a film version of Parasite Eve, making it its first film in three years. The film was co-produced by Kadokawa and Fuji TV's Motion Picture Division. Ochiai made his debut as a feature film director, having worked in Japanese television on horror series such as Night Head. Parasite Eve was filmed in eight weeks with a budget of ¥550 million. Ochiai was not entirely pleased with the result of the film, feeling he was pressured to push the love story element of the story, later saying there were "so many compromises I had to make that it couldn't be a true horror movie". The film was released in Japan on February 1, 1997, with limited release outside the country. It received mixed reviews; The Daily Yomiuri found the film "mildly enjoyable at times" and Fangoria called it "flawed but fascinating". (Full article...)
Initially, The Lion King was supposed to be a non-musical, leaning towards a style similar to that of a documentary. George Scribner, who had made his feature directorial debut with Oliver & Company (1988), was hired to direct, with Allers joining him soon after following his work as a story artist or head of story on Oliver & Company, The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and Aladdin (1992). Allers brought in Brenda Chapman and Chris Sanders, whom he had worked with on Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, to serve as head of story and production designer, respectively. (Full article...)
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Apt Pupil is a 1998 American thriller film directed by Bryan Singer and starring Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro. It is based on the 1982 novella of the same name by Stephen King. In the 1980s in southern California, high school student Todd Bowden (Renfro) discovers fugitive Naziwar criminal Kurt Dussander (McKellen) living in his neighborhood under the pseudonym Arthur Denker. Bowden, obsessed with Nazism and acts of the Holocaust, persuades Dussander to share his stories, and their relationship stirs malice in each of them.
The novella was first published in King's 1982 collection Different Seasons. Producer Richard Kobritz sought to adapt the novella into a film during the 1980s, but two actors he invited to play Dussander died. When filming began in 1987, a loss of financing led to the production being shut down. Forty minutes of usable footage existed, but production was never revived. In 1995, when rights to the novella returned to King, Bryan Singer petitioned the author for an opportunity to adapt the novella. With King's support, Singer filmed Apt Pupil with McKellen and Renfro in Altadena, California, in 1997. The director shortened the novella's storyline, reduced its violence, and changed the ending. Singer called Apt Pupil "a study in cruelty" with Nazism only serving as a vehicle for the capacity of evil. (Full article...)
Myrick and Sánchez conceived of a fictional legend of the Blair Witch in 1993. They developed a 35-page screenplay with the dialogue to be improvised. A casting call advertisement on Backstage magazine was prepared by the directors; Donahue, Williams and Leonard were cast. The film entered production in October 1997, with the principal photography taking place in Maryland for eight days. About 20 hours of footage was shot, which was edited down to 82 minutes. Shot on an original budget of $35,000–60,000, the film had a final cost of $200,000–750,000 after post-production edits. (Full article...)
Burton had no interest in making a sequel to the successful Batman, believing that he was creatively restricted by the expectations of Warner Bros. He agreed to return in exchange for significant creative control, including replacing original writer Sam Hamm with Daniel Waters and hiring many of his previous creative collaborators. Waters' script focused more on characterization than on overarching plot, and Wesley Strick was hired to complete an uncredited re-write which (among other elements) provided a master plan for the Penguin. Filming was done from September 1991 to February 1992, on a $50–80million budget, on sets and sound stages at Warner Bros. Studios and the Universal Studios Lot in California. Special effects primarily involved practical applications and makeup, with some animatronics and computer-generated imagery. (Full article...)
The Messenger portrays the story of Joan of Arc, the French war heroine and religious martyr of the Hundred Years War. It begins with young Joan as she witnesses the atrocities of the English against her family, and she has visions that inspire her to lead the French in battle against the occupying English. Her success in routing the English allows Charles VII to take the throne. Eventually, Joan is captured by the English, tried and executed for heresy. (Full article...)
Inspired by the books of Stephen E. Ambrose and accounts of casualties among members of a single family such as the Niland brothers, Rodat drafted the script and Paramount Pictures hired him to finish the writing. The project came to the attention of Hanks and Spielberg, whose previous successes secured the project's development. Spielberg wanted to make Saving Private Ryan as authentic as possible, and hired Frank Darabont and Scott Frank to perform uncredited rewrites based on research and interviews with veterans. The main cast went through a week-long boot camp to understand the soldier experience. Filming took place from June to September 1997, on a $65–$70million budget, almost entirely on location in England and Ireland. The opening Omaha Beach battle was the most demanding scene, costing $12 million to film over four weeks with 1,500 extras. (Full article...)
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