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 as well as the advent of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and cuts in social spending in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK. 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. 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 all emerging in 1990 and being improved and built upon throughout the decade.
New ethnic conflicts emerged in Africa, the Balkans, and the Caucasus, the former two which led to the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, respectively. Signs of any resolution of tensions between Israel and the Arab world remained elusive despite the progress of the Oslo Accords, though The Troubles in Northern Ireland came to a standstill in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement after 30 years of violence.
Los Angeles, California, experienced a series of riots and civil disturbances from April 29 to May 3, 1992. Civil unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. The incident, which had been videotaped by George Holliday, who was a bystander to the incident, was heavily reported on by various news and media outlets, such as CNN.
The rioting took place in several areas in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and throughout Orange County, California, as thousands of people rioted over six days following the verdict's announcement. Widespread looting, assault, and arson occurred during the riots, which local police forces had difficulty controlling. The situation in the Los Angeles area was resolved after the California National Guard, United States military, and several federal law enforcement agencies deployed more than 10,000 of their armed responders to assist in ending the violence and unrest. (Full article...)
... that before the Times Square Hotel was renovated in the 1990s, it was described as "a scene of complete social chaos", with 1,700 violations of building codes?
... that when a developer tried to buy Kansas City's New York Life Building in the 1990s, it was unclear who owned it?
... that the gray stonecrop was little known in the 1970s but became so popular by the 1990s that demand exceeded supply?
Anthony Frank Hawk (born May 12, 1968), nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documented "900" skateboarding trick in 1999. He also licensed a skateboarding video game series named after him, published by Activision that same year. Hawk, who retired from competing professionally in 2003, is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential skateboarders of all time.
Among Hawk's philanthropic activities is the Skatepark Project, which helps to build skateparks in underprivileged areas around the world. (Full article...)
Image 19The 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 32The federal building that was bombed in the Oklahoma City bombing two days after the bombing, viewed from across the adjacent parking lot. (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 film was conceived by Feldman in 1987, and was originally pitched as a film treatment in the style of a police procedural, entitled The Message. When The Message failed to attract the studios, Feldman re-wrote it as a spec script, which ultimately led to the making of the film. The extraterrestrial aspect of Sil's character was created by H. R. Giger, who was also responsible for the beings from the Alien franchise. The effects combined practical models designed by Giger collaborator Steve Johnson and XFX, with computer-generated imagery done by Richard Edlund's Boss Film Studios. Giger felt that the film and the character were too similar to Alien, so he pushed for script changes. (Full article...)
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The Frighteners is a 1996 supernaturalcomedy horror film directed by Peter Jackson and co-written with Fran Walsh. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, John Astin, Dee Wallace Stone, Jeffrey Combs, R. Lee Ermey and Jake Busey. The Frighteners tells the story of Frank Bannister (Fox), an architect who develops psychic abilities allowing him to see, hear, and communicate with ghosts after his wife's murder. He initially uses his new abilities to befriend ghosts, whom he sends to haunt people so that he can charge them handsome fees for "exorcising" the ghosts. However, the spirit of a mass murderer appears posing as the Grim Reaper, able to attack the living and the dead, prompting Frank to investigate the supernatural presence.
Jackson and Walsh conceived the idea for The Frighteners during the script-writing phase of Heavenly Creatures. Executive producer Robert Zemeckis hired the duo to write the script, with the original intention of Zemeckis directing The Frighteners as a spin-off film of the television series Tales from the Crypt. With Jackson and Walsh's first draft submitted in January 1994, Zemeckis believed the film would be better off directed by Jackson, produced by Zemeckis and funded/distributed by Universal Studios. The visual effects were created by Jackson's Weta Digital, which had only been in existence for three years. This, plus the fact that The Frighteners required more digital effects shots than almost any movie made until that time, resulted in the eighteen-month period for effects work by Weta Digital being largely stressed. (Full article...)
Surf Ninjas was filmed in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Thailand. A video game was also developed and released in conjunction with the film. It was released in the United States on August 20, 1993, being received generally unfavorably by critics. The film was released on VHS in December 1993 and re-released on DVD in September 2002. (Full article...)
Varma initially planned to make an action film but decided to make a film focusing on felonies after meeting some criminals. He hired Kashyap and Shukla to write the film and opted to use lesser-known actors. The soundtrack and score were composed by Vishal Bhardwaj and Sandeep Chowta, respectively, while the lyrics were written by Gulzar. Its early cinematography was done by Gerard Hooper, who was replaced by Mazhar Kamran. The film was shot in Mumbai on a budget of ₹2.5 crore (US$260,000). (Full article...)
Hughes conceived Home Alone while on vacation, with Warner Bros. being originally intended to finance and distribute the film. Warner Bros. shut down the production after it exceeded its assigned budget, but it quickly resumed under 20th Century Fox following meetings with Hughes; Columbus and Culkin were hired soon afterwards. Filming took place between February and May 1990 on location across Illinois. (Full article...)
The Terminator was a significant success, enhancing Schwarzenegger's and Cameron's careers, but work on a sequel stalled because of animosity between the pair and Hemdale Film Corporation, which partially owned the film's rights. In 1990, Schwarzenegger and Cameron persuaded Carolco Pictures to purchase the rights from The Terminator producer Gale Anne Hurd and Hemdale, which was financially struggling. A release date was set for the following year, leaving Cameron and Wisher seven weeks to write the script. Principal photography lasted from October 1990 to March 1991, taking place in and around Los Angeles on an estimated $94–$102million budget, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time. The state-of-the-art visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which include the first use of a computer-generated imagery (CGI) main character in a blockbuster film, resulted in a schedule overrun. Theatrical prints were not delivered to theaters until the night before the picture's release on July 3, 1991. (Full article...)
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Hard Target is a 1993 American action film directed by Hong Kong film director John Woo. The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Chance Boudreaux, an out-of-work homeless Cajun merchant seaman and former United States Force Recon Marine who saves a young woman named Natasha Binder (Yancy Butler) from a gang of thugs in New Orleans. Chance learns that Binder is searching for her missing father (Chuck Pfarrer), and agrees to aid Binder in her search. They soon learn that Binder's father has died at the hands of hunt organisers Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) and Pik van Cleaf (Arnold Vosloo), a ruthless businessman and his right-hand mercenary, who arrange the hunting of homeless men as a form of recreational sport. The screenplay was written by Pfarrer and is based on the 1932 film adaptation of Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game". It is the first installment in the Hard Target film series.
Hard Target was Woo's first American and English-language film, and is widely regarded as the first major Hollywood studio production directed by a Chinese – and more broadly, Asian – filmmaker. Universal Pictures was nervous about having Woo direct a feature and sent in director Sam Raimi to look over the film's production and to take Woo's place as director if he were to fail. Woo went through several scripts finding mostly martial arts films with which he was not interested. After deciding on Pfarrer's script for Hard Target, Woo wanted to have actor Kurt Russell in the lead role, but found Russell too busy with other projects. Woo then went with Universal's initial choice of having Van Damme star. Woo got along with Van Damme during filming and raised the amount of action in the film as he knew that the actor was up for it. (Full article...)
Isabelle Eberhardt was screened at the 1991 Melbourne International Film Festival and was also released in cinemas in Australia, though did not have a home media release. The film received generally negative reviews. (Full article...)
The Lion King was conceived during conversations among various Disney executives, to whom several writers submitted early treatments under the title King of the Jungle. Original director George Scribner had envisioned The Lion King as a nature documentary-style film, with Allers joining as co-director after having worked in the story departments of several successful animated Disney films. The Lion King's plot draws inspiration from several sources, notably William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, as well as the Bible. Woolverton, screenwriter for Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), drafted early versions of The Lion King's script, which Mecchi and Roberts were hired to revise once Woolverton left to prioritize other projects. Scribner departed due to disagreements over the studio's decision to reimagine the film as a musical, with original songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, and Minkoff was hired to replace him in April 1992. Throughout production, the creative team visited Kenya for research and inspiration. (Full article...)
After numerous unsuccessful attempts to develop a Fantasia sequel, The Walt Disney Company revived the idea shortly after Michael Eisner became chief executive officer in 1984. Development paused until the commercial success of the 1991 home video release of Fantasia convinced Eisner that there was enough public interest and funds for a sequel, to which he assigned Disney as executive producer. The music for six of the film's eight segments is performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine. The film includes The Sorcerer's Apprentice from the 1940 original. Each new segment was produced by combining traditional animation with computer-generated imagery. Fantasia 2000 is part of the Disney Renaissance, and also commemorates Walt Disney's third animated feature film. (Full article...)
The film was originally a project of the Japanese company Omega Project, who wanted to make another horror film after the financial success of Ring (1998). The company purchased the rights to Murakami's book and sought Miike and Tengan for an adaptation. The cast and crew consisted primarily of previous Miike collaborators, with the exception of Shiina, who had worked as a model prior to making her acting debut in Audition. The film was shot in Tokyo over a three-week period. (Full article...)
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