Word: 90s
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Poor Alanis. In the mid '90s, she was loved, adored. She could have been elected President. And now, she's reviled, pitied, parodied. Whereas before she was sailing right down the mainstream, Alanis now polarizes audiences. Alanis Unplugged, her new live album, is even more likely to split audiences because it combines hits from Jagged Little Pill, songs from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, a few cover songs (the Police's "King of Pain," for instance) and a couple of new ones. It's a mish-mash of the old and new Alanis. Jagged Little Pill, remember, didn't have...
...well-informed audience with the addition of Pedro Almodvar's 13th full length film, All About My Mother. This film weaves together a beautifully crafted, though at times maudlin and contrived, plot with expert film technique. Yet in this attempt to re-create an All about Eve for the '90s, where life imitates acting imitating life, Almodvar's masterpiece runs the risk of alienating any viewer who isn't a film buff...
...there are no "showgirl" theatrics, the restaurants all demand at least $35 per person, Gucci and Versace dominate the in-hotel shopping malls and the miminum blackjack bet is $10. The cheesy glitz and glamour of the '80s Vegas has dissolved into a decadent celebration of pretentiousness in the '90s Vegas...
...Lion King had we had indulged in a cartoon that purposely surfed right over the kiddie's heads, providing pretty eye candy for tots and self-referential fun for the big ones. While Disney went back to its melodramatic basics for its feature-length animation of the '90s, Pixar adopted a distinctly modern--practically postmodern--sensibility. Each scene in Toy Story and the even better A Bug's Life (1998) has epic ambition: to touch the heart, engage your brain, tickle the funny bone. Did we get any of that in Pocahontas? Or the god-awful Prince of Egypt? Pooh...
...kids who graduate from high school - remains stalled at 86 percent. Improving this is a much tougher proposition. Unlike early childhood education, for which there are widely accepted models for success, high school is an area that education leaders aren't quite sure how to address. In the '90s some states experimented with vouchers, while most raised their targets for student achievement on standardized tests. That hasn't been very successful; just last week, for example, Arizona announced that only 1 in 10 sophomores passed a new state math test, and states are now rushing to ease their testing standards...