Word: fi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...comedy on TV, and King of the Hill creates a world with far more specificity than any live-action sitcom. Both are smarter, funnier and, in fact, more human than Friends or Seinfeld. Meanwhile, The X-Files draws from a bottomless well of inspiration. Two cartoons and a sci-fi show--why are these better than the programs supposedly about real people and real life? Probably because they are imaginative in ways that would be neither possible nor permissible in TV's standard genres...
Visualizing the Future: The Familiar Made Strange. Jeunet (or his ordinary partner, Marc Caro) has never been a director to bore you with his images, working with whimsy and choosing the spherical or the slimy in quest of audience discomfiture. In an ideal world, this would create bountiful sci-fi by merging with the everyday fear of being alone in a creepy apartment with the feeling that someone's watching or something's awry: (Alien as Repulsion?). Jeunet's possible mis-step in this parade of the pods? Presaging that many scientists of the future would wear the tied back...
Fish Drown In Mainstream. Cf. The Rainmaker. Alien was all about space's anti-style, the work of the master sci-fi craftsman Ridley Scott--a victory. Jeunet tries valiantly--exploiting Hedaya's body hair, letting bounty hunters give foot massages, thrilling to the goofy jive of outer space--but there's little definitive indication he directed the second half of the movie...
...destruct as soon as it's accomplished its mission (planned obsolescence, after all, is what makes consumer culture go). Our hero is a typical Scud robot assassin, bought by a middle manager who needs to get rid of a hideous mutant monster named Jeff--which, in the finest sci-fi/gross-out film tradition, is rampaging in the basement of his factory...
...affordable, mainstream entertainment option. According to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Association, more than 15 million U.S. households enjoy the big pictures and booming Surround Sound that come with a wide-screen, 25-to-65-in. TV, an audio-video receiver, a front and rear set of speakers, hi-fi VCR and a LaserDisc or DVD player. Less than a decade ago, entertainment mavens had to shell out tens, even hundreds, of thousands of dollars for that kind of gear. Now newcomers can find complete, easy-to-install packages for $2,000 to $3,000--a price range that has helped...