Welcome to another summer week where The A.V. Club looks 20 years back: It’s 1995 Week, featuring an avalanche of pop-culture deconstructions of the year that changed your desktop forever. Today we kick off with the first half of our pop-culture Windows into the world of ’95 Inventory, highlighting the death of grunge and the birth of the horrific Adam Sandler movie; Libby Hill’s exploration of Calvin And Hobbes; and a look at the dawn of internet-paranoia films (remember when Sandra Bullock ordering a pizza online seemed like the absolute cutting edge of technology?).
Our Watch This column this week highlights five of our favorite sleeper films from this seminal year, and Hear This takes a similar tack with the songs of 1995. Coming up, we’ll have Jason Heller’s look at how 1995 signified the end of the major-label alternative boom; Jesse Hassenger on why Empire Records sucks; and an investigation into the second-biggest Simpson trial of that year: The Simpsons’ “Who Shot Mr. Burns?”
We couldn’t get out of 1995 Week without some O.J. references, so look for an Inventory of O.J.-related ephemera (like those damn Dancing Itos). There’s also a history of the Warped Tour, Alex McCown on the birth and death of the DVD, and a clip from the indie classic Kicking And Screaming in Mike D’Angelo’s Scenic Routes column. It’s so much, we’re exhausted from pulling it all together; good thing we’re only open until midnight. [Phone rings.] “The A.V. Club, open ’til midnight!” [Pause.] “Midnight!” [Slams down phone.]