Hackers.
It was the perfect encapsulation of a specific subculture for a specific 6 months or so. It felt dated less than a year after release.Hack the planet!
HACK THE PLANET!
As time capsules go, Slacker (1990, ATX), Kids (1995, NYC), and Office Space (1999, ATX) really sum up the 1990’s.
EDIT: “Goodbye, Lenin” as per my Gen-X Eastern European wife.
Superbad captured early 00s high school perfectly, following in the footsteps of The Breakfast Club.
It occurred to me recently that if Dazed and Confused were made today, it would be set in the ‘00s. I think a retrospective movie like that made today would do really well.
What’s funny is that Linklater kind of already beat you to the punch with that concept when he made Boyhood, seeing as that chronicles 2002-2014. Not entirely the same, of course. They’re very different movies, and because (SAY THE LINE, BART!) it took 12 years to make, Boyhood lacks the retrospective quality Dazed and Confused has.
Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is working on something that is in line with your concept right now. I feel like pop culture has been cannibalizing the 90s for awhile now, and we’re primed for the early aughts revival.
Independence Day was peak 1990’s Americana.
Idiocracy somehow saw into the future and showed us all where we’re going.
The Matrix - Summed up the feel of living in alternate spaces and places in the late 90s. The abandoned buildings, fetish clubs, how bland and conformist the normal world was, the music, the computers.
Dazed & Confused
Raising Arizona and pretty much everything by the Coen Bros
Repo Man
I didn’t live through the 70s but my dad has told me multiple times that dazed and confused might as well be a documentary of that period.
Lost Boys
Early 90’s: Night On Earth and Reality Bites
For the early and mid 1990’s I have to go with Slacker and Kids.
