If I could turn back time ...

A little media nostalgia sent me thinking about a less-defined time in my life.

I turned 51 on Saturday. Or, as I put it, it was the 30th anniversary of my 21st birthday. 2024 also marks 30 years since I graduated college and 20 years since I moved to Minneapolis. All those round numbers already had me thinking back, not to mention the success of my hometown football team, the Detroit Lions, triggering memories of their last high mark: The 1991 season, which sent them to the NFC Championship Game.

A couple weeks after this year’s Lions latest big loss on the big stage came another reminder of 1991: The Big Picture podcast reviewed that notable year of movie-making through one of its movie drafts. Right from the start, the podcast triggered thoughts of yesterday once host Sean Fennessey asked guest/co-conspirator Chris Ryan: “Who were you? What were you doing?”

Who was I in 1991? That year bridged my freshman and sophomore years in college, away from home in Michigan to study international affairs at George Washington University in D.C. But I had also found my way to the student paper on campus and, most likely because I was reading the Washington Post daily as a subscriber, I was starting to entertain it as a possible career. But I was going home to suburban Detroit regularly. The summer of 1991 was my last at home. I was in transition. Nothing was certain at this point.

So in between personal recollections of the three co-hosts (who were all younger than me … and therefore younger than me now) and movie highlights of an incredible year. my mind drifted back. In the fall of 1991, when I was a sophomore living in a dorm filled with people interested in political communications, “JFK” was all anyone was talking about, at college parties even. Earlier that year, Oliver Stone had another film out, “The Doors,” which I caught up with when home that summer, at a tiny movie theater now relegated to the dustbin of Downriver Michigan history.

Some things, I hadn’t thought about in a while. I conflated the premiere of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” with “Batman Returns” a year later, which became obvious later because I had gone home the summer of 1991 and hadn’t in 1992. “It just feels like the movies are the center of culture,” co-host Amanda Dobbins said on the podcast. That was sure for us, under 21. Before going to college, someone with a driver’s license could liberate a whole crew of Midwest high school kids for the night with a trip to the movies. And as underage college students, while there were plenty of places to drink without showing an ID, a night out to the movies was a more regular social outing. So I’ve seen a ton of these films featured by this Big Picture episode. And most of the times, I thought about the different crowds I saw these films with. Though I’m still not clear who I saw T2 with. By process of elimination (from the release date), I’m fairly sure it was with high school friends.

Other thoughts: What about the road not taken? What if I didn’t follow the media route and stayed in international affairs? (There was a Soviet Union still then, at least until December of that year. Although most of those issues with Moscow are still kicking around.) Or even working on Capitol Hill, which I was doing as an intern for Rep. John Dingell? I can’t answer those questions, but I enjoyed the journey back. In 1991 and the rest of college until my post-internship job, the lack of a defined path was nerve-wracking. Today, amid news outlet implosion after news outlet implosion, that absence of definition seems … liberating? Before a mortgage, before a kid in college, before regular facial hair, at least there were the movies. And dreams. And questions.

(A postscript to the 1991 movie draft podcast: The discussion gave little attention to “The Commitments,” which was very important to me and my developing media tastes at the time. But that would probably just feed the inferiority complex of North Dubliners. The other half of the podcast was devoted to a Sean Fennessey interview with Wim Wenders about his new film. His “Until the End of the World” film and soundtrack were very important to me in 1991. And it’s mostly invisible today. Also: top 3 choices in the draft: “The Silence of the Lambs, T2 and “JFK.” Wow. One year, along with these.)

What memories do you have of that time? Or of media/art important to you? If you think you can only turn back time with the Analog Age of Physical Media, a college friend just summed up “Dune 2” on Facebook as “three hours of feeling like I was 17 again.”