My early childhood was spent in the era of spectrum scarcity; in the UK the broadcast signal could only fit 3 TV channels until 1984 when C4 came along, with its legal duty to provide alternative content to BBC1, BBC2, and ITV.
As a result, my generation grew up with exposure to cinema spanning the form's history - from 1910s Laurel and Hardy to 1950s Akira Kurosawa, all in B+W of course. Video rental stores started springing up around the same time as C4 launched, and the swift decline of TV as a source of film education kicked in. Satellite and cable would bring multi-channel TV, often of dire tabloidised quality, such as Topless Darts On Ice and the News Bunny, both on L!ve TV, launched by the Mirror tabloid newspaper group. There's a great book on that...
It also brought Sky Movies and the focus on the current, modern hits.
Chances are you have had limited exposure to movies outwith a fairly narrow time frame, excepting a few ongoing blockbuster franchises like Star Wars.
So this Guardian series, in which different writers argue for a decade as being THE best in cinema, is a rather handy way of finding a few gems to look up on Netflix or equivalent on some quiet evening...
From Seven to The Matrix – why the 1990s is my favourite film decade https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/apr/06/my-favourite-film-decade-1990s-seven-being-john-malkovich?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger
