2021: Creating a Lexicon of Future

A is for Awakening

At the end of the 1990s, as the unknown story of the 21st century loomed before us, Hollywood produced a number of movies with a central theme of awakening to the truth that our world was both less & more than it seemed on the surface. A few examples…

1. The Truman Show is a 1998 American psychological comedy-drama film directed by Peter Weir, produced by Scott Rudin, Andrew Niccol, Edward S. Feldman, and Adam Schroeder, and written by Niccol. The film stars Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, a man who grew up living an ordinary life that — unbeknownst to him — takes place on a large set populated by actors for a television show about him.
2. Pleasantville is a 1998 American teen fantasy comedy-drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Gary Ross. The story centers on two siblings who wind up trapped in a 1950s TV show, set in a small Midwest town, where residents are seemingly perfect.
3. The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis. It is the first installment in The Matrix film series. Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano, it depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality, the Matrix, which intelligent machines have created to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias “Neo”, uncovers the truth, he “is drawn into a…