With BBC2 producing a nostalgia series called I Love the 1990s, it's clear that a decade which only ended half a year ago for the pedantic is already fodder for pundits intent on recycling their memories of silver scooters, Steps, X-Files when it was good, and John Major when he was in power. As a public service for channel-hoppers, here are the infallible signs that a movie you've just tuned in on was made in the 1990s.

1. Lots of big sets explode.

2. Everything stops for five minutes so the hero can 'be there' for his teenage daughter's ballet recital, bratty son's little league game, ailing father's heart attack or ex-wife's promotion to the board of directors.

3. Tom Cruise signals victory by punching the air and going 'yeah!'

4. There are throwaway nasty jokes about the Japanese.

5. The comedian was on a sit-com in the 80s.

6. A boring conversation scene that advances the plot takes place in a bar where oiled naked women dance around poles.

7. Joe Eszterhas did a draft of the script.

8. JT Walsh plays one of the villains.

9. The monster is computer-generated.

10. It is established that the sympathetic characters didn't dodge the draft in the 60s, screw around in the 70s and snort coke in the 80s, but the bad guys did. Not to mention the director, producers, all of the cast, and most of the preview audience.

11. The lead actors are upstaged by John Goodman.

12. The guy you know the heroine shouldn't get off with has a pony-tail.

13. The gangsters talk about 1970s kids' television shows.

14. The credits sequence is by that guy (Kyle Cooper) who did all the overlapping scrawls and ominous imagery for "Se7en".

15. That's Steve Buscemi playing the bellhop/waiter/stool pigeon.

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