On the occasion of our 56th issue, the editors of Little White Lies decided to ask themselves the question: what would this magazine have been like had it existed back in good 'ol 1994?

What would it be about? What would it look like? Who would be on the cover? What cultural trends would be discernible? What films would we write about?

This 1994 issue is not necessarily an bald act of nostalgia, though there's nostalgia in the lifeblood of any project like this. When making this magazine, we wanted any sense of nostalgia – and irony, too – to derive naturally from the pages.

What we learned from making this issue is that talking about the past is a way of talking about the present too. We live in an age of bad super hero movies, lame franchise extensions, great actors who can't find great gigs, flavour-of-the-month screen idols, left-field movies maligned by critics, films built around stars and not ideas, sublime foreign language gems, film festivals as promotional springboards and people ready to talk passionately about making art. The same, it seems, was the case 20 years ago.

Issue contents

• Man of the Year

We decided on awarding Jim Carrey the title of Man of the Year for this special issue, due to his being in three of the the year's most popular features: Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask. Adam Woodward profiles the actor who toiled for years in the TV ranks before hitting it big on the silver screen.

• Fancy Lad

Nick Pinkerton examines one of the year's noblest failures in Adam Resnick's salty comic odyssey, Cabin Boy, in which alt comic alienator, Chris Elliott, stars as a finishing school fop who's accidentally posted out on the high seas.

• The Exterminating Angel

One of the year's most astonishing performances came from the young Kiwi actor Melanie Lynsky in Peter Jackson's dream-like horror/fantasy, Heavenly Creatures. We spoke to her about playing a murderer and her hopes for the future.

• Candyland

It was April of 1994 when actor John Candy died of a heart attack, and Thirza Wakefield takes a look back at his career to argue that he wasn't just a liquid-centred funny-man, but one of the create comic actors of the modern age.

• A Night In With Nixon

Ever wondered what the America's most controversial leader liked to watch in his down time? Adam Lee Davies dishes the dirt on Tricky Dickie's avid film-watching during his time in the White House.

• In Cannes

'Men & Movies' super-stringer Jacques Gites reports back from the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, taking aim at a silly little film called Pulp Fiction.

• Seduce and Destroy

Sophie Monks Kaufman talks to director John Dahl about his modern take on classical noir, The Last Seduction, while also profiling the film's astounding lead, Linda Fiorentino.

• Gump Merch

Timba Smits designs his own line of Forest Gump-based merchandise.

• Academy Ratio

Where next for the Police Academy franchise after a disastrous Mission to Moscow?

• Neon Maniac

Explaining why not to get too close to tungsten lights and how he and Wong Kar-Wai patched up their troubles with booze, cinematographer Christopher Doyle gives David Ehrlich the inside track on the making of the great Chungking Express.

• A Gangsta's Life Ain't Fun

Rusty Cundieff's sublime hip-hop satire Fear of a Black Hat was one of the year's most timely and innovative comedies. Ashly Clark asks, why did it crash and burn? And who did it take down with it?

• Strike Out

1994 was notable for its logjam of baseball-themed movies, and so Glenn Heath Jr opines that Hollywood was attempting to fill a gap caused by game cancellations due to pay disputes.

IN REVIEW

Hal Harley gets Amateur, Andie MacDowell is one of the Bad Girls, Arnie gives birth to Junior, Krzysztof Kieślowski paints his Three Colours: Red, Wes Craven tells us his New Nightmare, Edward Furlong gets a Brainscan, Nanni Moretti writes Dear Diary, Christopher Lambert gets his Scottish on for Highlander III: The Sorcerer, Alec Baldwin gets lost in The Shadow, Sly and Sharon blow things (up) in The Specialist, and Emilio Estevez says God bless America in D2: The Mighty Ducks.On Sale Date 29th of October.