Back to the Future
Year: 1986
IMDB / Wikipedia / Trailer
Back to the Future, Part II
Year: 1989
IMDB / Wikipedia / Trailer
Back to the Future, Part III
Year: 1990
IMDB / Wikipedia / Trailer
Starring:
Michael J. Fox
Christopher Lloyd
Crispin Glover
Lea Thompson
Thomas F. Wilson
James Tolkan
and Mary Steenburgen
Though I watched this trilogy a couple of weekends back, I can still write this post as nearly every frame of these three films are ingrained in my mind. As a child, I watched movies. A lot of movies. This trilogy, at one point, was up for my favorite movies of all time (in a tight race with Ghostbusters for sure). There were a lot of nights where I would lie awake and imagine myself in a Marty McFly-esque predicament and one way to fix things was to hop in a supped-up car and hit 88 mph to travel to the past or the future. I still think about time travel, its potential, its pitfalls, and what opportunities I would take if given the opportunity. But I digress.
The films hold up well, not only because I loved them once, but because they are structurally sound. They were popcorn films but forced the audience to pay attention and not switch off their brains for a couple of hours. It’s this level of nerd-like detail and love that has inspired science-fiction comedies ever since, including the just-ended Futurama, which is the only example in the genre that comes close to its attention to detail. But the stories are engaging, the characters are well-drawn and well-acted, and the action is just the icing on the cake. It is, at its heart, an 80s movie, but it sets itself apart thanks to the efforts of filmmakers who held themselves to a higher standard.
Most Valuable Actor: It’s easy to put Michael J. Fox in this slot since he was the driver of the entire series, but I have always been partial to Christopher Lloyd’s character, Dr. Emmet Brown. Doc was a great character because he was part Einstein and part Jim Ignatowski, and those two characters could only be amalgamated by someone with the acting and comedic chops of Lloyd. He’s not a caricature, he’s not a buffoon, he’s an eccentric with good intentions and that is why he’s here.
These Things I Have Seen 