Sunday, January 10, 2010

#16 Back to the Future: My density has bought me to you

1985. dir. Robert Zemeckis, starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Thomas F. Wilson, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover.

Seen it before? About four thousand times

Rounding out our Sunday triple feature with an old favorite. Yes we watched 3 movies today. What? It was like 11 degrees out and the Bears missed the playoffs.

This is probably the best time travel movie ever made. The plot is pretty much perfect. There's absolutely nothing wasted here. One of Kurt Vonnegut's rules of fiction is that every sentence should either advance the story or develop characterization. In this movie, everything they show you, every line and prop is important somehow. It all builds to a great action finale. It's like a Swiss watch.

Favorite part of the movie: the famous Mister Sandman Sequence, where they throw every possible 1955 reference onto the screen in the span of about 30 seconds. Really sets the scene, and you can watch it over and over and still notice new details (in both the 1955 town and the 1985 town; look for the sign that says "Moved to Lone Pine Mall" and the porno titles on the theater.)

The dialogue is great, way too quotable. Also the soundtrack is fantastic. Usually I hate Alan Silvestri (he of such boring crap movie scores as Forrest Gump and the Father of the Bride movies, among many others) but his score gives the whole thing a more epic feel. Great movie.

Position on the list: 78
Hey you: Get your damn hands off of her

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