OK, so 2015 is here! And October 21st, 2015 is quite literally happening this year! What is the big deal about that date you may ask? Another Mayan apocalypse date? A comet approaching Earth? The release of the Batman versus Superman movie? Na ha, nope, that is the date that Marty McFly (yep, that is his surname) and Doctor Emmet Brown travel to from 1985 in a DeLorean time machine (a really odd looking car). And who are McFly (very cool surname, yes?) and Brown? They are the protagonists from the awesome Back to the Future movie trilogy.
In the first movie Marty McFly (Michael J Fox), accidentally travels back 30 years to the year 1955 in a time machine built by his friend, the Doc (Christopher Lloyd). Once he’s there, his then-teenage mother falls for him instead of his father, and Marty has to unite them, or cease to exist, all this while trying to persuade the young Doc to get him get back to 1985. It’s a really enjoyable movie with loads of thrills and laughs and a cool soundtrack!
But as the movie tagline goes: “Getting BACK was only the beginning…”
In Back to the Future Part II (1989) the morning of October 26, 1985, Marty McFly and Doc Brown time travel to the year 2015 to stop Marty’s kids from destroying their lives. The date: October 21st, 2015. Earlier last year, Nike announced that it was actually going to manufacture the self-lacing high tops that Marty wears in the envisaged future 2015 of the movie. Great news for everyone that hates bending over for more than three seconds at a time to tie laces! Unfortunately no flying cars, hoverboards or food hydrators, so we have a way to go to yet before realizing BTTF Part II’s vision of the future.
It’s no surprise that the excellent Steven Spielberg was the executive producer of all three installments of the Back to the Future trilogy, assisted by fellow producer Bob Gale and director Robert Zemeckis. Great family entertainment!
I remember watching the first one at the Durban Drive-in (a parking lot now). Man, I have to say I miss drive-ins. It is so sad that they have become virtually extinct over here in South Africa. I am so glad I grew up prior to this digital and social media age. I suppose you would call ours the analogue age: conversation and companionship versus texting, Atari versus XBOX/ PlayStation, libraries versus Wikipedia. Information was something that had to be worked for and in the process of attaining it became knowledge. It is too freely available now, very little effort is required to access it and therefore this age of the shallow, the avatar, the selfie, as in selfish/self-involved/self-centred. So yes, the drive-in: hanging with my friends- skin warm from the day at the beach, hair still full of salt from the ocean, underpants and boardies full of beach sand. Watching a movie under a canopy of stars in a deck chair or sprawled on a blanket eating junk food, drinking drive-in coke in polystyrene cups spiked with the booze we had snuck in. Softly talking, joking into the night, looking forward to another day on the beach tomorrow. Awesome! The smell of the drive-in popcorn and the sea air (the drive-in was virtually on the beach) was intoxicating! As was kissing girls who had wine cooler breaths and wore fruit-flavoured lipgloss. During intermission: walking from car to car, catching up with friends and making plans while listening to the new tunes on their decks, and then kicking to the cafeteria to get munchies and refills before the next movie started. The nights lasted an eternity, entranced by the soundtracks and god-size images of double features as we were, and made lazy by the day’s sun and by the sweet alcoholic drinks we chased popcorn and hot dogs down with .
Anyway, so back to 2015, and for me no real resolutions for this new year other than to get rolling with my Masters, perhaps find a permanent lecturing position and to kick-ass in the art world! I have quite a few exhibitions this year so I am going to be busy and that is good. But I would like to include more of those “drive-in” moments in my life this year. I have always been something of a loner but immersing myself so totally in my art career has really made me become increasingly feral. Yeah, so I guess that is my resolution, to be less feral. And, to quote Doc Brown, GREAT SCOTT!! I would kinda like to have or get to attend a Back to the Future party on 21st October. And to go to a drive-in theatre again. That would be pretty cool.