Since LondonMeUp opened and we started reviewing movies, I wondered to myself "Gaz... [I pronounce it with one Z in my own head, for funsies] perhaps you could review OLD films for the site. You know, the ones you love and know things about!"

Well the day has finally come with my "I ♥ Nostalgia" series of movie reviews. If Akin gets his own backwash rerun series, then so do I damnit! And I can't think of a better flick to begin with than my all time favourite trilogy. The BEST trilogy. It's about a young man who discovers he has a tremendous destiny awaiting him, full of adventure and excitement and travel! Along the way he meets some colourful characters and has to contend with incredible evil, but ultimately he triumphs over adversity AND gets to ride a hoverboard.

What? Star Wars?! FUCK OFF! I'm talking BACK TO THE FUTURE!

Back to the Future SHITS ALL OVER Star Wars from every direction and in every way. I don't want this review to turn into some trilogy contest, so I'm wrapping that up right now with the following sentences. Back to the Future is better written, better directed, better paced and has better continuity than the entire Star Wars Saga combined.

...OK I'm finished with that.

The Back to the Future Trilogy opens up, in the classic system order, with Part I [yeah, we're starting with part I, not part IV...] Marty McFly is the classic 80's teenage boy. He's handsome in a girlish way, plays lead guitar in a band whose other members don't have speaking parts, and is in his early 20's. He hangs out with a crazy old professor named Doc Brown. It's never actually explained how or why this relationship came about. Marty never shows any special aptitude or interest in science, and Doc Brown is the town kook having pissed away his family fortune and burned down his mansion trying to build the FluxCapacitor, which we'll get to later.

Marty's Father, George McFly [played by Crispin Hellion Glover... really, his middle name's Hellion] is a fucking doormat. Wetter than a cod's pocket, he's been pushed around by High School Bully turned Workplace Bully Biff Tannen for the better part of three decades. They live in a modest house with a modest car [which Biff wrecks] and their lives are pretty drab and uninspiring. Elaine [Marty's mother] drinks heavily and no one's really going anywhere. Except Marty, who dreams of becoming a rock star [obviously].

The characters of Elaine and George are really well fleshed out in these opening scenes. There's not a lot of dialogue from George but thanks largely to his interactions with the other people in his life, you really get a sense of the drowning mediocrity the man's living in. He knows he's disappointing as a father and a husband, but he's trying his best with what he's got and you feel for him. The relationship between him and Elaine is also perfectly setup in one short dinner scene in which George only has like 3 lines. She loves him just as much as she always has, despite his lack of confidence and ambition, but to keep herself there she's taken to the bottle pretty hard.

Things are NOT rosy for the McFly family, and so when some Libyans bust in and pour a box of AK-47 ammo into Doc Brown [he stole their plutonium... you'd be mad] Marty leaps into the time travelling Irish car [His family is Irish... his time machine is Irish... EVEN THAT has continuity!] and winds up in 1955 with no more juice for the FluxCapacitor [which is what makes time travel possible] and a potentially disastrous fuck-up in his personal timeline.

Queue skateboarding, manure, and kissing his Mum. Awesome.

Back to the Future is an incredible first part to a series that only gets better, then slightly worse. There are no superfluous scenes or exchanges. Everything means something to the saga and each character starts off 3 dimensional, then has flaws and traits expanded upon as we go. Bob Gale manages to write pretty natural dialogue for these guys, even the various versions of Biff who could've ended up as a cartoon bad guy not handled properly, even in his darker moments [he was basically gonna rape Elaine in that car park]. Particular praise for the first part goes to Thomas F. Wilson, playing 1985 Biff and 1955 Biff as extensions of the same man. You have to believe that one will become the other if left unchecked, and with Wilson you want him to get what's coming to him. He's one of the best, and most unsung, actors in the entire series, playing a total of 7 characters [1955 Biff, Original 1985 Biff, Rich 1985 Biff, Autodetailer 1985 Biff, Old Biff, Griff and Buford Tannen] and giving each of them something different and unique.

Hill Valley as a place comes alive, helped in no small part by the production design. In 1985 Hill Valley is suffering from the economic downturn. It's dirty, boarded up and knackered, but in 1955 we get to see it in its original polished glory. The 1950's really were a prosperous and hopeful period in American history, with the country still being so new and its industry really beginning to take off internationally. The changes to Hill Valley during the trilogy are like a potted history lesson if you're not from the US. Wild West, 50's, evil version of the mid-80s. It's all a rich tapestry

Back to the Future: Part I is one of my favourite movies... but not my favourite. No no... that's next time, with Back to the Future: PART II! WHERE THEY ACTUALLY GO TO THE MOTHER FUDGING FUTURE!!