Back to the Future Part III (1990)

It took me a while to get going on the reviews for the Back to the Future trilogy.  Yes, I know that they came out over 30 years ago.  The first one was such an iconic movie that I wasn’t sure how to handle it.  The trilogy was also a bit of an anomaly to me in that it formed a continuous narrative, despite the fact that the second and third movies weren’t planned.  (It’s been noted that the second picks up where the first left off and this one picks up where the second left off.)

Part III goes in a new direction, taking us to the Old West.  It turns out that Doc was stranded in 1885, 70 years prior to the end of Part II.  (I’m not sure what it is with multiples of five.)   He writes Marty a note, to be delivered by Western Union, a few minutes after his disappearance.  Doc instructs Marty to find the Doc of 1955 so that they might repair the DeLorean and return Marty to 1985 once again.

Things aren’t that simple, though.  While retrieving the car, Marty and Doc discover a tombstone with Doc’s name on it.  He’s to die about a week after writing the letter.  So, a new plan is hatched:  Send Marty to 1885 to save Doc without altering the timeline.  Only, the fuel line is punctured, rendering the car inoperative.  The Flux Capacitor still works, but Mr. Fusion can’t power the car and there won’t be a gas station in town for quite some time.  So, it’s just a matter of figuring out a way to push the car to 88 MPH while keeping Doc alive for a week.  What could go wrong?

As much as I might hope for a Part IV, this is a fitting end for the franchise.  Everyone ends up happy and realizing that fate is what you make of it.  You just have to do so responsibly.  Yes, I know that there’s a TV show.  If I can find it on DVD, I might get around to watching it.  (I’ll have to see if the library has it.)

It was nice that there was a shift in the story to include Doc.  He even gets a love interest, which could complicate things.  I always felt sad when I saw the end of the movie.  Marty was stuck in 1985 while Doc got to go exploring time.  I suppose it’s possible that at some point in the future, Doc will meet Marty again.  (I’m assuming that this is what the TV series is about.)

Back to the Future seems to be a franchise that people either love or ignore.  I’ve always loved it, mostly because of its simplicity.  I’m sure that the movie’s representation of the Old West is simplistic, but it’s serving as a backdrop.  It’s more the setting for the story in which both main characters a great conclusion.  Marty McFly finally seems to learn his lesson and stops letting people push him around.  Also, Doc seems to be a happier person.  He has a family and the time machine that he originally wanted.  Both seem to have realized what’s important:  Life is what you make of it.

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Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Really good sequels are hard to come by.  I don’t know if it’s just me, but there was a time when follow-ups were little more than an attempt to get a little more money out of audiences.  Home Alone was cute.  The second one was unnecessary.  I have a vague recollection that others may have been made.

There are cases, like the Lord of the Rings movies that were planned all at once.  It’s not a series of movies, but rather one story told in installments.  For whatever reason, each entry into the franchise is solid and worthy of paying for another admission.

The Back to the Future trilogy is an odd occurrence.  The first movie was going to be one movie.  There was the final scene where Doc takes Marty and Jennifer into the future, but it was meant to be just that:  The final scene.  When the movie did well, two more movies were made, back to back.

Back to the Future Part II picks up where Part I left off.  Doc takes Marty and Jennifer into the future.  Doc tells Marty and Jennifer that their children are in trouble.  The DeLorean has been modified so that it can accept waste as fuel, making things easier.  Oh, and where they’re going, they don’t need roads.  The DeLorean can now fly.

There are a few signs that the sequel wasn’t planned.  Jennifer has to be sedated, as Doc can’t have her asking too many questions.  (From what I recall, her presence wasn’t though that far through.  Sedating her was easier than changing the end of Part I.)  It does lead to a little trouble, as she’s taken to her future house and meets herself.

Once Marty and Doc return to 1955, they soon realize that they have bigger problems.  Marty hatched the idea to take a sports almanac back with him.  Doc discovered the plan and admonished Marty.  Unfortunately, Biff overheard them arguing and stole the idea.

Biff took the DeLorean back to 1955 and gave the almanac to his younger self so that he might bet on stuff and win big, which he does.  This leads to Hill Valley (and the surrounding areas) becoming an urban wasteland.  Marty enters his house to discover another family living there.  Principal Strickland is reduced to chasing away newspaper thieves with a shotgun.  And the clock tower is now the BiffCo casino.

This leads to a somewhat complicated third act where Marty and Doc have to return to the past to set the present right again.  They also have to avoid their former selves so that the events of the first movie aren’t changed.  It takes Marty a lot longer than it should to retrieve the almanac, but he does and eventually burns it, setting things right.  The movie ends with the DeLorean being hit by lightening (with Doc inside) and being sent back to 1885.  Thus, we get to see some pre-credit coming attractions for Part III, which takes place in the Old West.

The most noticeable thing about the movie for some is the conspicuous product placement.  (Personally, I’m still waiting on that Black & Decker device to rehydrate my Pizza Hut carryout order.)  Fortunately, it’s not that bad.  It is fun to see the Café 80s, where Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan have been given the Max Headroom treatment and compete to take your order.

Marty and Jennifer get to see where they live, which is nice.  One thing that’s always bothered me, though, was having kids that look like one of the parents.  Both Marty, Jr., and Marlene are played by Michael J. Fox.  With the son, I can understand.  An important plot point rests on this being the case.  Still, do we need to have both kids played by the same actor?  Not to mention that Thomas F. Wilson plays both Biff and his grandson Griff.

As with the first movie, people have raised questions, a few of which I have myself.  First, why didn’t time change around Marty and Doc when Biff came back from the past?  If this would be the case with Jennifer and Einstein, why not anyone else?  (It’s probably a conscious decision to allow for the story to hold together.  It is a bit odd, though.)  Also, how did Doc know to drop the rope at the end of the tunnel?  That was pretty good timing.  Maybe Doc got lucky.  Maybe not.  We may never know.

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Back to the Future (1985)

Note:  I will be giving away important details.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I won’t blame you for wanting to watch it before reading this.


It seems odd that Back to the Future would be considered a great film, yet it is.  Someone pointed out that the main character, Marty McFly, ends the movie the same way he began it.  He also has a lot of less-than-stellar people surrounding him.   The father, George McFly, is a loser and Biff’s yes man.  His mother, Lorraine McFly, is an alcoholic.  Both of his siblings, Dave and Linda, seem destined for low-end jobs.  That’s not even getting into Uncle "Jailbird Joey”.

He has two things going for him:  Girlfriend Jennifer Parker and best friend Dr. Emmett Brown.  It’s not clear why Doc and Marty are friends or how they met.  However, Doc seems to be a failed scientist.  Every invention he ever made didn’t work.  In fact, a strong case has been made that he’s suicidal.  (If you watch the video, be warned that it’s not safe for work.)  This is why it’s surprising that Doc is willing to test a brand-new time machine.

Not only does he test it, but it works.  He shows off the controls to Marty, demonstrating with several important dates.  The last one he puts in is November 5, 1955.  This is the date that Doc Brown invented time travel, or rather, the flux capacitor.   It provides the necessary 1.21 gigawatts of power necessary to propel the DeLorean through time.  Alas, before Doc can do any traveling of his own, the Libyans catch up with him.  (Don’t judge.  He had to get his plutonium from somewhere.)

Marty is able to escape to 1955, but soon discovers that it’s a one-way trip.  In the rush to avoid a machine gun, Marty neglected to take the spare plutonium with him.  He’s able to find Doc in 1955 and get back home.  The catch is that he has to wait a week, during which he interferes with his parents’ first meeting.  He does get them back together with some interesting consequences.

When I first saw the suicidal Doc theory, I have to admit that I found it interesting.  There were a few things that I missed, like what exactly was Doc doing hanging a clock in the bathroom?  Also, why hadn’t Doc done any sort of small-scale test on the DeLorean?  Really?

I tend to look at it another way, though.  If the suicide theory is true, Doc does eventually get his wish.  It’s a shame that he finally has a working invention right before his demise, but he does die.  When Marty goes back to 1955, Doc finds out that he has a working invention, giving him thirty years to think about it.  He heeds Marty’s warning and chooses to use a bullet-proof vest.

The argument could be made that Marty is a good influence on those around him.  Not only does he make life better for his family, but he gives Doc something to live for.   (Sure, Doc always had something to live for.  It just took Marty to show him.)

I remember reading once that Back to the Future was odd in that Mary didn’t really learn anything.  He did seem to inspire things in others.  In fact, there was some question as to whether the parents knew who Marty was in the altered time line.  We know that Doc did, as he was in on it.  Marty introduced himself and explained everything.

I would say that Lorraine probably didn’t.  Marty didn’t have much interaction with her.  In fact, of all the people Marty interacted with in both 1985 and 1955, the only person Marty dealt with less was Mr. Strickland.  On the other hand, Marty had to deal with his father to help train him to be more assertive.

To that end, we see three people on the cover of George’s book.  There are the two teenagers, presumably representing a George-like and a Lorraine-like character.  Between them is none other than Darth Vader of Vulcan.  To say that Marty made an impression on him is an understatement.

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Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie (2016)

George Carlin once asked, “If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?”  Such is the question with Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal: The Movie.  The movie was released right after Donald Trump won the Republican primary.  The movie is presented as something that is done almost entirely by Trump.  The opening and closing credits have Trump listed as writer, director, producer and almost everything else.  The theme is performed by Kenny Loggins, although the credits posit that Trump could have performed it better.

The movie is satirical.  The opening scene has Ron Howard telling the audience that Trump made the TV movie based on the book, but that it was preempted by a football game that went into overtime.  Trump vowed never to let his masterpiece be seen again, but Howard managed to find a VHS copy of the movie at a yard sale.

The actual movie starts with a kid stealing a copy of the book upon which the movie is based.  He runs into an office only to find that it belongs to his all-time greatest hero, Donald Trump.  Trump allows the kid to remain.  This allows the kid to serve as an adoring audience for Trump while he explains The Art of the Deal.  He goes through several segments, which I understand correspond mostly to chapters in the book.

The thing is that it comes off exactly like you’d expect a Trump-made movie to come off.   The movie is made to have Trump look big.  He always hogs the scenes and tells about how great he is and how mediocre everyone else is.  In the scene with Ivana Trump, he constantly interrupts her.  The movie succeeded at looking like it was made by an amateur.

The joke plays out kind of quickly, leading to some repetition.  Trump explains seeing a picture of a boy looking at the Taj Mahal, which inspired him to buy the casino from Merv Griffin.  This becomes a running gag, wherein Trump repeatedly calls Griffin to make a deal.  There are also a few scenes where people tell Trump that he’ll never get the casino.

I’m not even sure I picked up on all of the humor.  Trump and others repeatedly claim how great Trump is with minority tenants.  The movie was supposed to be released in 1988, which would have made me 12.  I’m assuming that there was some lawsuit with Trump and his tenants around that time.   Some of the jokes are dated, such as an appearance by ALF of sitcom fame.  We also get an appearance by Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown, coming back to warn everyone that Trump will be made president.  Most people with get the Back to the Future reference, but I’m not sure how well known ALF is now.

There were several scenes that were vulgar, like Trump giving two middle fingers.  This isn’t really something for children.  Speaking of which, I don’t think most children will find this funny in a few generations.  As I said, some of the references are dated.  Also, I don’t know how much people will know of the personal lives of Trump in 50 years.  If you look back at presidents from around 50 years before you were born, how much do you know about them?  How many references would you get if Calvin Coolidge was the main character?  I think a lot of it is meant for today’s audience.

In case you’re wondering, I had to look up Der Scutt.  I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be some ironic name, but Donald Clark "Der" Scutt is the actual architect of Trump Tower.  I’m not really sure where the Der comes from, though.

It was 50 minutes total, which was about 25 minutes too long for me.  It was exactly what I expected it to be, given that it was presented as a VHS copy of a 1988 production by Donald Trump.  It’s just that the joke got kind of old quickly.  It was actually made by Funny or Die, which is known for much shorter skits.  If you stay past the closing credits, you’ll see an end scene of Ron Howard deciding that the tape isn’t worth saving.  He made the right choice burning it.

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Clue (1985)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

Being born in 1976, there were a lot of movies that I was aware of.  Some were movies that were talked about, but I was too young to see.  (The Godfather was released a few years before I was born, but I had to wait to be able to see it.)  Others, I saw, but didn’t remember that well.  Clue was one such movie.  The movie is based on the board game of the same name.  I think most of what I remember of the movie came from having played the game.

For those that have never played the board game, the basic idea is to figure out which of several characters committed a murder.  You also have to figure out which of several weapons were used and which of several rooms the murder took place in.  It was one of those games that I never cared for, mostly because I could never really get the hang of it.

The movie borrows the characters, weapons and rooms.   It’s set in 1954.  We start with a butler named Wadsworth, who wasn’t in the game but is used for the sake of the story.  He’s invited several people to the house where he works, but for secrecy, he’s decided to give each person a pseudonym from the game.  (Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, etc.)  He then reveals that Mr. Boddy has been blackmailing each of them for various reasons.  (Colonel Mustard was a war profiteer.)  An assortment of weapons (gun, lead pipe, etc.) are provided.  When the lights go out, several expected sounds (a gunshot, a thud, etc.) are heard.  The lights come back on and we have a dead Boddy.

To add to the suspense, several other murders take place.  (A police officer, a distressed motorist and a singing telegram show up, putting them in mortal danger.)   It’s up to the remaining people to figure out who did what to whom with what and where.  Not only do the main characters know each other, but the three uninvited guests are not random.

The game carries over well to a movie.  This is probably because the game was one of mystery.  All you’re really doing is taking the names, weapons and locations provided and working them into a story, which could easily have been written as a independent concept and modified slightly to fit the details of the board game.  There’s also a lot of comedy, which is a bit unusual for a murder mystery.

There are a few adultish aspects to the movie.  Many of the secrets are somewhat adult in nature, although nothing explicit is mentioned.  (Miss Scarlet tends to the desires of men.  Mr. Green is gay, which was probably more of a big deal for someone in a position of power in the 1950s than today.)  Also, there’s a maid that grownups will probably react differently to than children.  Again, there’s nothing explicit, but it is worth mentioning.  We’re talking PG-13 at worst.

One thing that I wondered about was the multiple endings.  Those that have seen it on TV or on home media know that there are three endings, each with a different set of murderers.  The movie, with all three endings, runs about an hour and a half.  (IMDb has it listed at 94 minutes.)  From what I’ve read and heard, the movie was released in theaters with each ending separately.  (Theaters had the endings marked as Ending A, Ending B or Ending C.)  This would have made the movie much shorter.  I realize that there’s no law saying that a movie has to be of at least a certain length, but the endings take up about half of the movie.  I was thinking that the movie would have had to have been something like 60 minutes if you took out two endings.

I was able to get the movie streaming through Netflix.  The only option is to watch all three endings, although you may have the option to play the endings individually if you get the DVD.  It looks like the option is available on DVD, but I’m not sure if this is something only available on certain versions.  I’d say watch it streaming or, if you get the DVD, watch the combined version.  I don’t know if you’re going to want to sit through three iterations of the movie just watch the endings separately. 

IMDb page

Clue - Trailer