Worcester Movies on the Common II: "Back to the Future"

Well, it's taken me a whole week to finally write about this, but the second Movies on the Common show happened last week (July 28). The movie for this edition was "Back to the Future" (1985). I could use a time machine to go back a week and write this post in a little more timely manner, but...

This outdoor movie program is being put on by Worcester Film Works. The first show in June featured the film "Grease" (1978) (read about that show here: Movies on the Common 2011). There is still one more show to go at the end of August. That one will feature "Spaceballs" (1987). But, let's discuss show number two, shall we?

You can't go to the Worcester common and not check out the "Turtle Boy" statue!

The stage/screen set up behind City Hall

We all went to the show again (The Wife, the two Little Monsters and myself); and this time were joined by several other friends. It would seem that the word has spread about this outdoor movie series (as I had hoped it would), because there was a much larger crowd this time around. I thought the turnout for the first show was more than respectable, but the second one was even better.

The crowd grows as the sun sets

As an added bonus, they got the totally awesome 1980s cover band Flock of A**holes (you can figure it out) to play before the movie. It was a very nice evening and The Flock (as they're also known when children are present) put on an amazing set of classic 80s tunes that lasted a couple hours. Anyone who showed up just in time for the movie missed out on a chance to really get into an 1980s frame of mind before watching "Back to the Future". The Flock played tunes from all kinds of bands and artists like Prince, Billy Idol, Duran Duran and, yes, A Flock of Seagulls. They even played Huey Lewis and the News' "The Power of Love"--which would of course be featured in "Back to the Future"! As the evening wore on and the crowd grew you could see the 80s-vintage people starting to shed the years and get up and dance to the music from their formative years. Heck, I felt so immersed in the 80s I wanted to walk across the street to Strawberries to pick up Huey Lewis' latest tape, or head over to the Worcester Galleria to pick up an Orange Julius!

The Flock rocks!

It occurred to me last year (the 25th anniversary of the release of "Back to the Future") that there is an interesting juxtaposition when watching the movie now. It came out in 1985, and that was the "present" setting of the film. Of course, 1985 was twenty-six years ago and now seems very much like the past. When Marty travels back 30 years to 1955 we have to deal with the fact that the "present" he leaves is practically that old to us. The scenes in the "present" seem like a period piece now. Adults who watched the movie when it came out could probably relate to the scenes from 1955 the same way that many of the viewers on the Worcester Common last week related to the 1985 scenes. Okay, I could talk about this stuff for hours, but let's get back to the show...

The Common "opened" at 6:00 and people started picking out their spots. Jen from Worcester radio station WXLO 104.5 introduced the band and gave out some prizes through The Flock's set. The Theatre Cafe and Sweet Sister's ice cream truck set up shop once again, selling food, beverages and frozen treats to anyone who brought along their appetite. The Little Monsters got ice cream of course, and later on I even splurged on a couple hot dogs from the Theatre Cafe.

Getting ice cream from the Sweet Sister ice cream truck

The Creature enjoying her ice cream

Hot dogs from the Theatre Cafe

The only real "disappointment" of the night was that it was announced that Finz, the mascot of the Worcester Sharks hockey team would make an appearance. Unfortunately he never showed up. The Little Monster brought along her stuffed Finz and was a bit let down by his absence. With this only being the second show, the series is still in its infancy. They still have one more show this season to try to work all the (admittedly minor) bugs out.

The Little Monster and her stuffed Finz doll

Speaking of bugs, the Worcester Film Works table had a popcorn machine at the first show that they were expecting to use to make and sell popcorn to the movie-going patrons. Unfortunately it malfunctioned and they had to buy a bunch of bags of Smartfood Popcorn to fill the machine with. I had figured they must have gotten the machine fixed for the second show. When I visited the table before the movie the machine was indeed operating, though the WFW people were a bit concerned that it wasn't popping the corn fast enough. Later on--during the movie--I took a look at the table and saw them selling bags of popcorn. Thinking that everything was running smoothly I went over to pick up bag. To my surprise I was greeted with a sign stating that the popcorn was Smartfood! Apparently the machine failed them again. This is beginning to become a bit of a tradition in itself. I have to admit that a little part of me hopes to go to the "Spaceballs" show next month and see the popcorn machine once again filled up with Smartfood! Of course I want everything to run the way it's supposed to, but it almost feels like this is the way it's supposed to go at this point...

The Worcester Film Works table...

...And the sign announcing the true identity of the popcorn later on.

After The Flock's set ended there was a bit of a delay while their equipment was removed and the screen was lowered. Because of the concert there wasn't as much of a chance to have the projector all set up and ready to go beforehand as they had last month. But once it got dark enough the movie did start up. There's not really much to say about "Back to the Future". If you haven't seen it then you SHOULD. If you have seen it then you know what it was like. The Wife and The Tiny Creature left before the feature presentation, but The Little Monster and I stayed right until the end. It was her first time seeing "Back to the Future" and if course I loved the experience of seeing it through her eyes. The highlight was probably when she came up to me during one of the time travel scenes and asked me with a solemn voice--"Daddy, did this actually happen?". I just love that kind of stuff! It's funny to discover how tough it actually is to try and explain the film to someone from a generation or two removed from 1985. Another great moment from the night was when the scenes with the clock tower in it played on the screen...just below Worcester City Hall's very own clock tower (There's a bit of that interesting juxtaposition toward the end of the video below)! All in all, it was definitely worth keeping The Little Monster up nearly three hours after her normal bedtime to see the whole movie. As we headed back to the car around 10:45 on a cool summer night I saw in The Little Monster that familiar ultra-tired state that I remember experiencing as a kid after a long night at the drive-in.

The screen is lowered into place after the band finishes up

SHOWTIME!

Marty rocks out!

Doc Brown informs Marty that they have to go "back to the future"!

As I mentioned, this was only the second of three shows for Movies on the Common. They've done an excellent job so far, and I'd definitely recommend trying to make it out for "Spaceballs" at the end of the month (August 25) if you can. They have one more chance to work out any little bugs that might still be lurking around in the series and fine-tune it a bit further. I can only hope that the success of the series will mean that it will return for a second year in 2012! Otherwise I'll just have to jump into the Delorean time machine next year and head back to 2011 to experience it all over again...

Here's some video from the night. It's heavy on The Flock's set, and the short amount of "Back to the Future" highlights didn't really come out very good. Still, it gives a bit of a look at what the show looked and sounded like for anyone who couldn't be there.

Creation Convention--25 Years Later

Twenty-five years ago today (August 24, 1985) I attended what I believe was my first-ever Comic Book/Sci-Fi convention. If there had been any doubts that I was a certified geek, that day obliterated those doubts. I had read about these conventions in Starlog and other science-fiction magazines, but as a fifteen-year-old I wasn't able to actually attend any of these meccas for nerds.

All that changed when I received a brochure for the Creation Convention coming to Boston the weekend of August 24-25, 1985. This brochure came in the mail. What a quaint notion in this online-first world we're living in (especially so for comic book and science-fiction fans of today). I must have been on a mailing list because I also had a subscription to Starlog (courtesy of the meager earnings of my paper route).

I had a small group of three best friends in 1985. These same three guys remain my best friends to this very day. Two of them went to the convention with me. Actually, I should say that one friend and I accompanied the other friend. His mother drove us in to Boston so we could attend the convention. This friend pretty much HAD to go to this show, because Wendy and Richard Pini were going to be there. They were the husband and wife (or should I say wife and husband?) team that was responsible for the Elfquest comic book series (nowadays it would probably be classified as a graphic novel rather than a comic book). Elfquest was a HUGE thing with this particular friend, and he really wanted to meet his hero, and unrequited love interest, Wendy Pini--Elfquest's creator.

Two of my friends were big comic book fans. I read certain comics from time to time (Micronauts, Swamp Thing, Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank...), but never could really get all that into them for some reason. My big thing was movies and TV shows--especially science-fiction ones. This convention featured special guests that wouldn't seem all that "special" today, but who were pretty interesting at the time. If you had heard that there would be guests from Star Trek and Doctor Who, you might have visions of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (or at least Nichelle Nichols and Mark Lenard) from Star Trek and Tom Baker from Doctor Who. Well, it wasn't quite that cool. The Star Trek guest was Judson Scott. Who? Well, that name doesn't mean all that much today, but at the time he was reasonably well known as Khan's right-hand man in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982). I believe he was the only member of Khan's followers who spoke any lines in the movie (could be mistaken on that one though). Mr. Scott had also recently been the star of his own short-lived Sci-Fi TV show on ABC, "The Phoenix" (1981-82), and was currently featured in the series "V". He hasn't done a heck of a lot recently.

The Doctor Who "star" was less familiar to me. His name was Mark Strickson, and he played the sidekick of the Peter Davison-era Doctor Who. Thanks to PBS I was a big fan of Doctor Who--but specifically the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who. I didn't really know any of the doctors that came either before or after Tom Baker. My friends and I certainly lined up to get autographs from these guests, even if they weren't exactly what we would have considered "A-Listers". Our friend who didn't make it to the convention was the biggest Doctor Who fan of the four of us, so we decided to get Mark Strickson's autograph for him. Our friend seemed a little perplexed when we gave him the photo the next day. This was not only because of the fact that he probably wasn't exactly sure who Mark Strickson was, but also because the personalization on the photo was a bit tough to read and appeared to say: "To Kurt, Love: Mark Strickson". You know, we had a great time at that convention in general, but that little quote specifically has actually managed to become part of our lives that we still use to this very day. It's become such a tradition between us it's almost hard to believe that its origins can be traced back to that moment when Mr. Strickson scribbled that personalization on that photo in 1985. Even today, that quote, "Love: Mark Strickson", is frequently used as the sign-off when we write e-mails to each other. I guess you never know which little moments will be special and stay with you for the rest of your life!

The rest of the convention was fun too. We enjoyed watching the costumed freaks walking around (there but for the grace of God I could have easily been one of those "freaks"). The tables of merchandise were a sight to behold for a teen at his first convention. Thousands of comic books, books, novels, manuals, movie blueprints, posters, movie props, toys, action figures and very expensive VHS tapes (this was 1985 of course and DVDs were still years away). A couple of us got our own "Buckaroo Banzai" ID badges that had our photos on them. I'm sure we checked out the old Star Trek blooper reels (from the original series of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation was still two years away) that were a mainstay of these conventions. Of course we sat through the talk/Q&A session from Wendy and Richard Pini. I believe there were a couple other semi-well-known comic book artists there too. And, one of the staples of a Creation Convention back then was the big, no-minimum-bid auction. One of my most exciting moments from that day was when I got into a bidding war for a communicator prop from the original Star Trek series. I thought at the time that it was actually used in the show, but now I'm pretty sure it was just a fan-made version. It was still pretty cool. Anyway, I had limited funds (as most of my money came from my modest paper route--I wouldn't get my first "real" job until September when I started working as a bar boy at the Cocke 'n Kettle restaurant) so the rapidly escalating bids for the communicator were starting to scare me. I was just about to give up when the gavel fell and I had won the bidding war at $55.00 (a king's ransom of money for me at the time). I still have that communicator and count it among my prized possessions.

The reason I remember the date of this convention is because within the past year, while visiting my parents, I found that very same brochure for the event that I received in the mail during the summer of 1985. What a neat item to behold after so many years. It's amazing to see how much has changed since those days. The brochure is a black and white job on paper typed out on a word processor (maybe even a typewriter?) with various photos of the guests and drawings of many science-fiction and comic book characters sprinkled throughout. It's nothing fancy, glossy or even professional-looking. I haven't been to a convention like this since the mid-1990s. At that time they really hadn't changed much since my first one in 1985 (and probably long before that too), but I'll be they are a completely different animal these days. Every company, movie, actor, comic book... has it's own website now. Everyone is online and has cell phones. Twitter, Facebook and other social networks are the preferred mode of communication. DVDs have replaced VHS tapes. a LOT more neat stuff is available (at a cheaper price too) and easy to find on DVD today compared to what was around then. It's much cheaper to dupe this stuff, rip it, share it, store it on computers or iPods... I can only imagine the madhouse that is Comic-Con these days. Now instead of being merely the realm of geeks and nerds, all kinds of stars, directors and producers make appearances to promote their latest movies/projects. It's all online (which didn't exist in 1985 of course) and it's everywhere. Like the brochure for the 1985 show, the convention itself seems positively quaint compared to today's mega-events.

Interestingly enough, it appears that Creation is still around and still promoting conventions. I don't know how directly this Creation Entertainment company is related to the old one that sent me that brochure all those years ago, but it's kind of nice to see the name still around out there today!

*For more on this convention, please read my follow up blog: Creation Convention Part II: Geeks on Parade. A lot of questions raised by this entry are answered in that one after more "evidence" was uncovered.

Love: Mark Strickson