(not) Back to the Future

Ok I know I am breaking the nerd code but somebody has to do it.

Somebody had to refuse point blank to write about Marty McFly and the fact that the future was set in, what, October 2015? What a shitty and predictable future it turned out to be.

It was a great film but let's get our bearings for a moment. At the time I also thought Short circuit, Splash and Desperately Seeking Susan were also brilliant.

Actually I still stand by the latter two. In my mind I'm still a bit emotional about them- like I'm walking around battery park on my legs and wearing a jacket with a pyramid/eye on the back of it one moment, saying 'good going stranger' and then, whoops, I fall into the water and sprout a merman's tail the next. It's a disaster! Never has a glass of water been so menacing.

Anyhoo, I'm really happy that the world's newspapers have devoted so much space and effort to commemorating the back to the future moment. (not) Personally anything that makes me think of Huey Lewis and the News does not make me want to celebrate, but that's just me.

I say if we're gonna celebrate the future, then 2046 seems like a much more logical year to experiment (even if, and don't hate me people, I didn't love the film). I'm not a film critic, but I love Gong Li (yes yes it's always been all about Maggie), I love Wong Kar Wai and most of all I love an alternative (especially when back to the future is being forced back down my throat every time I open anything on the web).

What's next? Will they pull out the old time capsules they had us bury in the school yard so we can see how primitive we were as ten year olds? Today's ten year olds would eat my former ten year old self alive.

But, if you think about it aside from a general nastiness that has sunk in, and way more electronics, nothing much has really changed all that much since 1985. It's 2015 and we're still talking about a pope, Donald Trump, eighties fashion and trying to work out how long it's going to be until we can finally write Madonna off. Russia and the Middle East are still key players in geopolitics, ray bans are still in fashion and the world's best footballers are still Latinos.

I mean, we're still in 1985 my lovelies. It's like a Groundhog Day only we don't have to listen to Huey Lewis anymore (nothing personal but I just have nightmare memories of hearing his music on a loop- on a five of six hour bus ride: cured for life).

I don't get why we think the future we imagined thirty years ago means anything to anyone today.

Wait another thirty one years and then come back to me.

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