A meme that has been sweeping the net this week has been #FivePerfectFilms with filmmakers and actors galore weighing in with movies they think fit the description.
They aren’t necessarily favorite films or even great films, rather a ‘perfect film’ is one that goes from start to finish with no obvious mistakes aesthetically or structurally says filmmaker James Gunn. Effectively they are movies that simply can’t be improved upon.
One film that keeps coming up is “Back to the Future,” with Gunn himself explaining his choice even as he points out one of its only plot holes – why don’t Marty’s parents remember him as Calvin. Well he got an answer as screenwriter Bob Gale ended the decades-long argument once and for all with a response. He tells Heat Vision:
“Bear in mind that George and Lorraine only knew Marty/Calvin for six days when they were 17, and they did not even see him every one of those six days. So, many years later, they still might remember that interesting kid who got them together on their first date.
But I would ask anyone to think back on their own high school days and ask themselves how well they remember a kid who might have been at their school for even a semester. Or someone you went out with just one time. If you had no photo reference, after 25 years, you’d probably have just a hazy recollection.
So Lorraine and George might think it funny that they once actually met someone named Calvin Klein, and even if they thought their son at age 16 or 17 had some resemblance to him, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’d bet most of us could look thru our high school yearbooks and find photos of our teen-aged classmates that bear some resemblance to our children.”
35 years on, “Back to the Future” remains both a critical and audience favorite and both Gale and director Robert Zemeckis in the past have made it clear that there won’t be any remakes or reboots of the property coming in their lifetimes.
