I’d never thought of our next nominee as a poppy-fields movie, but damned if nominatrix NJ doesn’t make a case.

Flux capacitors…fluxing? Let’s do this.

• lengthy? Not really, but maybe longer than you think it is, at 116 minutes.
• familiar/frequent? You bet. Spent a bunch of the early ’90s running everywhere, and then for each anniversary. Expect next year, the 30th anniversary, to bring it to the fore again (though it was on Encore all winter, I think).
• classic/award-winner? Sure, I think so. It won the best sound-effects editing Oscar, and it was nominated for best original screenplay, too. Nominated for a bunch of Golden Globes and BAFTAs, too. And it is certainly beloved by at least one generation, probably more. 96% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and I wonder what’s up with the other 4%.
• “Greetings, Professor Falken” (big payoff/long-shot victory a la WarGames)? Yep, they’ve got to catch that hook on that metal wire at juuuuust the right moment. Woo!
• “Wanna have a catch?” (Pavlovian tear-jerk; anything with dads opens the ducts for this guy)? Mmm, I think this is where it falls down. Perhaps for some people, the stuff with Doc Brown gets them, or maybe when George stands up for himself, but not a real humdinger of a moment, I’d say.
• quote-fest? “You’re my density.” “Jesus, George, it’s a wonder I was even born.” Maybe personally responsible for anyone under the age of 50 saying, “Great Scott!”
• caper-ish or -adjacent camaraderie? I think a lot of time-travel stuff has caper-ish elements. Making sure you don’t cronk up the whole future takes planning. In this one, you’ve got Marty dealing with the wacky Doc Brown on one side, the timid George on the other, and also fighting off the advances of his mom. Maybe more farce-y that caper-y, I guess, but still.
• “forget you, melon farmer” (you own it, but will still watch bowdlerized TV verzh) Yes. I haven’t opened the DVD case in…ever.

This is one of the PFMs Mr. S and I watched a jillion times because D1, who grokked the poppy-fields concept even if the execution wasn’t quite there (whatever, it was the ’80s), had taped a bunch of Saturday-afternoon classics off HBO — Star Wars, Superman II, the BtFs. Not that he’d needed to bother with BtF, which did seem to air once a weekend for a period of at least 10 years starting with Bush I.

There’s a shit-ton of fun stuff in the movie that you begin to wait for upon repeated viewings — that the mall becomes “Lone Pine” when Marty returns, an outcome I called on first watching (Ma is still really proud of me for that, hee); some ’80s branding jokes that don’t translate (nobody knows what a Pepsi Free is anymore, much less that soda jerk); Marvin Berry — that I think makes it a successful poppy-fields experience. The movie is paced flawlessly, and is one of the few period projects that doesn’t earn a flurry of tickets from Dirk Birthworthy, Fictional Vintage Car Cop.

Readers, what say you? Do YOU “get used to those bars” every time you surf past this one? Let’s give this one a Tab. (hee.)

NJ: You’ve won a shirt from the TN store; thanks so much for submitting!

Update, 9/9/14: Looks like we’re good here!

The Poppy-Fields Movie Couch Of Fame is here. To nominate your own PFM, email bunting at tomatonation dot com with a rundown of the criteria and your argument for why it deserves a cushion. If I use your entry, free loot shall be thine.

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