The Future is here, time to party
There are a string of happenings set for Toronto to mark Back to the Future Day, Oct. 21, 2015
On the off chance a DeLorean does arrive on Oct. 21, 2015, Toronto is ready. That’s the date when Marty McFly, his girlfriend Jennifer and Doc Brown arrive in the future in 1989’s Back To The Future Part II. Here are the best places to celebrate, even if you do have to get there via non-hovering skateboard. Enchanted Evening Is it too late to make gold robes happen? Sand- wiched between the Royal’s screening of Back to the Future Part I and II on Oct. 21 is a costume contest where 2015 futurism will be on trend (1950s greasers, ’80s skaters and 19th-century cowboys also welcome). The festivities continue around the corner at the Monarch Tavern, where an Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, complete with a ’50s-friendly DJ, will be thrown for anyone still humming “Earth Angel.”
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Don’t Drink and DeLorean Binge viewing meets binge drinking at Leslieville bar Hitch. The Sunday night Hitch Video Club, where the bar screens such legends of VHS as Mad Max, Police Academy, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, hosts a special Wednesday edition on Oct. 21 to screen the entire BTTF trilogy on VHS, starting at 7 p.m. “It’s the spirit of staying up late in your buddy’s basement and eating too many Doritos,” says marathon master Mike Reynolds. 1216 Queen St. E., Facebook.com/Hitch Limited.
Back to the Theatre See the trilogy the way it was meant to be seen: while wiping the liquid margarine from your popcorn all over your pants. Participating Cineplex theatres are screening Part I and II back to back beginning at 7 p.m. on Oct. 21, followed by the complete trilogy beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 25. Each theatre will give away a copy of the new hardcover retrospective Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History, featuring hundreds of archival images published for the first time. Cineplex.com.
Future Sounds “The hardest part is the synchronization,” says conductor Steven Reineke, who is leading the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s performance of the Back to the Future score live to the film on Friday and Saturday at Roy Thomson Hall. “Especially when there is a lot of comedy that is cartoonish, there’s musically things that are hitting on a certain beat. When that xylophone happens, somebody’s falling down or something, you have to be right with that.” TSO.ca
Pop Culture Burlington resident Ken Kapalowski’s faithfully recreated DeLorean will be parked at Yonge-Dundas Square for photo ops courtesy of Pepsi and Pizza Hut, which will be giving away pop and pizza like it’s your 8th birthday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. One photographed fan will win a prize pack featuring the film’s futuristic Pepsi Perfect, one of only 20 of the souvenir sodas available in Canada (on eBay, they are selling for as much as $972 Canadian).
Other prizes will become available when a Back to the Future character takes over @PizzaHutCanada, tweeting clues in a downtown Toronto scavenger hunt.