Alex B Cann film column - Thursday 6th November 2025

1985 was a vintage year for movies, with Beverley Hills Cop, A View To A Kill, and of course Back To The Future, which I watched on the IMAX screen in Ashton this week with a friend who has somehow never seen this classic before! I was rather envious of him, watching the time travel escapade for the first time. The special effects have aged jawdroppingly well, and my favourite fact is that Christopher Lloyd was just 46 when he played the eccentric Doc Brown.

I don't think we need to worry too much about spoilers when reviewing this one, so I must say that the storyline around Marty McFly's mother lusting after him back in 1955 is a bit weird. It's far more prominent in the plot than I remember, watching it as a kid! The parallels between Biff and Donald Trump are pretty apparent too. This is a stone cold classic from Steven Spielberg, and the time travelling DeLorean is still super cool. One thing's for sure...no time travel would ever be possible on Mottram Moor. A cracking watch, and fully deserving of its 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating. If you want to visit the clock tower featured in the film, you can hop on a train from Stalybridge to Huddersfield, and marvel at how similar the station frontage looks! The "roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads" final line from the Doc is still a belter too, setting things up nicely for the sequel set in 2015.

Regretting You has been savaged by many critics, but I have to say I thought it was a decent romantic drama. Based on the Coleen Hoover book about first love, family, grief and betrayal, my only criticism is in line with a lot of films nowadays, it was probably about 20 minutes longer than it needed to be. I am a big fan of Mason Thames, who was excellent in Black Phone and the live action remake of How To Train Your Dragon, and thought that Allison Williams and McKenna Grace were convincing as a mother and daughter navigating their worlds being turned upside down following a car crash that claims the lives of two key characters. Yes, some of it does require a little suspension of disbelief, but I found it eminently watchable and well acted. I don't understand the opprobrium it's attracted from some quarters.

And on Halloween, I watched Snoop Dogg tackling vampires in Day Shift, alongside Jamie Foxx, whose estranged wife thinks he spends his time cleaning swimming pools rather than hunting vampires and making cash by extracting their gnashers. All totally daft, but fangtastic fun in places, with a few references along the way to Lost Boys, including the final line from Snoop as he emerges from a sewer and lights a cigar as the film reaches its conclusion. Won't win any awards, but I've seen far worse this year!

Next week, my verdict on Shelby Oaks, Die My Love and The Choral, filmed in lovely Saltaire.