It's About Time

People are fascinated with movies dealing with time travel, and the idea of “what if.” I thought of that again yesterday afternoon. I was in a hurry to run some errands, but before I left the house I just had to review and print out a complaint letter to the CEO of TCF Bank about a gift card that I hadn’t used right away and it expired. Well, not only could I not get the $25, but for them to reimburse me the money, they said it would actually cost more than the $25 the card was worth. Such a simple time-waster to spend much time on this letter… I printed it to send later. Then, as I was heading down my residential street, I came upon an accident that had just happened probably less than10 minutes earlier – a beautiful black mustang looked like a matchbox car run over by a lawnmower in somebody’s front yard, and there was a burn mark gauged into the cement on the other side of the street right where I was about to drive by. It reminds you what a difference 10 minutes makes… or maybe even 10 seconds. Maybe it’s a good thing that stupid gift card didn’t work!

Of course we all love movies like The 1960’s “Time Machine,” where H.G. Wells builds a contraption that takes him racing forward in time, through the ages. That movie was so ahead of its time… It captured the wonderment of traveling through time, as well as the perils (unlike the 2002 remake that was effects, action, effects and more action.) To me, there’s something more interesting about a snail shooting across a window as time speeds up, rather than a bunch of explosions and effects… or meeting your friend on the street years in the future, only to realize it’s your friend’s grandson.

There was also a TV Show in the late 1960’s called “Time Tunnel.” Two Scientists walked down this long swirling tunnel and got sent back in time… then they got stuck. Each episode they were in a different time period, and were rescued just in time… then tossed slow motion into another time period they had to deal with. The show was way ahead of its time. Hey – I just looked it up and found out the “Time Tunnel” is on Amazon! It’s no “Terminator,” but I wonder if it still holds up.

More recently, probably after “Back to the Future,” movies about time travel evolved to not needing to spend a lot of time on building some kind of machine and explaining it. In “Frequency,” Dennis Quaid plays a short wave radio operator in the 60’s, who talks with a buddy through the static, and it turns out to be his son, 30 years in the future. The son (James Caviezel) tries to save his father’s life from impending doom. No one traveled though time, but this was a really innovative use of contact between different time periods without building that whole machine-thing.

“Sliding Doors,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow, shows a London businesswoman rushing to catch her subway. Through a momentary glitch in time, the doors close in front of her. Then, it follows her as she actually slips through the doors just in time. That couple seconds totally changes her life, as the movie shows both possibilities, following her lives. This is more along the lines of a “parallel universe,” rather than actual time travel.

The award-winning German movie “Run Lola Run,” shows Lola racing against time to save her boyfriend’s life. After the worst possible things happen, she relives the event several times. Each time, her timing is slightly different. This not only affects the outcome for her and her boyfriend, but every person she passes on the street, showing that a split second could make all the difference in the world. The good thing in “Run Lola Run,” too, is that there was no lengthy explanation… no time warp – we just accept that this is what is happening.

Who knows? …by your having spent a few moments reading this Blog, you’ll buy your lotto ticket later than you otherwise would have, and end up winning millions! (and if you do, I only want a very small commission – thanks!)