He still remembers it like it was yesterday. As if he’d fired up the flux capacitor and stepped back to that very time.
Lewiston’s Gerry Gismondi remembers when the Four Seasons Cinema just off Military Road in the Falls first ran “Back to the Future” in all its glory, with Michael J. Fox sporting his puffy vests and skateboards.
Gismondi’s family has long run the theater and he remembers the original reception the movie got was lukewarm at best.
“But then, word caught on,” Gismondi said. “And there were people all over the place.”
Now, to signify the end of Parkinson’s Awareness Month, the theater will again be showing the classic teen flick, all week, starting on Friday. All money pulled in from tickets sales will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which is dedicated to finding a cure for the disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today.
Gismondi said the movie had the longest run of any at the theater, and he hopes a new generation of fans will come out to enjoy the experience.
“Think about it, kids don’t even know much about the movie,” he said. “It’s the kind of movie the parents remember really well, but the kids who come back and see it again will love it, too.”
Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder that affects one in 100 people over age 60. While the average age at onset is 60, people have been diagnosed as young as 18. There is no objective test, or biomarker, for Parkinson’s, so the rate of misdiagnosis can be relatively high, especially when the diagnosis is made by a non-specialist.
Estimates of the number of people living with the disease therefore vary, but recent research indicates that at least one million people in the United States, and more than five million worldwide, have Parkinson’s.
“It’s a good cause,” said Gismondi, who runs the Amendola Property Management group with his brother Greg, aside from playing in the popular local band Full Moon Social. “And a great movie.”