Tonight would be a night unlike any other we had previously experienced: A sneak preview of "Back to the Future Part II," an evening of fun-filled entertainment by the sides of KISS 108's Bev Tilden and Mat "The Culture Vulture" Schaffer.

We were welcomed to the limo by Joe, our personal driver for the evening. Before picking up the KISS 108 group, we were alone in the limo. After rudely barricading Joe with the tinted sound-proof divider, we had the perfect opportunity to sneak a phone call to long lost friends in Elsah, Illinois.

We flipped the color TV to Channel 38, where Alex P. Keaton was bad-mouthing Skippy Handelman. We'll be seeing you later, we thought, and turned to the Home Shopping Club.

We found the conveniently located bar, but it wasn't until we picked up Ms. Tilden and son Matt, that we ventured a Diet Coke. Tilden explained the evening's festivities: we'd be picking up the "Culture Vulture" and his lovely girlfriend Jennifer, then heading to the Sack Cheri, where we would have VIP seating at the world premiere of the movie all of our friends had been waiting to watch.

When we arrived at the cinema, the crowd was at a fever pitch. Most of the 500 people there had won their precious tickets through various KISS contests, Tilden explained. And, boy, were they excited. We followed our hosts to the front of the line where we gossiped with KISS 108 personality Bill Costa, a voice we had heard so many many times on the radio. They were talking about the fine leather bomber jackets that they would be awarding to two lucky winners. We took advantage of this spare moment to chat with some members of the enormous crowd on hand. They were all just brimming with excitement.

"This is going to be awesome," Danny Tishler, 12, of Newton told us. "I'm going to be the first one in my class to see it."

"I saw the first one, and I don't see how number two could possibly compare," a young man from Billerica said.

When we finally entered the jam-packed theater, we found our VIP seats had been swiped by some folks from Universal Studios. We figured that maybe they deserved the seats more than a couple of reporters from a not-so-famous newspaper. So we headed to a few of the remaining unoccupied seats. The chairs off in the corner afforded us an outstanding view of the "EXIT" signs, but we would not be able to see any action that took place on the left side of the screen. Seeing this as a minus to our potential enjoyment of the film, we decided to look for an alternate seating plan.

The second row from the back looked pretty inviting, so we decided to investigate. Once we got there, our feet were sucked to the ground by a sticky puddle of age-old Mandarin Orange Slice. Deciding it would be beneficial to come home with our shoes still intact, we grabbed the seats.

When the music began signifying the start of the movie, the crowd crazy went nuts. The excitement that had been building since we entered the building was all released in a round of furious applause.

After the movie, we talked to the "Culture Vulture," and got the inside scoop on his job. Though some people might think it's a cinch, Schaffer's job isn't always that easy. "There are a lot of Friday nights," he said, "that the last thing I want to do is go out and see another movie. Some of the movies I see are really bad." And after the movie, Schaffer had some work to do , write a review to air the following Wednesday. "I can't really say much now," Schaffer said. "But I thought it was a really clever movie. Everything fit together. I thought it was really cool."

We found the movie fun, and, at times exciting, but it seemed contrived and silly and too full of advertisements. It was entertaining, but compared to the high standards we had set after seeing the original, we were a bit let down. Of course the evening as a whole will be remembered long after the movie itself is forgotten. Being escorted in luxury by famous people we had heard of made us feel like stars. After our exciting evening of entertainment, we were ready to fill out KISS 108 job applications.n