Tracey FrinkMidnight Madness. When campy attacks!
May 30th 2009 06:17
No, I really don't hate this movie. This was one of my acquisitions when I was on a quest to find all of Michael J. Fox's movies and this one was a needle in a haystack. It wasn't a popular realease and sank into movie moratorium long before I had ever heard of it. In 1999, it was brought back on home video and is now on DVD.
Midnight Madness was released by Disney in 1980, Its plot is simple. A graduate student/gaming nerd (who obviously has no other life), Leon, invents the penultimate scavenger hunt called "The Great All-Nighter." Other students pair up into four teams and scour the city of Los Angeles for clues that lead them to various locations (like, the Pabst brewery and LAX), each vying to be the team that hits the final location first.
I will tell you this from experience. If you watch this movie with heavy expectations, you will be disappointed. This is purely an escapist flick, so don't try to analyze it. There isn't any logic there to do so. Just clear your head and go with the flow.
The groups are fairly cliquey. There are the nerds, the feminist sorority girls, the yuppie group (headed by David Naughton) and a motley group consisting of an obnoxious rich guy (played by Stephen Furst), his whiny girlfriend and friends that are obviously there for Furst's money and not for his oh-so-charming personality.
In the middle of this trans-city melee, David Naughton's character literally stumbles upon his younger brother, played by Michael J. Fox, who is trying to hop a bus out of town. Naughton includes Fox in his group, not because he has a soft spot for his movie brother, but because it's the most convenient way to keep him from running away and Naughton can go on with the game (instead of, like, bringing his brother home or something sane and resposible like that).
Miscellaneous trivia moment: This movie marked Michael J. Fox's first appearance in a feature film.
This movie also features a young Pee-Wee Herman a.k.a. Paul Reubens. He plays the "change master" at the arcade.
There is a funny "B story," if you will. It seems our gradute student gaming nerd isn't well loved by his neighbors or his landlady who is just itching for an excuse to evict him. One by one, the neighbors filter in to complain about the noisy gadgets that Leon is using to monitor his gaming teams only to be sucked in to the night-long competition. Of course, the old bat is screaming about evicting him thsi whole time only to have a healthy dose of karma boot her in the butt.
And that is about all there is to tell. This movie is as straight forward as it gets. No, it's not Shakespeare, but it's a good pick for a movie marathon of campy 80s flicks. So, break out the popcorn and enjoy some mindless 80s cheese.
Midnight Madness was released by Disney in 1980, Its plot is simple. A graduate student/gaming nerd (who obviously has no other life), Leon, invents the penultimate scavenger hunt called "The Great All-Nighter." Other students pair up into four teams and scour the city of Los Angeles for clues that lead them to various locations (like, the Pabst brewery and LAX), each vying to be the team that hits the final location first.
I will tell you this from experience. If you watch this movie with heavy expectations, you will be disappointed. This is purely an escapist flick, so don't try to analyze it. There isn't any logic there to do so. Just clear your head and go with the flow.
The groups are fairly cliquey. There are the nerds, the feminist sorority girls, the yuppie group (headed by David Naughton) and a motley group consisting of an obnoxious rich guy (played by Stephen Furst), his whiny girlfriend and friends that are obviously there for Furst's money and not for his oh-so-charming personality.
In the middle of this trans-city melee, David Naughton's character literally stumbles upon his younger brother, played by Michael J. Fox, who is trying to hop a bus out of town. Naughton includes Fox in his group, not because he has a soft spot for his movie brother, but because it's the most convenient way to keep him from running away and Naughton can go on with the game (instead of, like, bringing his brother home or something sane and resposible like that).
Miscellaneous trivia moment: This movie marked Michael J. Fox's first appearance in a feature film.
This movie also features a young Pee-Wee Herman a.k.a. Paul Reubens. He plays the "change master" at the arcade.
There is a funny "B story," if you will. It seems our gradute student gaming nerd isn't well loved by his neighbors or his landlady who is just itching for an excuse to evict him. One by one, the neighbors filter in to complain about the noisy gadgets that Leon is using to monitor his gaming teams only to be sucked in to the night-long competition. Of course, the old bat is screaming about evicting him thsi whole time only to have a healthy dose of karma boot her in the butt.
And that is about all there is to tell. This movie is as straight forward as it gets. No, it's not Shakespeare, but it's a good pick for a movie marathon of campy 80s flicks. So, break out the popcorn and enjoy some mindless 80s cheese.
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