Escape to midnight movies

Movie event preview: Midnight Movie Madness

By: Danielle Torralba

Posted: 5/13/09

Attention, all you bored and nocturnal individuals.

In a nutshell, summer is a three-month-long weekend for college students. Partying, acting careless and not having to worry about school is the ultimate summer vacation.

For those people who are not professional partiers, but seem to get their second wind in the wee hours of the night, something to check out for your viewing pleasures is Camera Cinema's Midnight Movie Madness.

The midnight movie series starts May 22 and runs for nine weeks, showing a different movie every Friday and Saturday night until mid-July.

The movie locations switch between Camera 7 on Fridays and Camera 12 on Saturdays. Movies range from classics such as "Ghostbusters" and "The Professional" (with Natalie Portman), to upcoming flicks that viewers are looking forward to, such as "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Ticket prices for this event are $7.50 per movie. There is even an occasional bonus where promoters do a little song and dance with the audience, ask trivia questions, and correct answers are awarded T-shirts, CDs, and sometimes even movie memorabilia from the old-school '80s and '90s flicks.

My first Midnight Movie Madness experience happened when I heard that my favorite movie, "The Goonies," was going to be playing at Camera 7. When I showed up, the line proved I was not the only person in San Jose that night who had a die-hard appreciation for Steven Spielberg's '80s flick.

The theater gets packed early, so I recommend showing up 20-30 minutes early, just to factor in bathroom trips and snack retrieval time.

Before the movie even started, promoters were at the bottom of the packed theater asking Goonies trivia questions and giving out prizes for right answers. Viewers were rewarded memorabilia such as stickers, lapel pins and even mini-movie
posters.

If you are the type of person who doesn't like sitting in a possibly jam-packed theater at midnight, the overall experience will not be ruined for you - but even if you are a bit apprehensive, give it a try.

When's the next chance you will be able to hum the Ghostbuster's theme song with a theater full of fellow fans? Probably not anytime soon.