Shall we play a game?

25 years ago a brilliant movie was released. I watched this movie countless times as a kid - on TV, on beta max, on VHS. Yesterday that brought that movie back for one night to the big screen all over the country. That movie was War Games. If you are not familiar with this film than I highly recommend you go out and rent it - trust me, it's the best 114 minutes you will spend this weekend.

The basic idea of the movie is that a high school kid hacks into the back end of a military computer and starts a worldwide nuclear war, though he thinks he's just playing a game. This was before personal computers were common place in the American household. There were no laptops in every coffee shop, no such thing as the internet. It was the forefront of what was soon to be possible. It was also released at a time when the threat of an all out nuclear war was something that still hung in the minds of most individuals as one of the scariest things imaginable (not to say that this is not something that is still pretty freaking scary today).

My family loved this movie. So yesterday my mom drove to Harvard, IL and took a Metra into the city. My brother jumped on the Metro in DC and headed out to Virginia (he originally wanted to go to NY but by the time he got in touch with his friend, they were sold out). And even though we were separated by time zones and many miles we all settled into watch this long time favorite on the big screen together.

It aired at 7:30 p.m. regardless of where you were so my brother actually got a jump start on the viewing pleasure. Here in Chicago we got to the theater probably about the time he was starting (so basically ridiculously early) and settled into wait. The show began with nice never before seen interviews and history of the film, a really crappy preview for the sequel they are making and eventually the originally story began. The audience was pretty decent, some loud laughter at moments, especially during the old technology scenes, but overall not too chatty. Then two thirds of the way through it happened.

The scene is at night and the two kids have decided not to give up hope and are trying to find a way back to the mainland (watch the movie and this will all make sense), when the screen goes dark. Yup. Dark. Movie stopped, no idea what has happened. The whole audience audibly groans. People start to get fidgety and complain. Then we all burst out laughing. Because there in the corner of the screen, faint and almost ghost like is the image of a "start" button from a computer screen. That's right. A start menu button. In the middle of the movie about a computer who learns and takes over military nuclear warheads. It was great. Almost as good was when I pulled out my phone to see what time it was and saw I had a text message from my brother. It read - "Hope ur movie went ok. Ours crashed towards the end. Computer problem. The irony is great."

Halfway across the country the movie crashed in the same damn place. He was right, and the irony was just getting better. Our film eventually started back up and we got to go to the glorious end. Turns out they never got the east coast up and running again - guess being an hour behind isn't such a bad thing some days.