Midwest Movie Night

On his birthday, mechanic George Malley (John Travolta) sees a flash of light and proceeds to exhibit extraordinary mental abilities. He becomes a genius, even showing an ability to move objects with his mind. George wishes to help people, but the government wants to take him in for observation. Soon, George finds out from Dr. Brunder (Robert Duvall) that he has a massive brain tumor. With this new knowledge, George decides to spend his time with girlfriend Lace (Kyra Sedgwick).

After finally achieving the high score on Starfighter, his favorite arcade game, everyday teenager Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) meets the game's designer, Centauri (Robert Preston) -- who reveals that he created Starfighter as a training ground for developing and recruiting actual pilots to help fight a war in space. Whisked away from the banality of his trailer park life to a distant alien planet, Alex struggles to use his video game-playing skills to pilot a real ship, with real lives at stake.

Unpopular nerd Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) buys a 1958 Plymouth Fury, which he names Christine. Arnie develops an unhealthy obsession with the car, to the alarm of his jock friend, Dennis Guilder (John Stockwell). After bully Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander) defaces Christine, the auto restores itself to perfect condition and begins killing off Buddy and his friends. Determined to stop the deaths, Dennis and Arnie's girlfriend, Leigh Cabot (Alexandra Paul), decide to destroy Christine.

The story follows Dr. Russell A. Marvin (Hugh Marlowe), a scientist working on a satellite program for the U.S. military. While on his honeymoon with his new wife, Carolyn Marvin (Joan Taylor), he encounters mysterious flying saucers that have been observing Earth. Initially, the aliens attempt peaceful contact, but miscommunication and human aggression escalate the situation into an all-out battle. The alien fleet, led by The Alien Leader (Thomas Browne Henry, who also plays General John Hanley, Carolyn’s father), begins devastating attacks on major cities with advanced weaponry. Dr. Marvin races against time to develop a counter-weapon that can neutralize the saucers’ defenses. As Washington, D.C. becomes the final battleground, the fate of humanity rests on Marvin’s scientific ingenuity and courage.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) is the sequel to the groundbreaking 1968 film Planet of the Apes. The story follows astronaut Brent (James Franciscus), who is sent to locate Taylor’s (Charlton Heston) missing crew and crash-lands on the same future Earth dominated by intelligent apes. Brent encounters Nova (Linda Harrison), Taylor’s mute companion, who guides him through the perilous ape society. They find themselves caught between the militant General Ursus (James Gregory), who is leading a gorilla army into war, and the more rational Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), who warns of dangers in the Forbidden Zone. Their journey leads them deep underground, where they discover a mutated human cult that worships a doomsday weapon—the Alpha-Omega Bomb. The climax comes as Taylor, Nova, and Brent are thrust into a catastrophic confrontation that threatens both apes and humans.

Once an architect, Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) now passes himself off as an exorcist of evil spirits. To bolster his facade, he claims his "special" gift is the result of a car accident that killed his wife. But what he does not count on is more people dying in the small town where he lives. As he tries to piece together the supernatural mystery of these killings, he falls in love with the wife (Trini Alvarado) of one of the victims and deals with a crazy FBI agent (Jeffrey Combs).

Planet of the Apes (1968) follows astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) who crash-lands on a distant world where apes are the dominant species and humans are mute and enslaved. Captured and put on trial, Taylor finds allies in chimpanzee scientists Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), while facing opposition from the powerful orangutan Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans).

Just as he is on the brink of winning a Senate seat, politician David Norris (Matt Damon) meets a ballerina named Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). Though David is instantly smitten, mysterious men conspire to keep him away from the beautiful dancer. David learns that he is facing the powerful agents of Fate itself, and glimpsing the future laid out for him, must either accept a predetermined path that does not include Elise or else defy Fate to be with her.

In 1866, Professor Pierre M. Aronnax (Paul Lukas) and his assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre), stranded in San Francisco by reports of a giant sea monster attacking ships in the Pacific Ocean, are invited to join an expedition to search for the creature. During the search, they and harpooner Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) are thrown overboard during an attack, eventually discovering that the supposed monster is actually a submarine piloted by the brilliant but haunted Captain Nemo (James Mason).

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966) Don Knotts, Joan Staley, Dick Sargent, Looking to score a break as a newspaper reporter and impress beautiful Alma Parker (Joan Staley), meek typesetter Luther Heggs (Don Knotts) pitches a story about his small town's haunted house. When his editor (Dick Sargent) insists Luther spend a night alone in the spooky mansion, where a grisly murder-suicide had taken place decades earlier, the timid reporter learns that the house contains a supernatural resident who doesn't like visitors.