Anyone know this movie?

[matt89670]

Saw this when I was a kid and now I'm trying to find it again. It was a post-apocalyptic type movie with ruined cities and a breakdown in society, probably made in the 70s or 80s or early 90s. What I remember was people were very distrustful of each other and walked around carrying guns. Two scenes I remember, a mother carries a rifle to her son's room and uses it to open the door and wake him, because he has a gun under his pillow. When he goes downstairs his dad gives him some bullets before he leaves the house. The son goes to play some arcade game about politeness. He has an arcade style gun and video simulations pop up (such as a neighbor offering lemonade) and he has to give an appropriate response. After he leaves the arcade, he comes across 2 other guys and the three of them are in a standoff until some floating VR creature appears overhead. That's all I remember. If anyone knows the name of this movie I'd appreciate it.

[dean]

Sorry matt, no idea.  Though the date range spanning three decades is very specific. :-P

I kid, of course.

But that video game about politeness sounds like a wacky one.  What was an appropriate response to the neighbour offering lemonade?  Shoot them with a light gun and then steal his lemonade?

[matt89670]

No, a neighbor pops up offering lemonade and the guy shoots her in the game. He doesn't get points and an "appropriate" response would have been to say no thank you or something. I saw the movie before 1994 so it was made sometime before then, hence spanning 3 decades, probably 80s though.

[ulthar]

I know this is NOT it, but for some reason (the floating VR head reference I think) made me think of the second segment of NIGHTMARES - "The Bishop of Battle."  I don't think it had a lemonade stand, though.

[Herodotus]

No name either, but I recall the ending:

*******Spoilers Alert*****
He plays the game for a long time and almost reaches his goal of the highest score, but he doesn't get his tokens into the game on time to keep it going and doesn't break the record. The expectation is he'll go nuts, instead he accepts it and thus the screen announces he's set the new record. The kid returns home a mellow and nicer person which freaks his mother out and she shoots him. The end.

***************
Its seemd like it was something I saw as a short subject on SciFi or USA back in the ealry 90's and it seemed either British or Aussie.
  Now I've got to go hunting for this, its driving me nuts. LOL

[Inyarear]

It does sound like a heck of a story; the point of it seems to be that if society were as violent as some of our video games currently are, people would be making video games about peaceful activities instead of the violent ones they make for us now when we're mostly insulated from real violence. It reminds me of an old satirical story in which Santa Claus tells an American girl that he's bringing her little brother a toy rocket launcher for Christmas; when she tells him she'd prefer for him to bring her brother a peaceful little rubber ball instead, Santa replies "Sorry. They've all been shipped out already to fill children's orders in Iran."

As to what the name of your movie would be, I haven't the foggiest. I tried looking up "lemonade" on the Internet Movie Database, but so far I don't see anything quite matching your description. It sounds made-for-TV, since you mention it was a short. Maybe it was an episode of something? I'd suggest telling us not just what you remember for sure, but also anything you tentatively remember. When I was looking for a movie from my childhood that turned out to be The Great Land of Small, I didn't quite get every detail right from memory, but I was close enough that my search terms finally turned it up on a search engine. See if you can remember anything about the how the characters looked, or how they acted. How old was the son, do you think? How about the mother? How were the people dressed? See if you can give us more peripheral details like that.

[matt89670]

Thanks Herodotus. I'm glad someone else has seen it. We just can't remember it.  lol   I'm starting to wonder if it was an episode of the outer limits or twilight zone? Well keep me updated if you find any more info.

[Yaddo 42]

If it was possibly on USA, maybe it was an episode of "The Ray Bradbury Theater" or the new Alfred Hitchcock show, both shows aired around the time window the OP mentioned. Just a shot in the dark but it doesn't sound out of line with some of the episodes from those series.

[matt89670]

Just a followup: Has anyone found out anything else about this show? Still waiting to find out what show it was.

[Herodotus]

I've had no luck looking for this one. I've gone to the IMDB and done a search on English language, short films from between 1980-1995 but nothing came up that seemed like that title.

[matt89670]

Any new updates? I keep wondering what that show was. Anyone know or have an idea?

[Andrew]

Afraid nothing new, but it will remain here as an active topic until someone posts an answer.

If we get enough "unsolved" topics that have been inactive for a long period, I will probably create a child board called "unsolved archives" for them.  That way, they can still be identified as needing an answer, but separate from topics that have not gone stale yet.

[matt89670]

Some good news. I finally found out the name. It's called "Arcadia". It was a british short done around 1990. http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=111110

Now I just need help finding a viewable copy. That's the bad news.