peferguson
"Matinee" (1993) I recently happened upon this likable comedy directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins, Innerspace, The Howling) and set in 1961 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The young protagonist Gene, a recent resident of Key West, FL, finds himself in a small community with no friends, unhappy and forlorn. When word gets out that his Navy dad is on a ship blockading Cuba, he becomes something of a high school celebrity, who gains acceptance by a small circle of friends. Eventually he hooks up with Sandra (Lisa Jakub – Mrs. Doubtfire), who he admires because of her refusal to participate in a school A-bomb drill (stop, drop, cover your head with your hands), because she protests in a scientifically correct manner: the blast will vaporize you or you'll die from radiation exposure. Enter Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) a Hollywood horror movie mogul, who's in town to promote his latest release, "Mant", enlisting Gene's help to make the flick's debut a must-see local event. Actress Ruth Corday, played by Cathy Moriarity (Raging Bull) is Lawrence's girlfriend, in a hilarious, sardonic side-job as the theater nurse who makes all movie patrons sign a medical waiver, "in case you have a heart attack while watching the movie". A litany of great character actors, round out the cast: Kellie Martin (Becca on TV's Life Goes On), Jesse White (Harvey), Kevin McCarthy (B- movie horror king of the 50's & 60s'), Director/Actor John Sayles (Return of Seacaucus Seven) and William Schallert (The Patty Duke Show). Simon Fenton does a fine job as Gene, but the stellar attraction is John Goodman, who is one of the most talented actors in Hollywood, but is perhaps the most underrated. This is currently playing on Starz broadcast & on demand and is available on DVD. This is a good family film and will bring back baby- boomers' memories of the cold war and the "Red Scare".
poe-48833
THE WILLIAM CASTLE STORY (a.k.a. Matinée) is definitely my kinda movie. I caught it during its initial release and decided to revisit it last night. I'm glad I did, but I STILL couldn't warm to the kid who played the lead: he seemed then and still seems now to have been miscast. Other than that, I'm on board with everything else the movie has to offer (which is a lot). (Note: I wrote a script titled DOUBLE FEATURE- a portion of which can be found on the American Zoetrope website- that was a loving tribute to the drive-in, complete with two short features and a gaggle of Coming Attractions that included a live-action version of my black and white comic, KUNG FU CATS. So I was- and AM- in tune with what Dante wrought.) The MANT! costume was GREAT (the Mant himself coming across as perhaps a second cousin to THE FLY) and the cheesy imitation that that Starkweather kid (!) was wearing was just as memorable (in an INVADERS FROM MARS kind of way). And I'd give my lower left tentacle to get my claws on some of those FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLANDs we see strewn about in the movie.
whitesheik
Joe Dante just doesn't know when to stop. That's always been his problem and most likely always will be. So, half of Matinée (the William Castle half) is fun and affectionate mostly, and the MANT scenes, although a little too smart aleck for their own good, are beautifully done. But trying to shoehorn that plot into a cliché-ridden Cuban missile scare story just doesn't work - it simply sucks the energy out of the film, and the climax is truly terrible - they didn't need the drama of the balcony collapsing - it's like Screen writing 101 - "Oh, we need one more really dramatic obstacle here." It's awful and I'm quite certain that it contributed in a large way to the movie's box-office failure. And for those of us who grew up back then, I cannot name you one single occurrence of sitting in a brightly-lit movie theater watching a film. Sorry, Joe, didn't happen. Ever. What would have been so difficult to have it dark in the theater but lit so that you could see everyone. Hundreds of films have done it without much of a problem. That alone keeps taking you completely out of the film.Nice Goldsmith score, well edited, well shot, but, as with a lot of Mr. Dante's films, despite enjoyable parts misses the mark.
zetes
Not really a horror movie, per se, but a family comedy that revolves around B-horror movies. John Goodman plays a William Castle-like horror filmmaker who is premiering his new movie Mant (half-man, half-ant!) in Key West during the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Goodman has imagined Mant as a very interactive experience, with rumbling seats that can give the audience light shocks, pyrotechnics and a man wearing a Mant suit who wanders into the audience at certain points. The movie mostly revolves around the children who are going to see the movie. The film has a lot of problems. The kid characters are all pretty uninteresting, and the main plot of the film, which is about Simon Fenton, a horror fan, missing his father, who is in the military on a boat outside of Cuba, reeks of grade C Spielberg. And the screenwriters figure that they can't have a movie where people are just sitting around watching another movie, so there are a whole bunch of subplots where the kids wander off during the movie to do other stuff. Ironically, the parts where we're watching Mant are by far the best part of the movie. I've heard so much about how good this was for years, and been wanting to see it forever (it was out of print on DVD for years), so I have to say it's a pretty big disappointment. Still, I think it's an okay movie.
AD
