Matinee

MOVIE #1,884 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.14.24 This might be the smartest Joe Dante film yet. A film he said got made on a fluke (“The company that was paying for us went out of business and didn't have any money. Universal, which was the distributor, had put in a little money, and we went to them and begged them to buy into the whole movie, and to their everlasting sorrow they went ahead and did it”). Based on a William Castle-type independent filmmaker (played by John Goodman), this was Dante’s worst performing film of the 80s and 90s. But — and I realize I’m sounding like a broken record now — it’s still really good. Goodman — who plays this role with a certain amount of charming revelry and honesty (he's not the cynical huckster I was expecting) — is another actor who is perfectly suited for Dante's sensibilities, and the picture features a few of his usual stalwarts (special shout-out to Robert Picardo, who is a total chameleon and shines in every one of his supporting roles).

William Castle — whose 13 Ghosts I reviewed last year — was known for his gimmicky B-movies which often involved some physical aspect in addition to the film (see a list here). Matinee centers around Goodman’s Castle-esque movie-within-the-movie called Mant! which features several gimmicks based on real ones from the late 50s/early 60s. Mant!, however, is more than a gimmick here, as Dante essentially directed a second movie, nearly in full (and it's so good). It’s all set against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which gives it another layer of sociopolitical commentary. In a callback to the famous scene in Gremlins 2 where the film reel turns off, there is trompe-l'œil footage of an atomic bomb mushroom cloud beamed from the projector in order to clear the theater before the balcony collapses…


With the 90s, Dante's films started a shift towards content geared for a younger audience — as this and Small Soldiers feature child actors in prominent roles (I recognized two from TV shows I watched here: Omri Katz from Eerie Indiana — which coincidentally, I'll be watching in full later this week as Dante was heavily involved — and Kellie Martin from Life Goes On) — but what stood out to be is how he still never loses his bite. I had never seen this run of films before and was a bit weary there would be fall-off, but that is simply not the case. They’re excellent!

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,883 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,885 ⫸

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Matinee is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Joe Dante. It is about a William Castle-type independent filmmaker, with the American home front during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop. The film stars John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Robert Picardo, Kellie Martin, and Jesse White (in his final theatrical film role). It was written by Jerico Stone and Charles S. Haas, the latter portraying Mr. Elroy, a schoolteacher. Despite critical acclaim, the film was a box office failure. It was released on January 29, 1993.