Product Description

John Goodman is at his uproarious best as the gregarious creator of sci-fi thrillers, circa 1962, who brings his unique brand of showmanship to the unsuspecting residents of Key West, Florida for the premiere of his latest offering on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32534 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-07-22
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.com
Matinee offers one of the best matches of director and screenplay that you're ever likely to find. Raised on a steady diet of 1950s monster movies, Joe Dante later contributed to the genre with such films as Gremlins and Explorers, but it was Charlie Haas's script for Matinee that gave Dante a perfect platform for comedy, dramatic context, and nostalgic homage. Set in Florida during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the movie focuses on a schlock-movie promoter named Woolsey (inspired by real-life producer William Castle and played to perfection by John Goodman) who arrives in Key West with his latest Grade-Z extravaganza, Mant, about the raving half-man/half-ant product of "science run amuck." (This movie-within-a-movie is a perfect tribute by Dante, who cast B-movie stalwarts in the kind of roles they'd built careers on.)

Balancing youthful exuberance with the ominous threat of nuclear attack, Dante finds his alter ego in Simon Fenton, who plays a 15-year-old captivated by Woolsey's cheesy showmanship. This affectionate devotion is matched by Dante, who captures the anxiety of the missile crisis even as Matinee delivers an abundance of humor. Director John Sayles and Dante-movie veteran Dick Miller have cameos as Woolsey's show-biz accomplices, and Cathy Moriarty is brilliant as Woolsey's wisecracking mistress and Z-movie queen. All of this makes Matinee a polished gem that's sweetly entertaining while staying true to the serious context of its story. It's the movie Joe Dante was born to direct. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
Joe Dante's film is a big-budget comedy about the joys of low-budget monster movies, and it's not quite cheesy enough to do justice to its subject. The action takes place in Key West during the Cuban missile crisis, of 1962. For the children and teen-agers in town, nuclear anxiety is mixed with anticipation of a different sort: they're psyched for the première of "Mant," a mutant-on-the-rampage picture about a creature who is "half man, half ant-all terror!" The movie's producer, Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), is coming to town, too, mostly to help the theatre manager rig the offscreen gimmickry that will give his cheaply made shocker the aura of a big event. (The trailer advertises special processes called Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama.) Dante and the screenwriter, Charlie Haas, treat him as a philosopher-king of schlock. The picture has its moments-especially in the black-and-white scenes from "Mant" itself-but it's disappointingly tame. Too often, the filmmakers settle for the gentle, amiable tone of a "Wonder Years" episode. Nostalgia for cultural innocence is a pretty thin emotion to base a feature film on. In the end, this feels like a memorabilia show, a collection of Kennedy-era artifacts preserved in glass cases. Also with Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Kellie Martin, Jesse White, and Dick Miller. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

This is a WUNDERFUL movie
i really, really, really love this movie! it's sweet and fun and really cool. it's one of my favorites ever because it deals with really cool, corny cheaply made horror films which are really hilarious. john goodman makes a charming, whimsical, and endearing performance as a visionary film maker and the younger stars of the film are really amazing too. what can i say, this is the best and if you don't buy this, rent it!

Is This MY Life?
I was 12 years old during the Cuban Missle Crisis, in love with cheap, schlocky horror movies (ANYTHING with Vincent Price!), and had a subscription to "Famous Monsters of Filmland" Magazine, so, except for living in Florida (I lived in Hollywood - well - Los Angeles, the only place for a film fanatic to grow up) this could be my biography. When the boy is shown with monster magazines spread all over his bed, they're real magazines from the period, and I had every last blessed one of them! I also had the monster models in his bedroom. When he turns into a fount of movie minutia at lunch, he IS me at school lunch, the kid who knew the difference between William Castle and Roger Corman, who couldn't have mistaken Dick Miller, who knew every trivial fact about every trivial horror movie ever made, and who would share them all with anyone in earshot. This hilarious yet heartfelt movie pushed all my nostalgia buttons. Even now, I can say what's that poster for "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" doing in a 1962 movie theater when the film hadn't even been shot yet? I remember the panic in our local grocery store during the missle crisis, and it was exactly as Dante shows it in the film. It's my favorite John Goodman performance. He was born to play William Castle, aka "Lawrence Woolsey". This is Joe Dante at his best. Apparently he and I had the exact same childhood.

You must sign a liability release "In case you die of fright"
This has to be the most under-rated, under-valued and criminally under-seen film of all time. Funny, touching, nostalgic in a good way, a wonderful tribute to the very joy of film itself and, the clincher, a cast of kids that never get on your nerves.

John Goodman has never bettered his performance from this movie. If you love the movies, you'll love this film. See it; then see it again and again. It really is the undiscovered artistic masterpiece of the 20th Century. I look forward to this movie on HD-DVD.

Until 'Man Conquers Space' comes out, we have Matinee!