Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Stephen Abell This is a strange film that sits in a weird void between genres and styles and thus doesn't seem to work quite as well as Joe Dante's other works. The good thing is that you can tell this is a Joe Dante film, so if you liked Gremlins, Small Soldiers, Innerspace, etc, then you will probably enjoy this tale.It's set at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and try's to build on the troubles and worries of the people at this period in time. Enter Lawrence Woolsey, played enthusiastically by John Goodman and his assistant Ruth Corday, portrayed by Cathy Moriarty, who is in town to promote his new B-movie "MANT!", for which he is also pushing "Atomo- Vision". Then there's the story of the town's teenagers, who become involved in helping Woolsey in his venture. However, this is where the story starts to fall flat as some of these tales are bland, to the point of boring. Simon Fenton, playing Gene Loomis, gives an okay performance. Though the rest of the younger cast are below average, which is a shame as Omri Katz did good work on Hocus Pocus and Eerie, Indiana; and Kellie Martin who has given decent performances throughout her ongoing career. Robert Picardo gives a wonderful comic performance as the Theater Manager, Howard, who is more interested in the Crisis than what's happening in his movie theatre.There are some good scenes in the film, especially concerning the B- movie "MANT!", and Joe Dante's direction, John Goodman's and Robert Picardo's acting keep it just interesting enough to keep your finger off the stop and eject button.If one Sunday winter afternoon there's nothing on worth watching and this appears in the guide, then I would say, "grab a coffee and some chocky biscuits, settle down and chill to this movie."

Predrag All or most of director Joe Dante's films can be considered fun popcorn movies, something that is for both the kids and the adults, for genre fans and for fans of film in general. Dante gained recognition with the huge hit Gremlins, which Steven Spielberg produced. But in 1993, Dante decided to make a rather personal film, a pseudo-biography of filmmaker and 'shock-expert,' William Castle, renamed in the film 'Matinee' as Lawrence Woolsey (played with the perfect amount of schlock by John Goodman). John Goodman has never bettered his performance from this movie. Best thing about this story is Goodman's b&w movie, Mant! It's loaded with bad puns like, (Bill's wife:) "Oh, why can't they see Bill as a man and just put the insect aside?" Bill, who's been transformed into a giant ant panics and says, "Insecticide??!!??" Goodman uses two minor fright film actors to stir up trouble (and publicity) in town by bad mouthing Mant.Although a point can be made that "Matinee" is just a kid's movie, it's also for us older folks who can remember being a youngster in 1962, the music, culture and movies that enriched our lives but also events like the Missile Crisis, which so vividly reminded us in the words of John Kennedy, "that we are all mortal." Dante is not stupid, so he just does not pay a tribute to the old time gone, but to the old time spirit. That of dreamers, sometimes even naif, like John Goodman's characters. That of a certain cinema that still relied on simple effects and a straightforward way to engage people. That of an audience that still believed in what they saw on the big screen. As usual, Dante's movie manage to be instant-classic, innovative but with an eye looking back to the tradition and a pure independent and movie-fan spirit.Overall rating: 9 out of 10.

rooee When a light-hearted, nostalgic comedy opens with a nuclear explosion, you know you're onto something weird and original. Yet it's also comfortingly familiar. Matinée was made seven years after Back to the Future and is set (in 1962) seven years afterwards. In its style and tone it echoes Robert Zemeckis's blockbuster, but it wasn't embraced nearly so warmly by audiences.Maybe it's because the backdrop is the harder sell of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Gene (Simon Fenton) is a young teen who lives on a naval base, and he's coming to terms with an absent military father who may never return. Some solace is arriving, however, as the B-movie tycoon Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) is coming to town to show off his new half-man/half-ant opus… "Mant".The film establishes a broad cast of characters to populate Key West, including Gene's buddy Stan (Omri Katz), who's obsessed with the flirty Sherry (Kellie Martin). Gene himself, meanwhile, is courting the CND-conscious Sandra (Mrs Doubtfire's Lisa Jakub). While the parents panic about the impending nuclear annihilation, the schoolboys bicker and talk about girls.The first half of the movie focuses on establishing the many characters, while the second half is dominated by the premiere of Mant itself and the (mostly) orchestrated chaos surrounding it. Suffice to say, the build-up – which does suffer slightly from minor character overload – is justified by the pay-off. The kids must sign a waiver before entering the theatre, and with good reason. "This crowd is turning into a mob," the producer yells at Woolsey – "congratulations!"Writer Charles S. Haas has a brilliant ear for taut, funny dialogue that doesn't rely on punchlines, and the teenage dynamics are brilliantly observed. (The boys, anyway – the girls are more thinly sketched.) At the core of the film is Woolsey, whom we first see in Hitchcock-style silhouette, warning the audience about "atomic mutation". Goodman absolutely relishes his role, gleefully feeding his "AtomoVision!" and "Rumble-Rama!" to an audience hungry for event movie gimmicks.Woolsey sees a business opportunity in the lightning-in-a-bottle moment of the Missile Crisis, keen to capitalise on the heightened national anxiety. Yet rather than making him the monster, the film skilfully presents Woolsey as a hero. Through him the film puts forth its paen to cinema as entertainment, and also a philosophical argument for the cathartic value of movie monsters as a way of exorcising a society's demons.As with Tim Burton's masterpiece Ed Wood, director Joe Dante displays total affection for his subject matter, namely the monster flicks of the 1950s and '60s. Every period movie you can think of is referenced, but particularly Kurt Neumann's The Fly. We see plenty of footage of Mant and it is entirely convincing (by which I mean appropriately unconvincing), and avoids mocking its myriad sources."Put the insect aside!" one character begs the half-man/half-ant, to which he replies, "Insecticide? Where?!" Meanwhile, in the world of Dante's film, Woolsey is hurling special effects around the auditorium, spilling smoke and rumbling seats, literally bringing the house down. When the Mant cast start directly referencing the Matinée audience, who are in turn being watched by us, it feels like Amblin's answer to Inception.For those who enjoy the smart satire of The 'Burbs and the frenetic farce of Gremlins, this is a similarly genre-dodging yet relatively overlooked Dante classic. It's a film about films they don't make anymore – and, in our less kind-spirited age of comedy archness, they really don't make them like this anymore.

Coventry This isn't such a very well known film (at least I never heard of it before I watched it) and actually that is a god-awful shame, as "Matinee" is a joyously vivid, versatile and refreshingly imaginative little comedy. "Matinee" is director Joe Dante's ultimate tribute to typically 50's Sci-Fi B-movies and massively promoted gimmick-laden low-budget flicks; particularly the repertoire of the legendary William Castle. In one of his most glorious roles to date, John Goodman depicts the unscrupulous and sleazy horror movie producer Lawrence Woolsey, who is practically the reincarnation of William Castle, what with his sly and shameless salesmanship techniques and continuous wide-mouthed smile. At the highpoint of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Woolsey jaunts out to Key West – where the Navy and population hectically prepares for a bomb attack – in order to proudly present his newest and supposedly most shocking motion picture named "Mant". "Mant" is a silly shock feature about a man slowly mutating into a gigantic ant after being exposed to nuclear radiation, and for the big premiere Woolsey stuffed the film theater with horrid decorations and gimmicks to raise extra fear in the audience. With the threat of actual bombing attack going on outside the theater, Woolsey bumps into a lot of protest and resistance from the adult population in Key West, but luckily the younger and horror-crazed generation are wildly enthusiast about the upcoming matinée preview. With "Matinee", the still incredibly underrated director Joe Dante delivered another delicious and charming movie. The extended bits and clips from the fictional movie "Mant" masterfully capture the essence of 1950's B-movie cinema, with grotesque ideas and effects, cheesy nonsensical dialogs and wooden acting performances. The real William Castle actually never made such a type of monster movie, but the gimmicks and promotional stunts (like buzzers underneath the seats and guys in rubber suits running around) are right up his delightful alley! But "Matinee" is a terrifically clever movie on other levels as well. Apart from a wonderful homage to horror cinema, it also contains an admirable "coming of age" sub plot and it effectively parodies the mass hysteria going on around the time of the Cold War. Whilst the adult population of Key West practices their duck & cover bomb alarms and prepare their shelters, the teenagers are more concerned about finding a date to go see "Mant" on Saturday. The acting performances are fantastic (like his monster "Mant", John Goodman himself is larger than life!), the decors and atmosphere of the early 60's are marvelously re-enacted and – in good old Joe Dante tradition – there are multiple cameos of horror veterans, like Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy and Robert Cornthwaite. This is truly a film meant for genuine horror movie buffs, but nevertheless a stupendously enjoyable comedy for all type of audiences.