I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did. I wanted this to be one of the overlooked gems of the 90's, but after seeing it, I now kinda get why it got passed over.
I thought Matinee it was more of a loving, goofy biopic of schlock-meister William Castle, the b-movie producer. Something along the lines of Tim Burton's Ed Wood. It isn't. John Goodman's boisterous movie producer, Lawrence Woolsey is clearing modeled after Castle, but director Joe Dante's focus isn't really telling a showbiz story or a story about the movies and their pioneers. Instead, he tries to gather as many threads of early 60's nostalgia and weave them into a light-hearted time capsule shot through a rose-coloured lens. His weaving skills, and the script are little sloppy though. There are about 2 too many protagonists and the movie sets Goodman up as one of them, but then relegates him to a supporting role, letting a pair of pre-teen boys drive the story forward. By the end of the film you feel like a lot has happened. It breathlessly cycles through a host of characters, moods and gags, but nothing overly substantial remains. It's busy.
It's 1962 in Key West Florida and Lawrence Woolsey is crashing the town with his newest horror film, Mant (about a man fused with an ant through nuclear radiation, of course). He's hoping to scare up a sold out screening and build positive buzz before rolling out the show in other cities. He's brought along his full arsenal of gimmicks too, including joy-buzzer rigged theatre seats, wall-shaking bass speakers and a man in an ant costume to run through the aisles. He's also brought along two of his b-character actors posing as concerned, morally-upright citizens opposed to the screening of the horror film. These two stage mock protests, handing out pamphlets in front of the theatre and arguing that it will corrupt the town's youth with its depravity. This has the intended effect of stoking the fires among the local kids and teenagers who are looking for that next taboo thrill. The pretend picketers are played by Roger Corman alumni Dick Miller (cult film character actor royalty) and director John Sayles, both of whom, like Dante himself, are products of Corman's New World Films stable.
The Mant screening catches the attention of Gene, a teenaged horror-hound and Woolsey fan who lives on the army base. Gene's father has shipped out to sea for some top secret mission. That mission turns out to be the encircling of Cuba and the tense missile crisis that manifested America's nuclear nightmares into 2 weeks of palpable apocalyptic dread. All the adults in Matinee are gripped by fear (all but Woolsey of course). They stock their bomb shelters, clutch their ham radios and watch their children go outside to play like it's the last time they'll ever see them. The kids for the most part pay no attention to the political noise and fear that plays like a hum in the background of their lives. The kids remain kids and their priorities barely shift in the face of oblivion.
Gene has eyes for the school weirdo, Sandra, who gets her politics and distaste for authority from her proto-hippie parents. Then there's Stan, Gene's new friend who is trying to score a date with the school hottie without getting a his ass kicked from her greaser/beat poet ex-boyfriend. All these little threads are cute but very familiar, and the film keeps shifting its focus between them until I was no longer sure who or what the focus was. And all the while I just wanted to spend more time with Goodman's Woolsey. Part huckster, part idealist dreamer, Woolsey is a man with an odd passion. Woolsey will do anything to scare his audiences, whether its electrocuting their asses or turning their nuclear fears against them with fourth wall destroying mushroom clouds. But he's not a sadist. He wants to shake people up and give them the gift of feeling alive. He wants to materialize their worst fears in the darkness of a theatre, and then turn on the lights and show them that everything is okay. Woolsey trades in shock and relief. He's an endearing character and Goodman is a fantastic and ever-reliable character actor, so naturally he makes what few scenes he has with Woolsey jump off the screen. I just wish there were more of him.
All the little storylines culminate in the anticipated matinee screening of Mant and that's where Dante really plays the hysteria of the Cuban missile crisis against the gimmicky goosing and jumpy scares of Woolsey's circus showman approach to movies. It's cute stuff, but I just saw it at the wrong time. At 31, I'm not old enough to appreciate the 60's nostalgia, nor young enough to appreciate the once familiar thrill of escaping to the theatre with your friends. I wish I had seen this in '93 when I was 13 and was myself in love with the magic of movie theatres.
Throughout Matinee, I kept trying to figure out who Dante and Universal Pictures had made this movie for. Was it baby boomers and their fond memories or preteens looking for a PG movie they could see with their friends and cut loose to, like Gene and Stan do with Mant? I think Dante tries to please both, but I'm almost certain he lost the kids. Matinee was likely a disappointment for Dante and Universal when it was released. The title alone probably caused much confusion at multiplexes (why is the matinee playing at 7pm and what in hell is the movie called?) Matinee was clearly a labor of love for Dante (one of my personal favourites), a director who started in B-movies and then made a legitimate career out of lovingly spoofing them. I can see the same impulses for comic chaos that he brought to The Howling and Gremlins. But I just didn't connect with it like I did those other movies. Wrong time, wrong place.
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