Matinee

Year of Release:  1993
Director:  Joe Dante
Screenplay:  Charles S. Haas, from a story by Charles S. Haas and Jericho Stone 
Starring:  John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton. Omri Katz, Kellie Martin, Lisa Jakub
Running Time:  99 minutes
Genre:  Comedy

Key West, Florida, October 1962:  Flamboyant B-movie producer Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman) comes to town to preview his latest epic, a science-fiction/horror film called Mant!.  However the Cuban Missile Crisis has started and the town is in a state of red alert.  Young horror fan, Gene Loomis (Fenton) is one of the Naval kids whose father is on a blockade ship around Cuba.  On Saturday night at the movies, teenage romance, on-screen horror, and real-life fear collide.

This is a fun period comedy film.  It works as a celebration of cinema itself and horror in particular, the film-within-the-film, Mant!, is a very funny recreation of those terrible atomic age B-movies from the 1950s and '60s.  John Goodman is pitch perfect as the twinkly, enthusiastic Lawrence Woolsey who, with his gimmick-laden shows, seems to be based on real-life producer/director William Castle.  The film also features Cathy Moriarty, as Woolsey's long-suffering wife and lead actress.  The main focus of the film are the kids, Gene (Simon Fenton), his little brother (Jesse Lee), his best friend Stan (Omri Katz), rebellious Sandra (Lisa Jakub) and Stan's love interest Sherry (Kellie Martin), whose ex-boyfriend is a violent thug and aspiring poet.  The usual teen movie hijinks are present here, but it's all set against the backdrop of this looming threat of imminent nuclear annihilation, which during the Cuban Missile Crisis was seen as not so much if as when.  The appeal of horror films is partly because the onscreen horrors can act as a release and a respite from the real horrors of life, which can seem lessened, and this film deals with that.  The film has  a great soundtrack of period songs, and also pokes fun at various other aspects of 1962 such as beatniks, and weird fantasy family films with another film-within-a-film, The Shook-Up Shopping Cart, which features an early appearance form Naomi Watts.  There are also appearances form B-movie stalwart and Dante regular Dick Miller and actor/writer and director John Sayles.
This is a hugely enjoyable film, which manages to balance laughs, nostalgia, and drama.

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