MATINEE (1993)

Man meets Ant... MANT

Premiere

Special Effects

Title: Matinee
Year: 1993
Director: Joe Dante
Format: Blu-ray
Label: Arrow Video

Notes:

MATINEE is quite an odd film. Billed as a comedy it's actually more of a loving homage to the golden age of sci-fi cinema with some cold-war satire thrown in. It tells the tale of a cinematic 'shock expert' who needs to keep innovating in audience immersion techniques to get people to see his ropey films. But it's also a fairly wholesome coming-of-age drama.

It's funny in parts but not exactly full of  jokes. John Goodman has some good lines and plays an amiable cynic well. Every scene from the spoof monster movie MANT! includes a funny line but your enjoyment of the referential humour will probably be determined by your affection for 50s and 60s sci-fi b-movies. The film is decorated with contemporary film posters and comics that are a delight to notice. I first saw the film around the time in was released (it probably went to TV pretty quickly!) and most of this would have gone over my head but I remember it well enough to seek out a viewing over 20 years later, so perhaps it does have some universality.

This is not a film with any great stand-out scenes so the screen-grabs above really just serve to give a suggestion of the feel of the film.

All in all this is feelgood fodder but there's a little twist to the happy ending with an unexpected shot of a US military helicopter on a flyby reminding us of the likely impermanence of the young couple's innocent youth. Sneaky.