Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)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.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Matinee (1993)
Step back into a time of outrageous movie-theater gimmicks and larger-than-life B-screen stars in this charming homage to the great sci-fi and horror flicks of the 1950s and 1960s.John Goodman is at his uproarious best as the William Castle-inspired movie promoter Lawrence Woolsey, who brings his unique brand of flashy showmanship to the unsuspecting residents of Key West, Florida.It's 1962, and fifteen-year-old fan Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton) can't wait for the arrival of Woolsey, who is in town to promote his latest offering of atomic power gone berserk, MANT!. But the absurd vision of Woolsey's tale takes on a sudden urgency as the Cuban Missile Crisis places the real threat of atomic horror just 90 miles off the coast. With the help of Gene and Woolsey's leading lady, Ruth (Cathy Moriarty), the master showman gives Key West a premiere they'll never forget. Anything can happen in the movies, and everything does in this hilarious tribute to a more innocent (and outrageous) time in American cinema.
