MATINEE (1993) Four stars
I still cannot believe, Mr. Sisney, that it took you until 2018 to finally see MATINEE. Better late than never, though.

I know, right, especially since Joe Dante’s one of my favorite directors and I cannot think of a single time when he’s let me down.

Just rattle off the titles to prove the case that Dante’s an American cinematic treasure of the highest degree.

We have PIRANHA (1978), THE HOWLING, GREMLINS, INNERSPACE, THE ‘BURBS, GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH, SMALL SOLDIERS, and LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION.

Please don’t forget “It’s A Good Life,” his segment from the highly uneven TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE or that Dante was pursued to direct a third JAWS film planned as a horror spoof titled JAWS 3, PEOPLE 0.

Oh, if only that would have been made rather than what turned out to be JAWS 3.

Or just imagine Dante’s remake of Dario Argento’s INFERNO.

Yeah, you’re right, Dante’s INFERNO just rolls straight off the tongue.

Oh, Dante also directed an early dance sequence in ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, the one when Mary Woronov’s fascist Principal Togar meets P.J. Soles’ Riff Randell for the first time, I do believe. Apparently Dante helped out fellow director Allan Arkush when the latter suffered from exhaustion.

I generally prefer Dante over both Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, who often strayed too far over into strained seriousness for their (and our) own good.

Few directors have been as explicit as Dante about being an unabashed film buff with a steady stream of references and that’s just one of the many joys found within his films. Granted, you don’t have to be a film buff to enjoy a Dante movie, but the pleasures can be limitless if you are one.

MATINEE expresses that more than any other Dante film.

It gives us an independent film producer named Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), visiting Key West, Florida, to promote his latest greatest monster movie named MANT!, a half-man, half-ant epic in “Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama!”

It also gives us Gene Loomis, our resident teenage film buff who knows just about everything there is to know about the movies. You can just bet your bottom dollar that Dante was like that growing up.

Woolsey’s latest masterwork comes in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and why, of course, you can’t have a frivolous entertainment like “Mant!” in the middle of the Cold War, the Red Scare, and, of course, nothing less than the End of the World.

That’s why you have concerned citizens (a.k.a. busybodies, killjoys, spoilsports) like the members of Citizens for Decent Entertainment milling around. Of course, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Woolsey initially calls to mind Alfred Hitchcock, but there’s also William Castle (inspiration for Woolsey), Samuel Z. Arkoff, Roger Corman, and other figures of a bygone era evoked throughout MATINEE.

Castle perpetuated enough gags for a lifetime and he filmed HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL in “Emergo,” THE TINGLER in “Percepto,” and 13 GHOSTS in “Illusion-O.”

Film director John Waters touched on Castle, the director who made Waters want to make films (yes, blame it on Castle, lol): “William Castle simply went nuts. He came up with ‘Coward’s Corner,’ a yellow cardboard booth, manned by a bewildered theater employee in the lobby. When the Fright Break was announced, and you found that you couldn’t take it anymore, you had to leave your seat and, in front of the entire audience, follow yellow footsteps up the aisle, bathed in a yellow light. Before you reached Coward’s Corner, you crossed yellow lines with the stenciled message: ‘Cowards Keep Walking.’ You passed a nurse (in a yellow uniform?…I wonder), who would offer a blood-pressure test. All the while a recording was blaring, ‘Watch the chicken! Watch him shiver in Coward’s Corner!’ As the audience howled, you had to go through one final indignity – at Coward’s Corner you were forced to sign a yellow card stating, ‘I am a bona fide coward.'”

Meanwhile, Arkoff, through American International Pictures, produced everything from the Beach Party movies to biker films to Pam Grier to Ralph Bakshi to C.H.O.M.P.S. Arkoff created his own formula, The Arkoff Formula: Action, Revolution, Killing, Oratory, Fantasy, Fornication.

Corman, through both AIP and New World Pictures, directed or produced such notables as ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, A BUCKET OF BLOOD, THE WASP WOMAN, THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, TARGETS, DEATH RACE 2000, GRAND THEFT AUTO, PIRANHA, and ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL. Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Sylvester Stallone, James Cameron and, of course, Dante are just a few of the famous names who got their start or big break working for Corman behind or in front of the camera.

You might say that they don’t make ’em like they used to, back in the glory days of Castle, Arkoff, Corman, et cetera.

That’s not true and Dante’s films are exhibits for good “B” movies still being made.

Dante cast regulars Robert Picardo, Kevin McCarthy, Belinda Balaski, and, of course, “that guy” Dick Miller are in MATINEE. Miller has appeared in every one of Dante’s films, and he’s one of the main links with the cinematic past and present. I’m always glad to see Miller.

Both the main story of MATINEE and the film-within-the-film work, and I’ve largely touched on just the film buff aspect of the production.

Bottom line: MATINEE gets straight to the heart of why we love movies both good and bad. Just look at that beautiful advertising poster.