We Had Ourselves a Real Good Time: Blacula, Dolemite, TNT Jackson, The Devil and Max Devlin

WE HAD OURSELVES A REAL GOOD TIME: BLACULA, DOLEMITE, TNT JACKSON, THE DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN
Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Carlos Villarias, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, George Hamilton, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, and Leslie Nielsen.

That’s a lot of bared fangs, deadly stares, and spectacular deaths over the decades.

Fair warning: Best get outta here with that Tom Cruise, Gerard Butler, Robert Pattinson bull.

Blacula star William Marshall deserves his rightful place among the best screen vampires. For example, he’s definitely better than, oh, let’s say, Carradine, who played Dracula in House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and often looked like somebody had squeezed some fresh lemon juice in his eyes. A few months after Marshall debuted as Black Dracula, Lee appeared in his sixth Dracula film — cleverly titled Dracula A.D. 1972 — and Lee’s spiraling lack of enthusiasm for the role that made him famous bites you right smack dab in the neck.

With his booming voice, commanding screen presence, and legitimate acting chops, Marshall (1924-2003) owns Blacula and makes it infinitely better than some cruddy hunk of cinematic junk like Blackenstein. He brings an unexpected dignity to what might otherwise have been a throwaway film.

Rating: Three stars.

— I enjoyed Dolemite a whole lot more than Disco Godfather, my first Rudy Ray Moore experience, and not only because I’m now calling the former picture Boom Mic Motherfucker.

Disco Godfather lost me by about the millionth or maybe it was by the billionth time Moore (1927-2008) exclaimed Put your weight on it, a slogan that needless to say would not be adopted or adapted by 1980 U.S. Presidential candidates Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and John B. Anderson. Despite the fact that it tried cultivating a social conscience, Disco Godfather needed some weight put on it, because it was the cinematic equivalent of an anorexic crackhead.

Moore has been called The Godfather of Rap and both Dolemite and the character himself almost instantly serve notice why. Jailbird Dolemite’s first lines are Oh, shit. What the hell does that rat-soup-eatin’ motherfucker want with me? One could play a reasonable drinking game with how many times Dolemite utters motherfucker in the movie, because it’s not every time Cheech & Chong say Man in Up in Smoke (reportedly 285 times) or everybody says Carol Anne in Poltergeist III (121). You won’t get wasted, best shit you ever tasted, from Dolemite. You’ll probably feel pretty good and the alcohol will help laughter.

The plot: Dolemite gets released from prison and fights the criminals and corrupt police officers who sent our favorite cinematic pimp up the river in the first place. Really, though, Dolemite is about the profanity, fight scenes, female (we’ll forget about the male) nudity, and complete utter ridiculousness, all of it done over-the-top. Never mind that it’s a time capsule into Bicentennial-Era America filed right alongside Dog Day Afternoon.

To be honest, though, I was distracted from the plot and everything else by the unpaid co-star Boom Mic Visible, who’s absolutely the funniest motherfucker in Dolemite. According to IMDb, The boom mic is visible in many shots of original Xenon VHS to DVD transfer from the 1980s. The film was originally transferred without the proper ratio ‘gate’ of 1:85.1, revealing more of the top and bottom of the frame than the film makers originally intended. The 2016 Vinegar Syndrome Bluray release was re-transferred from an archive print of the film, at the proper ratio, so the boom mics are hidden in many shots. The Bluray release also includes a ‘boom mic’ version of the new transfer, intentionally revealing the boom mics for comic effect.

Now we know.

The actor John Kerry (not that John Kerry) played Detective Mitchell in Dolemite and it’s a missed opportunity that nobody ever asked 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidate John Kerry about his experiences making Dolemite, what Rudy Ray Moore was really like, etc. That’s a real shame.

Rating: Three stars.

— TNT Jackson is definitely not a good movie, but I am still feeling a certain lingering affection for it that other (better) movies wish they could make me feel for them.

What else could be said about some of the worst martial arts sequences ever committed to celluloid, from the very first fists and feet of fury scene all the way to the grand finale. Would you believe punches and kicks that do not connect but still inflict damage? Would you believe the heroine could punch right through the villain? Well, prepare yourself for TNT Jackson.

TNT Jackson falls short of the standard established by similar pictures Coffy and Cleopatra Jones, because, let’s face it, TNT Jackson star Jeannie Bell falls below Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson, respectively. Sure, former playmate and bunny Bell looks absolutely stunning with her great hair, great face, and great body, but she can’t act her way out of a paper bag and we don’t really believe that she could fight her way out of one if she wasn’t the star of the movie. Miss Jackson and her inevitable white chick nemesis (Pat Anderson) wage what’s possibly the worst cat fight ever in the history of the movies. It’s a doozy, and that describes the vast majority of the 72-minute TNT Jackson. Yes, that’s right, 72 minutes, a genuine throwback.

The late, great character actor Dick Miller (1928-2019) earned a screenwriting credit on TNT Jackson, but apparently producer Roger Corman had it rewritten by Ken Metcalfe, who plays the sleazy sub-villain Sid in TNT. Miller does not appear in TNT Jackson.

It’s amazing TNT Jackson romantic lead and main villain Stan Shaw did not get The Sensational, Smooth, Suave, Sophisticated, Stunning Stan Shaw for his screen credit, but maybe just maybe that’s because he overplays his smooth, suave, sophisticated ways so much that we’re tired of his jive real quick. Heck, even Shaw’s afro overplays it throughout TNT Jackson. I’ve not seen this much overacting by hair since, oh, let’s see, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash or maybe I’m mixing up Carol Burnett’s decorative head cover (wait, that’s just part of her costume) with her maracas.

Basically, I can’t hate too much on TNT Jackson like I do Chu Chu (more like Poo Poo and the Poopy Gas), since director Cirio H. Santiago remade TNT a few years later as Firecracker and substituted (white) Jillian Kesner for Bell in the title role. Both movies have similar plot elements, namely infamous topless fights, and Metcalfe in a similar role, but Firecracker does it better.

After watching TNT Jackson, I could not help but gravitate toward AC/DC’s song and the chorus ‘Cause I’m T.N.T., I’m dynamite / T.N.T., and I’ll win the fight / T.N.T., I’m a power load / T.N.T., watch me explode. Bonus points for TNT Jackson, ones that keep it from a two-star rating.

The best version of TNT Jackson is the two-minute promotional trailer put together by Joe Dante and Allan Arkush for New World Pictures circa 1974 or 1975. The voice-over narration takes it to greatness: TNT Jackson, Black Bombshell with a Short Fuse! This Hit Lady’s Charm Will Break Both Your Arms! She’s a One-Mama Massacre Squad! TNT’s Mad and That’s Real Bad! With That Dynamite Bod She’s a Jet Black Hit Squad! A Super Soul Sister and a Bad News Brother Under Cover and Out to Blast a Killer Army That’s Poisoning the People with Deadly China White! You Best Pay the Fine or She’ll Shatter Your Spine! Black Chinatown, Where Flesh is Cheap and Life is Cheaper! TNT Jackson, She’ll Put You in Traction!

Rating: Two-and-a-half stars. Trailer: Four stars.

— Before The Devil and Max Devlin, it had no doubt been a long time since Walt Disney Studios depicted Hell in one of their films.

For example, Hell’s Bells from 1929 and Pluto’s Judgement Day from 1935 leap first to mind, two animated shorts that might blow people’s minds who normally associate animation with cute-and-cuddly innocuous fare at this late point in history.

To be fair to the older films, which are both far superior to the main film currently under consideration, feature length The Devil and Max Devlin doesn’t spend a lot of time in Hell.

Well, actually, according to some former President, right, aren’t California and Hell the same?

I wonder, given the subject matter and the presence of Bill Cosby in one of the starring roles, if The Devil and Max Devlin will go or has already gone the way of the controversial, divisive Song of the South — suppressed for seeming eternity by the folks at Disney. I found them both in the dark, dank recesses of the Internet and I hope that I won’t go to jail or Hell for either cultural sin.

Anyway, I like the locations (especially Hell) and I like the high concepts behind The Devil and Max Devlin like a slumlord trying to save his soul by giving the bad guys three unsullied souls and it turned out to be perfect casting to have Cosby in the role of the Devil’s helper, but the movie gets so bogged down in plot details that it evolves into a real slog and we just want more than anything else in the world at the moment for the movie to finally be over. At least, if nothing else, that’s how The Devil and Max Devlin made me feel watching it.

Rating: Two-and-a-half stars.

A New World Pictures Double Feature: Avalanche & Piranha (1978)

A NEW WORLD PICTURES DOUBLE FEATURE: AVALANCHE & PIRANHA (1978)

Two New World Pictures exploitation films entered the Great American box office sweepstakes in August 1978.

One became a surprise hit and the other dramatically flopped.

Roger Corman, a man of a million film productions, tossed his hat into the disaster movie ring with AVALANCHE, while PIRANHA riffed on the killer fish blockbuster JAWS.

PIRANHA, directed by Joe Dante and populated by experienced character actors like Bradford Dillman and Keenan Wynn and Dick Miller, recouped its budget and then some and spawned one sequel and at least two remakes.

Star actors Rock Hudson (1925-85) and Mia Farrow headline the human cast of AVALANCHE and New World invested a reported $6.5 million on the picture, a great deal more $ than PIRANHA. You know that it did not go very well for AVALANCHE when its greatest claim to fame is that it made “The Official Razzie Movie Guide” honoring the 100 most enjoyably bad movies ever made.

This bad movie enthusiast, however, did not enjoy AVALANCHE. I found it to be a long slog. I mean, I felt like the one climbing the mountain to get through its 90-odd minutes.

First and foremost, it’s a soap opera in the shape of a ski resort hosting a ski tournament and a figure skating competition. Egads! Magazine reporter Caroline (Farrow) divorced control freak and wealthy ski resort owner David (Hudson). You guessed it, David wants her back, wants her to use his last name rather than her maiden name, she keeps him at arm’s length, and she attaches herself to another man, which only infuriates Mr. Control Freak. Man oh man, that scene on the dance floor when David flips on Caroline, I wanted to bury my head in the snow.

That’s not all: We have David’s spirited mother, an elite skier who seems to be even better as lothario, competing figure skaters, competing lovers, a television reporter, and a nosy photographer. Remember, we need a body count.

That nosy photographer (Robert Forster) and David act out a scene near and dear to disaster movie connoisseurs everywhere. Nick Thorne, the nosy photographer’s name, warns David there’s an avalanche coming and that everybody’s in danger. Any of us could write the rest of the scene and, for that matter, the rest of the movie.

Disaster movies often create a dilemma in our hearts and minds: We desperately want the disaster to come and take us away from the phony baloney dialogue and situations. Yes, I’ll say it, the characters deserve to die a dramatic cinematic death sooner rather than later. … Then, when disaster strikes, disaster movies invariably give us scenes just as phony baloney as before. That’s what happens in AVALANCHE.

Director and screenwriter Corey Allen (1934-2010) blamed AVALANCHE’s disaster as a movie on budget cuts and a tight production schedule, whereas Corman said PIRANHA succeeded because it’s funny and very well directed.

I agree.

PIRANHA tips its humorous hand very early on when one of the main characters plays the classic Atari “Shark Jaws” arcade game. Then, we have classic lines like “They’re eating the guests, sir” and “People eat fish. Fish don’t eat people” and “Terror, horror, death. Film at eleven.” Those with a darker sense of humor may find a friend in PIRANHA. We can thank John Sayles for the script.

I’ve said it before and I’ll gladly say it again: Joe Dante is one of the best American directors. His credits include GREMLINS, GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH, THE HOWLING, THE ‘BURBS, MATINEE, and SMALL SOLDIERS. I don’t think he’s ever let me down, and he does not let me down in PIRANHA.

PIRANHA goes cheerfully over-the-top.

For example, JAWS eliminates one kid. PIRANHA takes out virtually an entire summer camp in grisly detail. I’ve known people who hate PIRANHA because of this one sequence.

Roger Ebert began his one-star review, “I walked into PIRANHA wondering why the U.S. government would consider the piranha to be a potential secret weapon. After all, I reasoned, you can lead the enemy to water but you can’t make him wade. I was, it turns out, naive. PIRANHA is filled with people who suffer from the odd compulsion to jump into the water the very moment they discover it is infested by piranhas.”

Of course, the characters in PIRANHA have a compulsion to jump into piranha-infested waters. Honestly, that’s all part of the joke and part of the fun, especially when Kevin McCarthy works up a variant on his INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS performance.

Just like it’s fun seeing Dick Miller doing his take on Murray Hamilton’s mayor in JAWS. Miller, of course, does not want to hear about top secret scientifically-engineered killer piranhas (created through Operation: Razorteeth) and he does not cancel his party for prospective home buyers. You can guess what happens to most of them home buyers. Yes, PIRANHA takes many of the elements from JAWS and pushes them to extremes.

I enjoyed PIRANHA quite a bit, for its tongue-in-cheek humor and film buff references. There’s brilliant little touches strewn throughout the film, like Phil Tippett’s stop-motion animation creation in McCarthy’s lab. He’s the scientific genius behind them super killer fish, who are released into the system by our heroes played by Dillman and Heather Menzies. Anyway, this stop-motion creation, part-fish and part-lizard, epitomizes the generosity of PIRANHA in general. The film gives us a lot to enjoy.

The credits for PIRANHA are first-rate: Dante, Sayles, Tippett, composer Pino Donaggio, editors Dante and Mark Goldblatt, and makeup effects creator Rob Bottin. They all have done some fine work during their careers, inc. PIRANHA.

Steven Spielberg, the director of JAWS, reportedly considered PIRANHA the best of the many JAWS rip-offs and his approval expressed to Universal stopped the studio from pursuing an injunction against New World for PIRANHA. Universal’s first JAWS sequel, JAWS 2, came out two months before PIRANHA.

AVALANCHE (1978) *; PIRANHA (1978) ***

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990) Four stars

I watched GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH for the first time sometime that summer after it first attacked multiplexes on June 15, 1990.

I wanted to see it badly, since I absolutely loved the original GREMLINS and felt hyped up additionally by the TV ads. I saw it at the Pittsburg 8 during a calendar year (1989-90) that brought multiplex trips to BATMAN, BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II, PARENTHOOD, and TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

GREMLINS 2 did not let me down, I loved it then and I love it now after having seen it several times, and it has remained one of the most pleasurable multiplex experiences of my life. It’s lingered in my head all these years.

For example, every time since watching GREMLINS 2, when I hear Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” I cannot help but replace it with the Gremlins’ grand production number inside my head. Watching the horribly overrated SHAME (2011) quite a few years back, I wished that GREMLINS 2 and SHAME were spliced together and the little beasties would ruin Carey Mulligan’s showcase rendition.

I’ve heard that GREMLINS 2 is an acquired taste and that you have to be in a certain mood to watch it. Well, I can say that I have acquired that taste and I don’t know, I’m always in the mood to watch a good movie.

“Silly rather than scary like the first GREMLINS” is the verdict on GREMLINS 2 and what people really mean when they spew the party line about being in that certain mood.

— GREMLINS 2 is a running commentary on sequels — everything from merchandising to an endless supply of new characters to sharp but affectionate jabs at the rules of the GREMLINS world and movie sequels in general.

It attempts to be an anti-sequel.

“When I was asked to do the sequel, which I originally turned down because it was so hard to make the first one,” director Joe Dante said in a 2015 interview. “The only reason I decided to make the sequel was because years later they had tried to make a sequel and couldn’t figure out how to do it, and they really wanted another one. So they said to me, ‘If you give us a couple of cans of film with gremlins in them next summer, you can do whatever you want.’ And they gave me three times the money we had to make the first one. So I made GREMLINS 2, which was essentially about how there didn’t need to be a sequel to GREMLINS.”

— We all know the three rules from GREMLINS: Don’t get them wet; Don’t expose them to bright light (especially sunlight, it will kill them); Don’t feed them after midnight.

Naturally, in GREMLINS 2, supporting characters in a control room challenge the hero Billy after he shares the rules.

“What if one of them eats something at 11:00, but then he gets something stuck in his teeth?”

“Like a caraway seed or a sesame seed?”

“And after 12:00, it comes out. Now, he didn’t eat that after midnight.”

It goes on.

“Wait, what if they’re eating in an airplane and they cross a time zone? I mean, it’s always midnight somewhere.”

I am sure many of us asked the burning question, “Isn’t it always after midnight?”

— Mr. and Mrs. Murray Futterman, whom we all thought met their demise in GREMLINS, return for the sequel. That guy Dick Miller (1928-2019) and Jackie Joseph (born 1933) reprise their roles, partly because it’s a Joe Dante movie and what’s a Joe Dante movie without Dick Miller.

— GREMLINS sparked much controversy over its ‘PG’ rating and parents complained about the film, a fact incorporated into GREMLINS 2.

From a 1984 article in The Christian Science Monitor, “Recent releases such as INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and GREMLINS have spurred controversy about their PG ratings. Many parents felt the violent content and some of the special effects warranted a stiffer rating. A significant number of directors, producers, and theater owners agreed and pushed for a change.”

Hence, the PG-13 rating was born and it debuted with the release of RED DAWN on Aug. 10, 1984.

— Film critic Leonard Maltin, a fan of Dante and his work, gave a negative review to GREMLINS.

“A teenager’s unusual new pet spawns a legion of vicious, violent monsters who turn picture-postcard town into living hell. Comic nightmare is a cross between Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE and THE BLOB; full of film-buff in-jokes but negated by too-vivid violence and mayhem.”

Maltin then makes a gratuitous cameo appearance in GREMLINS 2, where he’s mauled by the new batch for his negative review of the original film. Maltin’s famous last words, “Ow. I was just kidding. Ah. It’s a 10. It’s a 10.”

— At one point in GREMLINS 2, the title monsters disrupt their own film and it takes a threat from Hulk Hogan to get the picture back on track. …

“Okay you guys, listen up! People pay good money to see this movie! When they go out to a theater they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth! Do I have to come up there myself? Do you think the Gremsters can stand up to the Hulkster? Well, if I were you, I’d run the rest of GREMLINS 2! Right now! Sorry folks, it won’t happen again.”

— Phoebe Cates became famous predominantly for two scenes: doffing her bikini top to the tune of the Cars’ “Moving in Stereo” in FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH and her ‘Why I hate Christmas’ speech in GREMLINS. In GREMLINS 2, Cates’ Kate starts on a speech why she also hates Lincoln’s birthday.

— GREMLINS and GREMLINS 2 main protagonist Billy Peltzer’s inept inventor father Rand (Hoyt Axton) played a pivotal role in the first movie. Rand Peltzer gets an upgrade in GREMLINS 2. We get eccentric billionaire Daniel Clamp (John Glover), a combination of Donald Trump and Ted Turner, whose technological innovations inside his wonderful Clamp Tower never seem to work properly. I get a kick from the building announcements, for example “Tonight, on the Clamp Cable Classic Movie Channel, don’t miss CASABLANCA, now in full color with a happier ending.”

The title characters take over Clamp Tower, creating all sorts of memorable scenes.

— I should perhaps mention the diabolical Dr. Catheter (Christopher Lee), identical twins Martin and Lewis played by identical twin actors Don and Dan Stanton, Grandpa Fred (Robert Prosky) clearly inspired by Grandpa (Al Lewis) from “The Munsters,” the appearance of the Batman logo, and a talking Gremlin named Brain (voiced by Tony Randall) who gets an opportunity to sum up the ethos of the beasts.

“The fine points: diplomacy, compassion, standards, manners, tradition … that’s what we’re reaching toward. Oh, we may stumble along the way, but civilization, yes. The Geneva Convention, chamber music, Susan Sontag. Everything your society has worked so hard to accomplish over the centuries, that’s what we aspire to; we want to be civilized.”

Of course, in the very next moment, Brain takes out his gun and shoots dead a goofy acting Gremlin.

Civilization is very hard to come by.

Matinee (1993)

DAY 3, MATINEE

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.