BEFORE: It feels like this movie's been on my list forever, but that can't be true - if it had been on my list in January, I would have watched it after "The Borrowers" or next to "You Don't Know Jack", right? I've stored this film on a DVD with "Captive State", so that means it probably hasn't been in my possession much longer than that one - so maybe it's just that I avoided putting this film on my list for such a long time, so it feels like it's been sitting on the list much longer than it actually has.
Plus, this film came out in 1993, so on some level, I've been avoiding it for 27 years. It seems only moderately interesting, if you know what I mean. I'm finally curious enough to watch it, but that sort of thing only goes so far - by now it's more like I'm watching it just to get rid of it, in other words, I'm not expecting that much today. With a very eclectic cast, actors who just don't appear in any other places on my list, the only way I can watch this is to sandwich it betwen two other movies with John Goodman, who carries over from "The Gambler".
THE PLOT: A small-time film promoter releases a kitschy horror filkm during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
AFTER: How about this one, a movie about going out to the movies, accidentally being scheduled during a time when we still can't go out to the movies - but we're talking about it, thinking about it. There are rumors of people going out to drive-ins, suddenly that's a thing again, for the first time since really the 1960's. I guess they never fully went away, there were always a few throwback holdouts around the country, but since right now that's the only way to see a movie live, suddenly they're back, though I haven't been to one.
We're very close now to the alleged opening dates for movies like "The New Mutants" (August 28) and "Bill & Ted Face the Music" (same) and "Tenet" (September 3) - yet I can't seem to purchase a ticket for any of these shows, so what is really going on? Are movie theaters in New York City going to open in a week, or not? Just tell me yes or no, so I can make some plans, or cancel them - I don't like this feeling of being in an endless limbo. I've made these plans before, and cancelled them before, so many times that I'm just about ready to write off all of Hollywood's 2020 releases, except of course for "Black Widow" in November. If I give Hollywood and theater owners another two months, do I think they might be able to work something out? Or am I going to get burned yet again by this pandemic?
We're at a delicate juncture for the film industry - we're being told that in order for this industry to survive, theaters need to open. What happens if they don't? Does everything just go to streaming at $20 PPV, like "Mulan"? That created a LOT of backlash from people who don't have Disney+ and are now being told they'll have to pay $7 per month and then ANOTHER $20 in order to see this. Still, if you have two or three kids, going out to see "Mulan" in a movie theater would probably cost $30 just for the tickets, then there's parking, popcorn, drinks - so picking $20 as a price point was very well calculated, because even if you have to join Disney+ and then drop another double sawbuck, you'll still come out ahead over driving the kids to the cineplex.
It's asking a lot to get somebody out to the cinema right now - in some states, it's just not worth it, because if you catch the Covid-19 then you could pay for that theater experience with your life. But New York City's not in one of those states - I can see keeping the theaters closed in Florida, Texas, even California, but what's the damn hold-up in New York? Same goes for indoor dining, our infection rates have been stellar for a few months now, yet dining out still means either sitting outside, or delivery/takeout. Restaurants are still hurting - and some that couldn't or wouldn't retool themselves for takeout are still closed in the NYC area - but if you just cross over the border to Yonkers or Long Island, indoor dining is available. The same is going to hold true for schools and movie theaters, apparently, where you can go is going to depend largely on where you are, and still nobody is sure which tactic is going to protect people better. And what's going to happen in the fall when the weather gets colder, and outdoor dining is no longer possible? Right now, it seems nobody knows.
So, bottom line in the next few days, I'll have to make a decision about "Bill & Ted Face the Music" - is it opening, and if so, is it safe to go? At this point, I've written off "New Mutants" and "Wonder Woman 1984", so maybe I just need to postpone my attendance at a theater until November - and ultimately this would end with me knocking off two Christmas movies in December instead of one, and I'm OK with that. In a year full of disappointments, right now it's all about making the best of whatever 2020 sees fit to give us, right? And I heard last week there was a promotion at AMC theaters where they were selling tickets at just 15 cents to encourage people to come back to the movies. Yeah, I think I need a few more months - this is the golden age of streaming, right? So between all the streaming services we've joined, and my stockpile of movies on my DVR, I'm still booked solid while I wait to hear about "Black Widow".
But speaking of movie theater promotions, let's get to "Matinee". John Goodman is the best character here, the movie producer in 1962 who's following the rules of P.T. Barnum, get the rubes in the seats, collect their money, and tell them the show is great, even if it's not. Especially if it's not. The cheap monster movies of the 1950's and 1960's were all hype, and it's been a scam to get our popcorn money all along, right? I mean, movie tickets are one thing, but the mark-up on popcorn and soda is incredible - a theater concession stand can make $7.00 off of a bucket of popcorn that cost them 10 cents to make. Maybe I should have stayed in the theater business when I had the chance - I could have been a theater manager by now for sure, and made a nice little salary each year from popcorn sales (plus they now sell hot dogs, chicken fingers and pizza too) but no, I jumped back into independent filmmaking when I had the chance. What a dope - theater managers work nights and weekends and don't have to get up early.
Lawrence Woolsey (loosely based on real-life producer William Castle) clearly has the best of both worlds, too - as a producer of these B-movies, he gets to keep one foot behind the scenes, in a creative world where if he thinks a movie with a half-man, half-ant creature ("Mant!") will sell, then he gets that movie made. Is it art? Does it matter? The only thing that matters is whether that's weird or different enough to sell tickets. Then he's got another foot in the world of marketing, where he'll supply a theater with equipment to produce "Rumble-rama" or "Atomo-Vision" effects, or hire a guy to put on a big phony ant costume and roam around in the aisles, terrorizing the viewers. Did anything like this really happen in the early 1960's? I'm not sure.
Woolsey also hires a couple out-of-work actors to be his advance team in Key West, they show up in town about a week before he does, and they start protesting the film, saying it's immoral and perverse and will lead to juvenile delinquency - it's a play on the old "Music Man" band scheme, only in reverse. Getting people riled up about the indecent movie that's about to open is a trick to get people to want to see it - some because they like perverse, indecent movies, and others will go and see it just to see HOW perverse it is because they want to complain about it. We humans are so gullible, like remember when you were a kid and you went to an amusement park or carnival and there was a Haunted House or a Chamber of Horrors thrill ride? You'd pay to go on that ride, either because you wanted to be scared, or because you didn't want to be scared, or because you literally had nothing better to do. I didn't like being scared as a kid, the only way I could endure something like that was to keep noticing how cheap and fake it all seemed, which helped remind me that none of it was real, then maybe I wouldn't get nightmares.
Nothing's really changed - I'm grown up but there are still movies that work on the same principle. Some people watch them because they like being scared (which, according to Woolsey's theory, helps people appreciate going back to their regular, boring lives) and still others might watch horror movies because they disapprove of them and want to complain about them. But for me, the only way I can endure them is to figure out how they're done, how cheap and fake some of them are, which help remind me that none of it is real. Some movies are just magic tricks, and once you know how a magic trick is done, it doesn't seem so amazing to you.
1962 was a very different time, but as we see in "Matinee", it was also dangerous to go out to the movies, but for vastly different reasons. Pay attention when the theater manager talks about the safety restrictions in the balcony, there's a weight limit because Florida is the land of humidity, and also termites. This all becomes important later when the greedy promoter seats too many people in the balcony. OK, that's not the same as catching Covid-19 from sitting next to somebody, but it's just as dangerous if you think about it.
Another reason that this film is suddenly relevant is that it's set in Key West, Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and part of Florida is just 100 miles away from Cuba. The two young boys at the center of the story have a father who's been deployed on a ship that's part of a blockade, and other kids at school have parents who work at the nearby Navy base. And part of the daily routine at school, in addition to learning about the benefits of eating red meat three times a day (outdated food pyramid alert!!) is the practice of "Duck and Cover" during nuclear bomb drills. Movies tend to show this a lot, as a form of nostalgia - my, how uninformed everyone was back then, thinking that teaching kids to get under their desks and put their hands over their heads would actually DO anything as a form of protection. Umm, it wouldn't. One smart little girl here raises a form of protest, she refuses to duck and cover, because she knows enough about nuclear explosions to realize that if one happens, everybody's dead anyway, whether they're sitting at their desks or hiding under them.
It's very tempting here to draw a connection between this little girl and the people who are refusing to wear their face coverings in public these days (Florida Mask-holes). But remember, there's a key difference. Science tells us that wearing the right masks (bandannas are OK, but surgical or cloth masks are better) actually does something to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and are most effective if everyone wears them correctly (covering the nose AND mouth) - while science tells us the opposite about "Duck and cover". That strategy was completely ineffective against a nuclear explosion, at best it would just tell people which pile of ashes was which, based on what desk it was under. So whatever you do, do NOT make an analogy between this smart pre-teen girl and the people who falsely believe that they have the right to walk around in a public place without a proper face covering.
The rest of the story here, about Simon going on a date with Sandra to the movies, and Stan trying to. hook up with Sherry, whose former boyfriend Harvey is still pining over their breakup, and Harvey getting hired as the guy in the Mant costume, is just pointless and terrible. It's so hokey and fake-nostalic that it feels a bit like "A Christmas Story", only with less believable child actors - and that's saying really saying something, I don't watch "A Christmas Story" for the great acting. I say it again, though I've said it many times before, nearly all kid actors are terrible, with only a few rare exceptions. Every character here is a blatant stereotype, every character is clearly designed to make adults sort of remember how it was when they were kids, what it was like to go to the movies on a first date. It's all obvious manipulation, and I'm just not buying it.
Appropriately, this movie is all about getting a look at how movies are made (really, add movies to the list of things you don't really want to see made, like laws and sausages) and I can see right through it, I see how "Matinee" was made, and why it was made the way it was, and outside the false nostalgia, I just don't think there's much there. Sorry. Apparently between the casting and the names of the characters there were a ton of in-jokes for fans of classic monster movies, and I'll admit I missed most of them (or "Them!").
Also starring Cathy Moriarty (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub (last seen in "Mrs. Doubtfire"), Kellie Martin, Jesse Lee Soffer (last seen in "A Very Brady Sequel"), Lucinda Jenney (last seen in "We Don't Belong Here"), James Villemaire, Robert Picardo (last seen in "The Meddler"), Jesse White (last seen in "Harvey"), Dick Miller (last seen in "Swing Shift"), John Sayles, David Clennon (last seen in "Grace of My Heart"), Lucy Butler (last seen in "Lost Highway"), Georgie Cranford, Nick Bronson, Belinda Balaski (last seen in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"), Charles S. Haas (ditto), Mark McCracken, Kevin McCarthy (last seen in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), William Schallert (last seen in "Them!"), with cameos from Naomi Watts (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Joey Fatone, and archive footage of John F. Kennedy (last heard in "A Single Man"), Art Linkletter, Adlai Stevenson.
RATING: 4 out of 10 fallout shelters
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