Matinee

(Second viewing) This is a real favorite of mine. It takes place in Key West, 90 miles from Cuba, during the missile crisis, when we all felt we were minutes from nuclear war. The production designer did a great job of recreating that era, which I remember vividly. A young man, a devoted fan of horror/monster/scifi movies (very much like me), is delighted to learn that the great Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman, outrageously good in a part that is obviously meant to be schlockmeister William Castle) is going to premiere his new movie, Mant! (part man, part ant!) in Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama, in Key West. He gets involved in setting up the many gimmicks, which include vibrators under the seats (actually done in The Tingler) and huge speakers that will shake the theater. They’ve got a guy to dress up in a Mant suit and run up and down the aisles. They’ve got a “nurse” stationed in the lobby, in case of heart attacks. They did all these things in B-movies in the Fabulous Fifties and Sixties, though not in the same movie. So a lot of the appeal of this movie is nostalgia—and yes, I think you can feel nostalgia for an era even if you weren’t born yet. I feel that way about the ‘30s and ‘40s. It’s also a love letter to those awful old movies and the crazy men and women (Cathy Moriarty, also very good) who made them. I recommend this one highly.