Please note: This was screened in
Joe Dante’s love of B movies and the cinema finds perfect form in Matinee, a celebration of (youthful) escapism via the movies. Set during the 1962 Cuban Missile crisis of Gene (Simon Fenton) is a monster movie fan who lives with his mother and younger brother on an army base in Key West, Florida. With his family constantly moving from base to base, Gene has never settled in with only monster movies a constant in an otherwise ever-changing upbringing.
At a new school, Gene befriends Sandra (Lisa Jakub), an outspoken girl whose scepticism of duck-and-cover drills marks her as an outsider. Framing their burgeoning relationship are two things: the arrival of a new monster movie in town, directed by Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) and the impending nuclear war! Goodman’s performance as the larger-than-life director who brings all the shocks, spills and thrills to his screenings (including a Mant), steals the show.
With thanks to Arrow films and Universal Studios.