We’re almost to the end folks. Even after 12 weeks I found myself surprised by yet another cult film. This week we watched the 1993 film Matinee directed by none other than Joe Dante. We have already seen Dante before in this class, way back with his appearance in American Grindhouse. Personally, I know him from Gremlins and Piranha, though I was excited to learn that he took part in the Looney Tunes: Back in Action, one of my favorite movies growing up.

I have to stop and talk about John Goodman. He can make anything funny. Goodman is one of my all time favorite actors/comedians. I fell in love with him while watching the television series Roseanne as a little girl and only grew more in love with him as he took part as Sully in the Monsters Inc franchise, his role as the voice of Hound in the Transformers series and finally, my favorite, his voicing of Pacha in the Emperor’s New Groove and Kronk’s New Groove. John Goodman is a major part of my life growing up, as a lot of my life revolved around the types of younger viewer friendly movies he was in. His voice, face, and name are recognizable in my house, and I can honestly say a lot of actors can say the same. The moment I saw John Goodman’s name on the cast list I knew this film would be a can’t miss. Lawrence Woolsey makes my list of all time favorite John Goodman roles. I was hooked the moment he introduced himself in the introduction of the film.

There is so much one can say about this film about a horror movie. Firstly, I would totally watch Mant and laugh. Secondly, I was laughing through this entire film, which was a little hard to do, because the film is placed during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Their world is in chaos and the every day person cannot do anything about it. It hit a little close to home right now with our quarantine right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although, we are not in all out war, facing nuclear bombs we are sitting and watch the world crumble around us because we can do nothing about it other than stay in doors and far too many people can’t even do that. The scene in the grocery store showed me the most that history repeats itself. On a more positive note. The soundtrack in the background is superb. In the last few films we’ve watched I notice the soundtracks are getting better and better with song choice.

One of our readings this week was “Film As a Subversive Mass Art: Joe Dante at BAM” by Giovanni Vimercati. It discussed the mastermind that is Joe Dante. The part I want to focus on is the section about this week’s film Matinee.

“An exemplary film in this respect is one of Dante’s masterpieces, Matinee (1993), a heartfelt homage to the B-movie impresarios and visionary mavericks, from William Castle to Roger Corman. Our hero, a small-time film distributor with a knack for promotional tricks, releases his latest flick during the Cuban Missiles Crisis. The two seemingly unrelated events will come to closely depend on each other…”

Calling this film a masterpiece is an understatement. I absolutely loved this film. Some parts can be classified as “bad” because of budgets and poor acting, but I think it makes it even better. The film itself is riddled with comedy and is paired with an end of the world scenario. That pairing is what makes Dante a mastermind. He creates the ultimate stories for audiences to experience. And this has to be my favorite work done by him by far.

This week we had two wonderful presentations on The Breakfast Club and Doctor Sleep. I’ve seen The Breakfast Club film before, and I was very excited to hear another’s take on it and how it portrays into the culture and the history cult films in cinema. The Breakfast Club has become very mainstream, at the very least in reference. I really enjoyed the part where we talked about how it was used in the show Victorious. That is one of my favorite episodes from the show. As for Doctor Sleep, my mother said it was amazing. I didn’t watch it when we rented it because I’ve never seen The Shining. After the stellar presentation on it I think I’m going to have to finally take the time to see both. Amazing presentations this week!