Matinee Did you ever see a little movie called “Matinee”? A friend of mine was visiting after finishing a Monroe program, and i showed her this little gem and she went home determined to buy it for herself. And I, seeing it again for the umpteenth time, was just as pleased with it this time as all the others. Matinee came out in 1993, and stars John Goodman. I saw it when it came out, then saw it again the next day, and a few years ago bought the videotape from Amazon. One of Amazons user reviews from 2001 says: “This has to be the most under-rated, under-valued and criminally under-seen film of all time. Funny, touching, nostalgic in a good way, a wonderful tribute to the very joy of film itself and, the clincher, a cast of kids that never get on your nerves. And even in any of the Coen Brothers films he has been in, John Goodman has never bettered his performance from this movie. If you love the movies, youll love this film. See it; then see it again and again. It really is the undiscovered artistic masterpiece of the 20th Century.” In case you missed the words: “the most under-rated, under-valued and criminally under-seen film of all time” True. In fact, I’ll go farther than that. This may be the most subtle and effective anti-war movie ever made, because it doesn’t make scapegoats of the military or the government. What it does – and does brilliantly -- is show how the background presence of the atomic bomb has changed our lives, and how the threat of war is in itself the jungle menacing us. And it also light-heartedly but not trivially reminds those of us of a certain age of life during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. To accomplish this while not irritating us half to death by preaching or by “cute” or by cliché situations or any of the other numerous flaws so prevalent in Hollywood films is a minor miracle. (My God, it even managed to avoid having a car chase!) So funny, so enjoyable, so memorable.
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 10:44:47 +0000