Matinee

Matinee is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Joe Dante. It is about a William Castle-type independent filmmaker, with the American home front during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop. The film stars John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub, Robert Picardo, Kellie Martin, and Jesse White (in his final theatrical film role). It was written by Jerico Stone and Charles S. Haas, the latter portraying Mr. Elroy, a schoolteacher. Despite critical acclaim, the film was a box office failure. Plot In October 1962, in Key West, Florida, Gene Loomis and his younger brother, Dennis, live on a military base with their mother Anne while their father is away on a United States Navy submarine. At a local movie theater one afternoon, Gene and Dennis see a promo for an exclusive engagement of producer Lawrence Woolsey's sensational new horror film, entitled Mant! Woolsey is scheduled to appear in-person at the theater the following Saturday. After the boys return home to the base, the Loomis family watches President Kennedy deliver a speech confirming the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. Meanwhile, arriving in Florida with his actress girlfriend, Ruth Corday, Woolsey finds the fearful atmosphere created by the ongoing crisis perfect for hosting Mant!s premiere. Woolsey has brought along two of his actors, Herb Denning, a former hired thug, and Bob, a victim of the Hollywood blacklist now relegated to cheap, independent B movies, to pose as outraged citizens protesting Mant!s theatrical exhibition. However, local couple Jack and Rhonda advocate for allowing the premiere based on First Amendment rights. Later, at home, while reading an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Gene recognizes Herb as having starred in an earlier Woolsey film, The Brain Leeches. At school, Gene gradually befriends one of his classmates, Stan. He also becomes infatuated with Jack and Rhonda's daughter Sandra after she receives a week-long detention for protesting against the uselessness of a "duck and cover" air raid drill, insisting that immediately dying from the effects of an atom bomb is preferable to dying from acute radiation syndrome caused by fallout. Stan has a crush on another girl at school, Sherry. However, violent juvenile delinquent (and aspiring poet) Harvey Starkweather, her ex-boyfriend, threatens Stan, so he lies to her out of fear, calling off their first date.