| OK - remember how scared everybody got during the Cuban missile
crisis, how kids had "duck and cover" drills in the schools and
grownups thought the world could end at any moment?
Well, I don't. But I lived in Wyoming then, and I guess we weren't
exactly on the front lines. (Either that, or our school administration
was smart enough to know that any near misses on Cheyenne Mountain
would render "ducking and covering" a useless exercise. Anyhow, we
never did it.)
However, despite my lack of first-hand knowledge of _that_ aspect of
"Matinee" (and it had a lot of aspects), I managed to follow along and
enjoy myself.
So, let's see now. We have the B-movie producer who's coming to town to
give a big boost to his new movie (a boost without which he won't be
paying the bills); we have the new kid in town, who's having trouble
making friends, and whose only area of expertise appears to be horror
movies (he had a "Famous Monsters of Filmland" collection that dwarfed
mine); we have the romantic problems of a couple of other kids; we have
the movies-within-the-movie (at one point, the real-life seat backs in
front of me merged with those in the movie, and with those in the
movie-within-the-movie, and so on, and I got a distinctly looking-
glass-ish feeling); and, last but certainly not least, we have the
missile crisis, which could be seen as the setting, the "mcguffin," or
the Central Theme, depending on its personal meaning in your life.
While the net effect was a bit yard-sale-ish, overall I'd say it was
fun. Some parts dragged a bit, but others (mostly involving Goodman and
the "Mant!" shenanigans) soared, with lots of gigglesome tidbits of
B-movie and 60's trivia flying by in the background. And, if the
various plot devices all had large signs prominently posted on them, it
seemed in keeping with the genre that the film purports to honor - and
which it did proud, via the clips-within-the-flick. "Mant!" itself, the
film whose grand opening is the central plot point, borrows heavily
from such diverse epics as "Them!", "Little Shop of Horrors," and "The
Incredible Shrinking Man," plus assorted other atomic-age cousins (as
well as, in one or two spots, "Airplane"), and its cast includes
several faces that should be familiar to afficionados of late-night
fright-flick shows.
The '60s small-town ambiance was quite good, down to the last household
detail; in fact, I thought I recognized some of my old "mosaic-by-
number" artworks on the walls - and I _know_ my brother had a pair of
pajamas that looked exactly like those of the new-in-town kid. [Loved
the clip from health class, wherein the teacher is urging everybody to
have plenty of red meat every day; bacon with breakfast, hamburgers for
lunch, etc.]
As for Goodman's character, as it turned out, he embodied not only the
jovial Mr. Castle, but a number of other producers and directors known
for spending as much or more time on the hype than on the movie - and
he did it with his usual inexorable affability. He never seemed to get
upset by anything, however catastrophic, so I suppose he was
personifying the Steadfast Soul of America (aptly represented by a
huckster and con artist). [John Sayles turns up in a bit part in a plot
thread that's even less tightly woven than the rest, but he has some
fun with it.]
Medlyons and Sisbert all seemed to think this was the greatest "family"
picture of the year (hey, and it's February already!). I suppose it
qualifies as a family pic; lots of the characters are related to each
other. (Ha, ha.) The actual violence is relatively rare, and sexual
content is pretty much limited to a peck or two and one heated clinch
between barely-pubescents. Whether tinier tots might derive nightmare
fodder from some of the more alarming events is unclear - parents of
sensitive types might want to preview it.
Flaws: quite a few - though some may have been intentional, as they're
the same flaws common to most B-movies. (Example: the mandatory small-
child-in-peril scene, drawn out past all believability.) Editing's
shaky in places, and there's at least one incredible lapse of logic.
But I found enough cashews that I was willing to overlook the stale
filberts in this particular bag of mixed nuts.
I just wish I'd gotten to see the rest of "Mant!". ;-)
-b
|
| I was fortunate enough this weekend to see "Mant" in its standalone
form at a film festival, and it works almost as well that way as it did
in Matinee. The advantage here is that some of the later parts that
were only background in Matinee were now in the foreground, and some
funny lines and in-jokes that got buried in Matinee were much more
obvious (and the obvious ones continued to work as well).
Before anyone asks: no, there wasn't much more than what you saw in
Matinee; and there is only one print of Mant in existence, so unless
you go to science fiction conventions or film festivals, you probably
won't get a chance to see it. It consists of the segments in the
movie, separated by a few seconds of black leader, as well as the trailer.
|
| I saw this movie and like it quite a bit, maybe more so than it deserved.
Since I like movies like "Mant!", and never missed a Creature Feature on a
Saturday afternoon when I was growing up, that part of the movie was amusing.
The shenanigans around showing the flick were also pretty good, with the
romantic sub-plot being moderately interesting. All in all, a decent movie.
But what made the movie work for me was that, unlike one of the earlier noters,
I was at Homestead Air Force Base in south Florida during the Cuban Missile
Crisis. We *did* practice duck-and-cover in class (I was 10 during the events
in the movie), because we knew we were target #1 for the Russian missiles
coming in from Cuba (flight time <10 minutes, so the first warning that
Washington would have that there was a problem was when communications ceased
from Homestead AFB and Key West Naval Air Station).
The point of this is that the movie got all the little details correct. The
tension of wives and children whose husband/father was off doing something
and would very likely die doing it, the fear that we would be destroyed as
part of the attack on our air bases, was all very well portrayed. Also, I
don't know where they got some of the houses they filmed in, but they were
*perfect*. The sliding doors with the little latch, instead of regular doors
which swung open. The was kids got around. The style of cars. Whoever did
the set work and design for this movie did it *perfectly*.
-- Ken Moreau
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| RE: .7 -< Duck and cover-up? >-
> But the question is Ken, did you really BELIEVE hiding under a blanket
> would protect you from a nuclear blast?
The way it was explained to us was that nothing would save you if you were
caught in the blast radius, so whether you were ducking and covering made
no difference if the blast went off that close to where you were. What you
were protecting yourself from was the blast which was moderately far away.
The duck was to protect you from being blinded by the blast, the cover was
to protect you from flying debris.
People today have a good time making fun of those drills. I don't know how
it was in the civilian world, but those of us with fathers (at that time it
was almost exclusively fathers) in the military took it *very* seriously.
There was no pretense that it would protect everyone, but the military has
always worked with the concept of taking whatever precautions possible and
knowing that they will not help many people, but might save a few people.
The best line I heard about that was from Scatman Crothers, on the Laugh-In
show. He was asked "Where is the best place to be during an atomic attack?"
His answer "Anyplace you can say (quick double-take) 'what-was-that?!?!'"...
-- Ken Moreau
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