Matinee

Matinee is absolutely wonderful. In fact, I remember the reaction at the UK press show - there was more or less unanimous agreement that it would get sensational reviews (well, duh) and that hardly anyone would go to see it, since it was so clearly aimed at 1950s film nostalgists rather than the teenage audience the producers presumably expected. It's hard to think of another early 1990s American film that gave me so much sheer pleasure - though Gremlins 2 comes close.

One of the many things I love about it is that Dante, rather like Tim Burton a year or so later with the not dissimilar Ed Wood, absolutely respects his sources - he said in an interview that he was most insistent that the special effects in Mant ("Half Man! Half Ant! All Terror!") be pretty good by early 1960s standards, as he felt that the John Goodman character would have poured most of his budget into making them state of the (then) art. It's all too easy to poke fun at the alleged naivete of our forefathers, but Dante never once makes that mistake, and his film is all the richer for it.

I was a massive Dante fan from the moment I sneaked into The Howling underage, and spent the 1980s catching up on earlier work like Hollywood Boulevard and Piranha while watching everything that came out. That said, I've rather lost touch with him since seeing the massively underrated Small Soldiers on its original release - what have I missed?