Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.5

Matinee Blu-ray Movie Review

Matinee was always going to be a tough sell. Joe Dante told Bill Kelley of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he'd been wanting to make the movie for about four years but every studio turned him down. According to Kelley, Dante and his producer, Michael Finnell, raised funds on their own along and were expected to receive a large chunk of the financing from a group of investors in Europe. With filming expected to begin in early 1992, Dante didn't get the money has was promised so he went to Universal Pictures where he met with Tom Pollock, Chairman of the Motion Picture Group. Dante remembers that Pollock "went out of the room for about 20 minutes, then came back and said 'Well, passion has won out over logic.' He gave us the money." Universal furnished Dante and his crew with a $13 million budget. John Goodman had a multi-picture deal with Universal at the time and the studio assigned him to Matinee, which pleased Dante. Goodman possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of "arcane ephemera on movie history" (as Dante puts it) so he naturally slid into the role of B-grade movie showman Lawrence Woolsey, whose based on William Castle, the poor man's Hitchcock.

Matinee is a valentine to the creature features which often played at the film's Strand Theater as well as monster comic books that D ante grew up on. Dante said in interviews that his crew replicated the interior of the Strand on a soundstage at Universal Studios in Orlando. The other scenes were shot in Cocoa Beach which was made up to look like Key West in 1962. While Matinee was warmly received by critics, it failed to fully connect with audiences at the time. Part of the problem was that there were fewer and fewer "B" and exploitation films made during the late eighties and early nineties, according to industry analysts. Another obstacle was the lack of a focused publicity campaign by Universal's marketing department. The juvenile audience that Universal targeted couldn't relate and connect with the movie lore from Dante's childhood. Universal also made a mistake in not giving Matinee a wider release. Dante's eighth solo feature opened in 1,144 theaters, rather than the more desirable benchmark of 2,000 theaters for a major studio picture. It ended up grossing $9.5 million at the domestic box office.

My colleague Dr. Svet Atanasov previously reviewed Carlotta Film's French BD-50 of Matinee. You can read his thoughts on the film here.

The one and only Lawrence Woolsey.

Matinee Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

At last, Matinee has received a deluxe "Collector's Edition" courtesy of Shout Select (#37 in the sublabel's series). This is the fifth Blu-ray of the movie to date, following Carlotta in 2011, DE's Koch Media in 2015, JP's Maxam in 2016, and UK's Arrow in late '16. Shout's transfer apparently emanates from the same master that Carlotta used. The Koch and Arrow transfers are very similar. Colors on the Carlotta seem the brightest. Matinee appears in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this BD-50. The MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer boasts a mean video bitrate of 29995 kbps (comparable to the other BDs) with the full disc clocking in at 36.92 Mbps. The daylit scenes boast a very bright red (see Screenshot #19 as an example). Woolsey's car has a nice shine to it in HD. Skin tones are sharp and well-defined in the sunny scenes. The image is thickly textured with a good dose of grain. There is a consistency in quality when transitioning between the monochromatic images of Mant! on the cinema screen and the regular color scenes of Matinee. Admittedly the master is rather dated and a 4K scan would be lovely but Matinee looks very solid on this disc.

Like the Arrow release, this has twelve chapter breaks for the main feature.

Matinee Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Matinee's sound track can be heard as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1629 kbps, 24-bit) or a DTS-HD Master 5.1 Surround (3159 kbps, 24-bit). The latter is a world premiere for home video and has served as the primary basis for this review. Matinee has a fairly involving sound mix and it's a marvel to hear the "Rumble-Rama" opened up in 5.1. It competently recreates the f/x that Mant's 1962 audiences were meant to hear. Dialogue is largely intelligible and easy to discern. Jerry Goldsmith's quirky score coalesces stylistically well with the other scores that he had written for Dante's films up to this point. It has some comical cues, lighthearted melodies, menacing tones, and a touch of jazz. The music benefits from the 5.1 track as it generates some good directional movement.

Optional English SDH are accessible via the menu or remote control.

Matinee Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Master of the Matinee – An Interview with Director Joe Dante (20:29, 1080p)

• NEW The Leading Lady – An Interview with Cathy Moriarty (12:02, 1080p)

• NEW MANTastic! The Making of a Mant (12:02, 1080p)

• NEW Out of the Bunker – An Interview with Actress Lisa Jakub (16:17, 1080p)

• NEW Making a Monster Theatre – An Interview with Production Designer Steven Legler (15:35, 1080p)

• NEW The Monster Mix – An Interview with Editor Marshall Harvey (11:39, 1080p)

• NEW Lights! Camera! Reunion! – An Interview with Director of Photography John Hora (21:13, 1080p)

• Paranoia in Ant Vision – Joe Dante Discusses the Making of the Film (32:37, 1080p)

• Mant! – The Full Length Version of the Film with Introduction by Joe Dante (22:45, 1080p)

• Vintage Making of Featurette (4:27, 480i)

• Behind the Scenes Footage Courtesy of Joe Dante (8:22, 480i)

• Deleted and Extended Scenes Sourced from Joe Dante's Workprint (2:21, upconverted to 1080)

• Still Galleries (1080p)

• Theatrical Trailer (1:57, 480i)

Matinee Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Shout Select has assembled the definitive Collector's Edition for Joe Dante's beloved 1993 comedy. It has the same very good transfer that appeared on the European BDs and adds an uncompressed 5.1 mix, which may have been on Matinee'S theatrical prints. Shout has gone the extra mile by recording a half-dozen new interviews with cast and crew members. It also licensed the unabridged Mant! film that Dante and Universal put on the 1994 LaserDisc. Shout also gathered older interviews, featurettes, and ancillary extras from the various Blu-rays overseas. This is a MUST BUY for fans of Dante and Goodman and certainly comes VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.