 A film in three minutes, matinee. Do you love movies? Not those fancy highbrow culture trash Hollywood liberals keep churning out, nor those ridiculous family comedies or musicals that just make you cringe. But real movies. Movies with scares, chills and apocalyptic terrors. If so, then you just might want to give Master of Horror Lawrence Woolsey's latest sensation a try. In Joe Dante's charming 1993 comedy, Matinee. Set in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the story follows Gene Loomis, an enthusiastic film buff whose father is serving on a Navy submarine as part of the US government's actions to blockade Cuba. When tensions run high with the possibility of nuclear annihilation, Gene takes his younger brother to the movies, only to discover the arrival of noted schlock horror film maestro Lawrence Woolsey, played by John Goodman, who utilizes the fearful atmosphere of the community to promote his newest film. Using clever, if cheap gimmicks such as electric buzzers under the seats and a sound system that could literally bring down the house. Just what a cinema goer needs when nuclear catastrophe is potentially seconds away. Matinee first and foremost is a loving tribute to the sadly now forgotten period of popular American cinema from the 1950s and 60s that became known as B-movies. These often poorly financed haphazardly produced spectacles replete with hamfisted acting and ludicrous plots preyed on the concerns and fears of audiences at the dawn of the atomic age and the rising paranoia of the Cold War. Something the director Dante recreates within Woolsey's mant, skillfully paying homage to the schlocky trappings such films of the period contained, with a delivery that makes it hard not to smile. The character of Woolsey himself is a tribute to real-life filmmaker William Castle, the inventor of gimmicks such as rigging theatre seats with ex-military vibrating motors or making moviegoers sign a life insurance policy should they die of fright. As such, John Goodman excels as the optimistic, dedicated and unashamedly endearing director whose explanation to Gene about how special the movie experience can be is one of the finest, heartwarming explanations of the power of cinema I have ever witnessed. Whilst the political tensions of the Cold War act as a superb backdrop to the film's social commentary, it's in movies where Matinee's focus works best. A charming feature made out of pure love and appreciation for a mode of filmmaking long since gone and for the visionary pioneers who first set the trail. Thanks to Joe Dante's caring direction and one of John Goodman's most delightful performances, the guilty pleasures of the B-movie creature feature are well and truly alive here. Who would have thought the shadow of a mushroom cloud could bring so many people together?