Matinee (film): Difference between revisions

* [[Friendless Background]]: Gene. With his Dad in the Navy, they move around a lot.

* [[Free-Range Children]]: Justified as this was rather common in at the time. Plus, they live in [[Shining City|Key West]].

** [[Invasion of the Body Snatchers|Kevin McCarthy]] as The General in "MANT!"

** {{Naomi Watts}} gets upstaged by a shopping cart in one of the movies-within-a-movie.

** {{YMMV}}. It is set during the {{Cuban Missile Crisis}}, and nuclear anxiety is one of the key themes.

* [[Meaningful Name]]: Harvey Starkweather.

* [[Mr. Exposition]]: [[The Professor]] in MANT. Also, the Dentist:

{{quote| '''Dentist:''' X-rays, Carol. A form of radiation. An ant must have bitten Bill when he was getting his teeth x-rayed... Anyway, the ant's saliva must've gotten into Bill's bloodstream and gone straight to his brain -- just as the radiation, ''[[Yes but What Does It Do|which is measured in units called Röentgens]]'', was released!!}}

** [[Title Drop]] <small>"So that's how he became a--"</small>

{{quote| '''Dentist''' ''(shrugs)'' "...'''''MANT!"''''' ([[Scare Chord]])}}

* [[Show Within a Show|Movie Within A Movie]]: MANT! Is a completely recreated 50s-style B-Movie. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y2Lbhwl23M Exerpts] of it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT8hzyE_CRI exist] online.

** Also "The Shook Up Shopping Cart".

* [[Reality Subtext]]: The film-within-a-film is all about the [[I Love Nuclear Power|horrors created]] by nuclear testing. Meanwhile, nuclear war seems imminent.

* [[Red Scare]]: Key West is (shudder) only 50 miles from Cuba!

* [[Shining City]]: Key West.

** The Movie Within A Movie, "MANT!" is filled with references to ''[[The Fly]]'' and ''[[Them (Film)|Them]]''

** MANT!'s [[Tagline]] "Half Man, Half Ant, All Terror!" is a parody of the Tagline from [[Robo Cop]].

** Gene's room is littered with vintage monster magazines and B Movie Posters including ''[[The Crawling Eye]]'' and ''Killers From Outer Space''.

** [[Jerry Goldsmith]]'s awesome score includes themes from ''[[Son of Dracula]]'', ''[[It Came From Outer Space]]'', ''[[Tarantula]]'', ''Winged Death'', ''[[The Deadly Mantis]]'', ''[[This Island Earth]]'', and ''[[Creature From the Black Lagoon]]''.