Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you can't get enough of Jerry Goldsmith's sentimental themes for suburban innocence. Avoid it... if you are expecting the B-flick horror material heard in the 'film within a film' or are only a casual Goldsmith collector. Filmtracks Editorial Review:
Matinee: (Jerry Goldsmith) With the collaboration between director Joe Dante and composer Jerry Goldsmith spanning several decades and including many successful titles, it's easy for Matinee to slip through the cracks. Arguably their least popular project together, Matinee is a film that accomplishes several things at once for Dante: it's a "coming of age" picture for a group of pre-teen youth, it pokes fun at the B-horror film industry of the 1950's and early 60's, and it plays on the fears of nuclear proliferation that were at their height in October, 1962 (the time frame of movie's setting). While the group of young actors is more than sufficient in their roles, it's John Goodman who steals the show as showman Lawrence Woolsey, a character based on the real-life horror movie experimenter William Castle. Attempting to capitalize on nuclear fears and bring the third dimension of film back to theatres, Woolsey debuts a 'movie within a movie' called "Mant" (half man, half ant) and includes drama with a live 'mant' inside the theatre itself at the showing. With nostalgia and sentiment at heart, the comedy of the film is an extra bonus. With that in mind, Jerry Goldsmith provides a score that is appropriately light-hearted, but not strictly comedic as you might first imagine. An important distinction to make is between the music you hear in "Mant" and that which Goldsmith wrote. The old horror music is reused material from actual films of the era and genre, and only in the context of a cue like "Showtime" does Goldsmith play with some of that outwardly Hermannesque knock-off style in his own material. While the "Mant" music may, for some listeners, be the more memorable cue-by-cue material in the album (the "Mant" film is, after all, quite funny), none of that music exists within Goldsmith's contribution. Alone, Goldsmith's writing here sounds much like the lesser-inspired moments of The 'Burbs from several years earlier. In these regards, the score is far less entertaining in a comedy or action sense than other Dante/Goldsmith pairings spanning from Gremlins to Looney Tunes: Back in Action (nine films total). Goldsmith's themes follow the route of sentimentality and nostalgia far more than comedy, with the first half of the score containing little excitement beyond the consistency of the composer's delightful, soft melodies. The themes Goldsmith concocts for these films are very similar, with Love Field, Rudy, and Angie all coming to mind, although in the case of Matinee, his customary electronics are mostly absent. Relying instead on the slur of a jazz theme here and occasional string theme borrowings from the style of Moon River, Matinee is an instrumentally conservative score. His theme for the kids is a lightweight for strings and woodwinds, although the ideas for the theatre owner are far more intriguing. For Goodman's character, Goldsmith inserts some sleazy jazz on piano, making for some greasy moments at its start (complete with carnival pipes at one point) but some outwardly elegant ones as the show goes on in later cues. An attractive theme for suburbia takes the page from The 'Burbs with its chipper melody over pulsating brass and plucking bass strings. The quantity of themes for Matinee is surprisingly deep, with the final cue, "The Next Attraction," combining all of the thematic ideas into one 8-minute cue (ending with a cute whistling sound effect from Goldsmith's library), including an expansion of the faster, rhythmic percussion-driven piano cues that finally provide a small taste of that Gremlins attitude. The latter half of Matinee provides a much more varied and interesting listening experience than the first, thematically conservative half. If you could throw the short blasts of B-horror music in "Showtime" someplace in the vast end credits cue, you have all the music from Matinee that you really need. The album is among those plentiful Varèse Sarabande releases of Goldsmith music in the early-90's that is not quite out of print, but nor is it easy to find. A collector of the composer's work will find enjoyment in this album's sentimentality, although it fades from memory quickly after its final notes. *** Track Listings:
Total Time: 38:27
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