top of page

Matinee

Joe Dante's Matinee is the picture that asks the question “What if a gimmick-loving, William Castle-like producer-director premiered his new horror movie Mant! in Key West during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962? Wouldn’t hijinks ensue?” John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty are the Castle character and his long-suffering girlfriend, the teenage kids are outstanding, and John Sayles and Dick Miller have splendid turns as faux protestors hired to drum up controversy (a detail inspired by Dave Friedman’s wild off-Hollywood movie memoir A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash Film King).

​

Critic Colin Souter's perceptive appreciation of Matinee is here.

Grow Your Vision

Welcome visitors to your site with a short, engaging introduction. 

Double click to edit and add your own text.

© 2024 by Charlie Haas. Powered and secured by Wix

Philosophical Talk

Like a lot of people these days I’m feeling a little unsettled, in a way that makes me want to throttle existence itself to the ground, throw it into a bottomless pit and dive in after it screaming the Lord’s Prayer backwards, Satanist-style. I guess it’s just kind of the mood of the moment. 

 

In times like these a person starts looking for answers, and I’ve been finding some every week on my favorite radio show, “Philosophical Talk.” You might be thinking of that other show with a similar name, the one with the big words and thick books. That one’s a little dense for me, but “Philosophical Talk” goes right to the core issues in terms anyone can grasp. Take a look at this transcript of a recent episode:

 

STAN: Welcome again to “Philosophical Talk,” the program that questions everything because God almighty at this point, am I right?

 

VALERIE: I mean you are, unfortunately.

 

STAN: I’m Stan Shrugman, and I’m a professor of contemporary fatalism at Duke University.

 

VALERIE: I’m Valerie Bemusio, and I teach resignation studies at Cornell. 

 

STAN: Our guest today is Ralph Crestphal, the author of What Can You Do, Okay?, winner of the 2024 There You Go Prize from the Robert and Lily Languor Foundation. Ralph, thanks for joining us.

 

RALPH: What would I be doing?

 

VALERIE: One thing that struck me, reading your book, is the passage that says, “If people would just straighten themselves out, you wouldn’t see all these problems. And mind their own business, is the other thing.”

 

RALPH: Yes. And I didn’t arrive at that overnight, you know.

 

STAN: And I think it goes to what both Aristotle and Gertrude Berg said, which is “Don’t make yourself crazy.” 

 

RALPH: You can’t. 

 

VALERIE: It drives your blood pressure right up, and then you’re just asking for it. 

 

STAN: Is that Nietzsche?

 

VALERIE: You’re always right on top of those. 

 

STAN: You do what you can.

 

RALPH: Within reason. This is something I write about in here. 

 

VALERIE: Yes, back to your book, which I hope our listeners will read if they’re in the market for something. And not if they’re not, you know, fine.

 

RALPH: That was my hope. And you know what those are worth. 

 

STAN: Again, excellent point. 

 

RALPH: Well, Heidegger, or it may have been Judith Krantz, tells us, “It is what it is.”

 

VALERIE: Pretty sure that was Billy Joel, but in any case  --

 

RALPH: You’re right, it’s Joel. I even cite that.

 

STAN: So then, to wrap up, when you think about where it all goes from here -- 

 

RALPH: Goes from here? Have you looked at what’s going on?

 

VALERIE: I can just barely.

 

RALPH: See, this is the thing. 

 

STAN: Perfect capper from our guest, Ralph Crestphal, whose book What Can You Do, Okay? is available in all formats, including the audiobook narrated by “Sighing” Fred Durance. 

 

RALPH: So lucky to get him.

 

VALERIE: It’s these little rewards.

 

STAN: I see that time is running out --

 

RALPH: We had what we had while we had it. 

 

STAN: -- so we’ll see you next week on “Philosophical Talk,” the program that says things might still work out. It could happen. You don’t know.

 

VALERIE: We should live so long, Stan.

bottom of page