I just recently found out about this release at FSM. I did a quick scour through the pages and didn't see it mentioned, so hopefully this is news for you Joe Dante fans!

As i'm sure you know, Universal have constantly expressed zero interest in releasing the movie properly, so a French company (Carlotta Films) recently licensed the movie and they have clearly poured love and affection in getting a worthy release out there! It's really worth seeking out (region B locked, so a multi-region player is compulsory).

There's a brand new 30 minute interview with Dante (going into detail about the distribution problems and Universal's poor marketing strategy etc.) plus some new photos and behind the scenes pictures which Dante personally provided. MANT! is in HD and the overall transfer of the movie is really superb (a solid PCM stereo track). There's also a 5 min promotional featurette, a trailer and an intro to MANT! where Dante explains the concept and shooting of the same.

Subtitles for the movie and extras are all capable of being disabled.

Here's a link and thanks to KubrickFan @ FSM for mentioning this a few days back as I would not have known about it otherwise, especially as the French title is completely different.




- Tim

Outstanding work Tim, thanks so much for mentioning this!

Universal may not be opening the flood gates domestically, but I am glad that they're licensing out their films to overseas distributors. Between releases like this and Eureka and Arrow's UK efforts, I'm sure we'll be seeing some great titles to import -- but this one, you're right, I'd have never heard about because the title is different.

I'm going to place an order but I'm trying to pair up some other titles to make the s/h worthwhile.

Wish this was all-region like the Alien Anthology and Obsession were.

MATINEE is my favorite Joe Dante film...great stuff!