We’re feeding you some more delicious 90s movie nostalgia and rewatching Danny DeVito’s magical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s MATILDA. Crack open your favourite book and dish up an entire chocolate cake, lessons have started.

Molly and Chloe page back to 1996, the era of TV dinners and catalogue shopping. We discuss DeVito’s madcap filmmaking and how it puts the child at the heart of the story, why reading is a superpower, and whether Mara Wilson is playing a pint-sized telekinetic vigilante. And we brace ourselves for Pam Ferris’s marvellously malevolent turn as the terrifying Miss Trunchbull, doling out dastardly discipline and disdainful drollery at every swing of a pigtailed child.

Plus we award merits to the best and most 90s moments, plus magic up some child-friendly recommendations for further viewing (on VHS or otherwise).

The opening quote is by Bob Strauss of the Los Angeles Daily News review of Matilda from 1996

Here’s a behind-the-scenes clip of the pigtail throwing scene being filmed.

And a making-of doc with Danny DeVito on how the stunts were performed. Clarification: while the playing cards flying around were CGI, many of the objects in the film were hung from wires or attached to poles.

Watch the video for ‘Send Me On My Way’ by Rusted Root here

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Check out the other films we recommended on Letterboxd

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