★ 7 / 10
Amusing and harmless misadventures at summer camp with
Wuchak
Amusing and harmless misadventures at summer camp with Bill Murray Bill Murray (who was 28 during shooting) stars as an eccentrically droll camp counselor at…
Amusing and harmless misadventures at summer camp with Bill Murray
Bill Murray (who was 28 during shooting) stars as an eccentrically droll camp counselor at Camp North Star who “trains” CITs, counselors-in-training, as they oversee the hordes of kids and face challenges with teams from preppy Camp Mohawk.
“Meatballs” (1979) is a fun and innocuous summer camp flick. It’s not great but it’s entertaining enough, although if I’m going to view a summer camp film I prefer the Friday the 13th movies (practically any of them), mainly because they feature superior women. Here, Cindy Girling as curvy blonde Wendy is by far the most alluring, although Sarah Torgov as Candace is decent.
In light of the license plates, the camp is presumably located in upstate New York, but was shot in Camp White Pine, Haliburton, Ontario, which is only about 125 miles from the New York border.
The movie runs 1 hour, 34 minutes.
GRADE: B/B-
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★ 7 / 10
Classic Bill Murray laughs
ten-thousand-marbles
Twenty something camp counselors stumbled through their responsibilities and let their libidos run wild. Not much in the substance department but the key is…
Twenty something camp counselors stumbled through their responsibilities and let their libidos run wild. Not much in the substance department but the key is Meatballs was one of the first films of the raunchy comedy genre. Another likely first is the Spaz character, the stereotypical nerd with the taped glasses. This type of character ended up in countless teen comedies. Bill Murray is gold and there are plenty of laughs as well as some touching moments. Lots of nostalgia here for me.
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★ 7 / 10
2 flicks in one
treemarc
I just saw this for the first time in 10 or 15 years...maybe close to 20. In some ways, it was better than I remembered...in other, it was MUCH worse. First of…
I just saw this for the first time in 10 or 15 years...maybe close to 20. In some ways, it was better than I remembered...in other, it was MUCH worse.
First of all, there's the music. It's just plain awful. There are only 5 songs in the movie, most of them used more than once. The opening song is shrieked by a chorus of annoying children, and the disco-y title track is performed by Rick Dees. It doesn't get any worse than that. Even the background music is terrible, with much of it repeating the themes of the other nauseating tunes. We also get some truly lame slapstick, mostly in the opening credits.
On the other hand, Bill Murray is spot on brilliant as usual...you have to wonder if he ad-libbed the whole thing, or if the writers just gave him all the funny lines. Or maybe he's just that great- turning a weak script into comic genius. The best part are his surreal PA announcements. ("Lobsters...get out of here...you're a menace!")
You also get a lot more character development than you have any right to expect in a movie like this. At least half the characters seem like real people...and mostly real people you would like to have around. Even "Spaz" gets to do a more than any other Eddie Deezen-type character ever did, and when he gets the girl, it's plausible. (She's not absurdly hot, but he doesn't automatically pair up with one of the nerd girls- see "Revenge Of The Nerds" for examples of both cinematic phenomenons.)
And when the plot seems clichéd...well, ya gotta wonder if it wasn't a cliché yet when they made this. While it wasn't the first summer camp movie- ya gotta go back at least to "The Parent Trap"- it's certainly the movie that made it it's own genre. In fact, I was surprised that there was no Talent Show scene..."Wet Hot American Summer" spoofed the summer-camp genre so perfectly, I just assumed everything in it came straight out of Meatballs. (I also half-expected Jon Cryer to pull up in a convertible with a chimp, thanks to "Mr. Show's" epic camp-olympiad spoof "Monk Academy")
Anyway, this one seems to be vanishing a little as far as the late-70's/early 80's comedies- it's not a cable staple anymore, and certainly doesn't have the cult following of Caddyshack or Animal House. I was pleased to catch it on Showtime today- and in High Definition at that! Sure, it's pretty awful in spots, but you could do a lot worse in a 70's/80's teen comedy. And again, Murray is a genius.
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•••
I have a great fondness for this 70s screwball comedy. It had just aired for the first time on NBC, and over the end credit sequence, "Are you ready for the summer? Are you ready for the good times?" I heard the dread voiceover for the "Biggest Mini-series event ever." "They came in peace. Are you ready... for the Visitors?" I can remember that whole end sequence with the bed in the middle of the lake and the character hollering for help... "SOMEBODY!!!"