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:: Flashback Flicks ::

Meatballs (1979)

Starring: Bill Murray, Harvey Atkin, Kate Lynch, Chris Makepeace, Russ Banham, Kristine DeBell, Sarah Torgov, Jack Blum, Keith Knight, Todd Hoffman, Margot Pinvidic, Matt Craven, Cindy Girling
Director: Ivan Reitman

Reviewed by Chris Ching

ARE YOU READY FOR THE SUMMER? ARE YOU READY FOR THE GOOD TIMES? ARE YOU READY FOR THE BIRDS AND THE BEES? THE APPLE TREES? AND A WHOLE LOTTA FOOLIN' AROUND?!!

With Bill Murray onboard in his motion picture debut, you bet every last bite of Camp Mystery Meat you are! Murray plays Tripper the head counselor at the kind of idyllic summer camp that only exists in the hormone laced hearts of teen boys: the girls actually give nerds the time of day, the snobs get their due, and wackiness seems to be in a perpetual state of "ensuing."

Here's the flimsy plot. Camp Northstar is a budget summer camp attended by average, down to earth kids while Camp Mohawk serves the evil spawn of the Country Club crowd. For years, Northstar has got its head handed to them by Mohawk at the end of summer Intercamp Olympiad. Will the slobs ever beat the snobs?

What elevates this lark of a movie into the comedy Hall of Fame lies largely on the shoulders of Bill Murray. Meatballs is a textbook example of a star whose overwhelming charisma takes a pedestrian flick and elevates it to a higher plane. Bruce Lee did it with Enter The Dragon, Jack Black recently did it with School of Rock, and Bill Murray certainly does it here. Tripper is the laid back, eccentric wisenheimer we all would like to be. His inherent coolness and responsibility shirking make him the cinematic predecessor of such slacker heroes as Ferris Bueller and Brodie Bruce.

Murray also gets able support from his team of counselors who aside from being "wacky" themselves are known by nicknames like Hardware, Wheels, and Fink. Most memorable of course is Spaz, the original taped together glasses wearing geek. Then there's Morty, the Harry Reems-ish camp director who looks like he just stepped out of a seventies porn set. Speaking of looks, the women of Meatballs are hardly the jaw dropping babes of today's teen comedies. Some are downright homely. The cast seems to be having the time of their lives, and since none of them have had what you would call stellar careers, they probably were.

There's also a downright sweetness to Meatballs absent from most teen fare of the day. While other movies would have been shoving in more nude boobies, Meatballs balances the wackiness with quieter moments like the big brother relationship between Tripper and depressed camper Rudy. In these scenes and others, Murray is able to show a little more dramatic range and gives the film some genuine warmth. It's also worth pointing out for a teen sex comedy, Meatballs has no nudity.

Meatballs was the first film directed by Ivan Reitman who went on to helm Stripes and Ghostbusters. Three Meatballs sequels followed in the eighties, but none of them were even in the same stratosphere as the first and have been justly ignored. The DVD of Meatballs offers little more than cast bios and a trailer, but no matter. The cast, memorable dialogue, and yes, sweetness is a all you need.

Meatballs Trivia:

•Meatballs was shot at Camps White Pine and Towhee in Ontario, Canada.
•Aside from Murray, Matt Craven (Hardware) is the only one out of the young cast to still have an active career. He appeared in A Few Good Men and ER.
•Kristine DeBell (A.L) got her start in a porn version of Alice in Wonderland.
•2001's Wet Hot American Summer was an homage to Meatballs and the other teen summer camp sex comedies of the late seventies and early eighties.