Wednesday, June 30, 2010

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The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Watch The Sorcerer's Apprentice on July 16, 2010 as Disney brings its 2010 fantasy adventure film. The movie stars Nicholas Cage, Jay Baruchel Monica Bellucci and directed by Jon Turteltaub.

The 2010 movie is a live-action presentation of a segment in Disney Fantasia known as "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and then become Pual Dukas 1890s symphonic poem and the 1797 ballad of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Watch The Sorcerer's Apprentince Trailer



Master sorcerer Balthazar Blake (Cage) recruits a seemingly everyday guy (Baruchel) in his mission to defend New York City from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Molina).

Don't miss Disney The Sorcerer's Apprentice Movie this summer!

Watch Predators Movie Online Free

Predators
Watch Predators 2010 film on June 9 as 20th century Fox released it Predator franchise sequel film entitled "Predators". The movie title is in relation of how Alien franchise sequel named their sequel movie "Aliens". The movie is directed by Nimrod Antal and stars Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo and Derek Mears.

Predators 2010 Movie Trailer



The movie centers on a group of best cold-blooded killers against merciless predators. The war of humans against alien creatures as they battles to survive.

Don't miss the battle of humans to alien creatures. Watch Predators Movie Online as they battle for survival.

Watch UFC 116 Lesnar vs. Carwin Online Free

Watch UFC 116 Lesnar vs. Carwin
Watch UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin in an upcoming mixed martial arts event to be held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on July 3, 2010 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.

Shane Carwin, who came through the interim heavyweight championship by getting the better of Frank Mir at UFC 111, will front current heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar. The two were originally determined to confront each other at UFC 106, before Shane Carwin delivered the goods the interim heavyweight title, but Brock Lesnar drew out of the scrap due to an sickness that held him from breeding.

Watch UFC 116 Lesnar vs. Carwin Promo Video




The biggest heavyweight match-up will finally be seen this coming Saturday. Get yourselves ready because if this two great fighters enter the ring there's no blinking of eyes.

UFC 116 Lesnar vs. Carwin will be available on pay-per-view and online streaming portals. Watch Lesnar vs. Carwin Live Online for the Ultimate Heavyweight Championship. Who will be your bet for this fight?

Meatballs, No. 2 - Meatballs Part II (1984)


Leaving the world of intelligent, well-crafted comedy behind us forever, we come to Meatballs Part II. The world never really needed a Meatballs sequel, let alone a franchise, and indeed every single one of the original filmmakers seemed to agree, parlaying their modest Meatballs momentum to create classic golf comedies and incredible ghost-busting blockbuster bonanzas. But even when a sequel is not forthcoming, the great rip off machine can swoop in to fill that void with so many cheapo knockoffs, diluting the charm of the original rather quickly.

Seeing as it was the early 80s, the same years that saw countless “murderer at the camp” movies to diminishing returns, it makes perfect sense that a similar vein of “camp without the murderer element” movies would also chug along, to hardly anyone’s interest. Damned if I know what all of these movies were, I don’t care! And in the five years between Meatballs and Meatballs Part II, quality and even comprehensibility went bye-bye pretty quickly.

Now, Meatballs Part II was not initially intended to be a part of the hallowed Meatballs family; rather, it was simply another innocuous, vacant knockoff, soon to be rightly forgotten. But an interesting thing happened in 1984. No, not the rise of a totalitarian government hell bent on reducing people’s liberties (unless you really disliked Reagan). No, I mean the rights to Meatballs switched. Perhaps Meatballs’ independent Canadian production history made it easier pickings, but the fact is that now a particular anonymously crappy summer camp sex comedy could trade in on the Meatballs name, for whatever it was worth. And there’s hardly anything in Meatballs Part II – apart from that non sequitur title and the broad summer camp plot elements that define subgenre more than franchise – that connects it back to the original Meatballs.

Trading in the talented Ivan Reitman, Meatballs Part II was helmed by Ken Wiederhorn, director of…practically nothing else…mostly some TV episodes. Just as unpromisingly, the screenwriters were Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson, who – Wait, what was that deep, distant rumbling? Oh…no…These two wankers were the worst writers in the entire Friday the 13th franchise, not a good sign…Why do I know that offhand?! I didn’t even have to check the Internet for that one.

The opening credits play over a traveling school bus, credits written in a bright, neon 80s font I mostly associate with era magazines such as Nintendo Power. The second name credit is one Hamilton Camp, and excuse me for momentarily thinking this was an on-screen location title. Then we move into the bus, and – Holy crap! Pee Wee’s driving that bus! If only the bus were one of his anthropomorphic buddies, able to comment on the already-obvious suckiness.

For this bus is filled with our central CIT characters for this entry, a stark contrast to the naturalist members of the first movie. For this is turning out to be precisely the type of film I praised the original Meatballs for not being, full of Hollywood teenagers, their blatantly scripted problems, and flat, TV-quality lighting depicting all this. These characters, whose names won’t be uttered until it’s long past my convenience, include a slut (Tammy Taylor), an innocent girl (Kim Richards), a token tough guy from “Joisey” (Ralph Seymour), a different kind of slut (Misty Rowe, bra obviously padded), and a blandly horny guy (Archie Hahn). There is also Flash (John Mengatti), the leather-clad greaser type of guy who is, I’m convinced, purely an invention of the movies. The police pull Pee Wee’s bus over to usher Flash from their custody to the camp’s – this “passing the bill” arrangement isn’t something that’s worth a single extra moment’s thought contemplating. So basically, all these characters are pretty much the same types you’d find in a terrible slasher movie (recall the screenwriters), only here there isn’t the comfort in knowing most of them are going to die horribly for your amusement at some stage. For viewers, this is actually the more nihilistic experience!

Soon the bus arrives at Camp Sasquatch, nestled in the cheap and budget-conscious mountains surrounding Los Angeles – I’ve spend years of my life working in these very mountains, yet they still look awful in movies. What a change from the lush Canadian scenery in the real Meatballs. Here we become aware of this movie’s other character types, namely the grotesque, lazy cartoons. This starts with an old man who’s supposed to be the head counselor, camp owner, and whatever other position of camp authority they could think off. This is Giddy (Richard Mulligan, a poor man’s Lloyd Bridges, himself a poor man’s Leslie Nielsen), introduced to one Tommy McBee (actor unimportant), a young kid in an unrealistically souped-up wheelchair. Their “clever” dialogue endlessly reasserts that something is “Not unfunny,” a line that isn’t not inaccurate.

For some reason, all the movie’s central young boys (and they are all young boys, causing me to worry about Ken Wiederhorn) count among the grotesques. We have two identical twins, an excuse for some profoundly unfunny sub-Abbott and Costello routines. There’s the aforementioned wheelchair-bound Tommy. And then there’s Tim, whose arbitrary, off-putting character trait is that he constantly lugs around either a stuffed skunk or armadillo…Okay then. There’s also a kid who sells candy bars, and then loses any distinguishing features whatsoever promptly thereafter.

With all these grotesques, and awkward dialogue that struggles with humor like an English-language-learner, it becomes clear that this film’s preoccupation is “komedy.” It’s anxious, eager-to-please, and really, really, really overeager. It’s like these jerks saw Airplane! and chose to mimic its tone, but somehow traded in its world-class poker face for, well, the most obvious “tell” outside of Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.

There’s also a rival camp across the lake from Camp Sasquatch, not so much because Meatballs did it, but because Meatballs’ weak-sauce competitors did it. This is Camp Patton, a boot camp for preteens, and an opportunity for the broadest, least satirical series of military yuks I’ve ever come across. The shrimpy, Napoleonic camp leader Col. Bat Jack Hershey (the enigmatic Hamilton Camp, who certainly took to every possible meaning of his last name) provides a master class in actually out-hamming Richard Mulligan, with acting so outrĂ© it somehow rounds the horn back to being boring. His second-in-command is Lt. Felix Foxglove (John freaking Larroquette, sans dignity), and guess what offensive, broad stereotype they’ve granted him – homosexuality. The gag here is supposed to be the outrageous contrast between the military and the gays and…just make your own joke, okay.

Right, so there are unmotivated rivalries between the two camps, because this kind of movie demands it – the conflict here is noticeably more pronounced and mean-spirited than North Star and Camp Mohawk. To that end, Giddy recruits Flash, that juvenile troublemaker Rebel Without a Cause wannabe, to train for the annual climactic boxing tournament between the two camps. I die a little on the inside.

Then something happens that you’d honestly never be able to guess without prior knowledge of this movie. A – oh good God! – a…a…Okay, I can do this…A UFO hovers over the lake.





[I shriek in anger.]

Not content with somehow transforming the broad outline of Meatballs into the kind of komedy you’d find in between the sex scenes of a porno, they’ve decided to go ahead and throw in an extraterrestrial element, hurling whatever realism remained directly out the window. And it turns out, since this movie is inexplicably concerned with badly mimicking Airplane!, this is their chance to spoof E.T. – if by “spoof” you mean “retell without jokes, heart or whimsy on a restrictively tiny budget.” It seems the legally-distinct-from-E.T. alien child has been sent to a human camp by his (Jewish) alien parents, all for no good goddamn reason whatsoever. So they abandon this creature in the woods, pausing only briefly to relate a truly uninspired space pun that I’m not transcribing.

I grow bored…The quintet of broad yet uninteresting young boys soon enough discovers this alien hiding in an outhouse, affording us lengthy views of the unremarkable beast. Let’s see…His head is totally lacking in detail, no part of his face ever moves, and he simply waddles around ineptly in a way that makes Howard the Duck seem butch. He wouldn’t pass muster in a lesser creature feature from the 50s. And this alien, lovingly nicknamed “Meathead,” is absolutely the best thing about this movie. Oh look, here he is now!

Meanwhile, we leave this non-starter of an alien storyline to join the non-starter of a boxing storyline. Flash heads to the camp’s remarkably large boxing building to train with Giddy and with Boomer (Joe Nipote), an eleventh-rate sketch “komedy” troupe’s idea of a Rocky parody. It’s like a mentally challenged guy somehow failing to perform as a mentally challenged guy. It blows my mind. Oh, and this movie puts in some sort of token effort on a romantic subplot no one is concerned with, so Flash’s sparring is occasionally interrupted for long, loving glances at the innocent girl, whose name is…Shirley? Yeah, I think it’s Shirley.

She too experiences a growing attraction towards Flash (young people are dumb), so she proceeds to ask Nancy the slut about S-E-X. She endlessly asks Nancy about “dorks,” which is this movie’s oddball euphemism for the penis. Actually, they quickly segue over to an even more bizarre euphemism, “pinkies.” I’d accept this briefly, but the movie insists on its overuse rather regularly, possibly due to a combination of zero wit and a PG rating. The various other slutty female nonentities further teach Shirley about the penis, and – wait, did they say Sheryl? Okay, whatever, her name’s actually Sheryl. Damn this movie.

A few more boring gag scenes later, and we return to Camp Patton so the rivalry subplot can develop. Col. Hershey meets with Chief Rawhide – you guessed it, they’re now resorting to lazy joke versions of the Natives, a portrayal MAD Magazine wouldn’t resort to in its worst years (the 2000s). This means Hershey now has the deed to the lake (not the lands themselves, but the lake), which will somehow allow him to put an end to the hated Camp Sasquatch once and for all!

The following day, Hershey and the increasingly-outed Lt. Foxglove head over to Sasquatch to meet with Giddy. Having run out of broad cultural stereotypes that make sense in a komic kamp kontext, the movie now randomly resorts to showing off several Hara Krishnas (you know, because they were in Airplane!). Hershey learns from Giddy…something vague about the Krishnas, which prompts Hershey to enter into a weird little agreement. Basically, plot contortions in this subgenre have to make the camp’s very existence dependent upon the outcome of the climactic sports match, so indeed both Camp Patton and Camp Sasquatch risk the deeds to their respective properties on the upcoming Champ of the Lake boxing match. What little in-movie justification is given is scant and contrived, so let’s just accept this necessary turn of events and move on.

That night (or at any rate, a night, since the passage of time here is never totally clear), there is a big dance over at Camp Sasquatch – and even though it’s now 1984, disco features prominently. Ah yes, the big dance, another required element in these movies. Flash dances with the innocent girl Cheryl (I gave up and checked the Internet – that’s her character’s name), arranging through a komic konversation some sort of ribald tryst later that night. Likewise Jamie and Fanny, the perpetually sex-crazed couple, also plan a tryst. Shenanigans ensue, each male accidentally heads into the wrong cabin, and coitus sees premature interruptus.

Let’ see, which subplot has been most neglected by this point?...Ah, Meathead the alien! I almost forgot, there’s a freaking alien wandering around camp, to the complete and utter nonchalance of nearly everyone. Meathead has disguised himself in a raincoat, what he perceived to be the most common of all human outfits (he must have spent some time on 42nd Street), a non-disguise on a par with Clark Kent’s glasses. Strolling aimlessly, Meathead phases through a wall into Flash’s cabin, to find this ex-con camp counselor enjoying delicious, PG-rated marijuana. Meathead tries a little, floats briefly (these are the jokes here, people!), and I grow bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!

They’re pretty much completely running out of material, because next up we get to see the camp children sitting around watching director Wiederhorn’s only other movie, the comparatively adequate Shock Waves. Flash arranges a skinny dipping session with Shir- wait, Cheryl, made possible because this girl is so innocent she believes “skinny dipping” means “astronomy.” It’s a joke, boy, you’re supposed to laugh, now, y’hear? [Sigh.] So these two head out to the lake, while the various slutty girls secretly follow to catch a glimpse of Flash’s “pinky.” At the same time, the militaristic kids from Patton have crossed the lake for a mostly pointless incursion into Camp Sasquatch. Also, Jamie and Fanny are having sex in the forest, a normal state of affairs (they’d have died three minutes into a horror movie). Then a bear comes along, and all these different plot strands descend into “komic” anarchy, everyone simply racing around and screaming like a bad Benny Hill routine – that is to say, any Benny Hill routine. The end result, the scant little event that ties this unfunny sequence in to the movie’s semblance of a plot, is that the Patton kids kidnap Flash and drag him back to their camp.

And with a full half hour of running time left, it’s time for the Champ of the Lake, meaning we’re due in for a deathless, overly-long boxing match. The entire cast is assembled, many of them vainly and pointlessly crossing their eyes in a wildly misguided attempt to eke a little laughter out of the audience…I dunno, maybe this movie would be funny to stoners. Then again, shoes are funny to stoners. It’s like convincing a teenager to have an erection…Okay, I’ve gotten sidetracked here. I think I don’t want to talk about this movie.

Flash awakes alone over at Camp Patton, totally not locked up or anything, so he can simply wander over to Camp Sasquatch and fight anyway. Nice job with your villainous plan there, Hershey. But Flash is basically naked, in a PG sorta way (skinny dipping and all), so he has to find something to wear. Apparently the only clothes at Camp Patton are the dresses Lt. Foxglove keeps in his closet, never to come out. What a lame, lame, lame way to get your ostensible hero in a dress for the final fight – and then do nothing with that gag once it’s been set up. Again, way to suck, movie.

Hershey releases his feral, raw meat-eating boxer from his cage, revealing Mad Dog (Donald Gibb, stalwart member of the Revenge of the Nerds saga). Then Flash makes his glorious, dress-clad entrance, and the fight is on! Two rounds of the most lackluster fight choreography ever proceed, and the movie is inept enough it can’t even convince us of Mad Dog’s mastery over Flash, a necessary development for any climactic movie fight. They even attempt to retell a comic routine Charlie Chaplin once mastered, and naturally the execution here is botched. Man, there’s nothing quite like trying to write about a bad comedy, is there?

Finally, Meathead gets it into his expressionless alien head to aid Flash, so he goes ahead and uses his red-eyed stoner alien powers to levitate Flash over the ring (on visible wires). Flash floats abou,t landing blow after blow on the stymied Mad Dog, all the while the whole camp reacts with zero emotion to this bizarre, idiotic turn of events. We’ve come a long way from the original Meatballs, I tell you what, so I just keep repeating Bill Murray’s mantra to myself: “It just doesn’t matter!”

Man, this boxing match is taking forever. Hershey alone somehow realizes there is a red-eyed, telepathic alien seated in the crowded bleachers, so he proceeds to do what any of us would and prime a grenade underneath dozens of children. I – Whuh?! Wheelchair-bound Tommy attempts to stop Hershey by walking out of his wheelchair, even though he could have easily wheeled over to the man. But that doesn’t matter (thank you, Bill), so instead Meathead decides to levitate the grenade around, which then chases Hershey out of the building. It explodes him off screen, and because this is the type of movie it is, we know Hershey shall turn up again at the end, simply charred a little bit like Daffy Duck.

Flash tumbles to the ring, Meathead’s telepathic stoner link now broken, so he just proceeds to easily whup Mad Dog right there on his own, you know, just because. It just doesn’t matter! Camp Sasquatch is saved, everyone cheers, and Mad Dog responds to his loss by tearing off Flash’s clothes. Hence his “pinky” dangles out for all the preteen children in attendance to gawp at in horror.

The movie has climaxed, all its plot strands meshing together like an intricate Chinese puzzle box in one glorious penis exhibition. All that’s left is the standard wrapping up, which takes forever. End. Giddy resolves the land deeds with Hershey. End! Meathead’s parents pick him up and act quite the Jews. Eeeend! The buses full of kids leave for wherever, while Flash smooches Cheryl. The camera promptly pans back, so this is the end, right? Thank you, sweet J- Wait, we’re in space now?! Aah! Meathead’s UFO flies around and…Okay, whatever, it’s over, let us never speak of this movie again.

This terrible PG-rated movie, so insulting even to anyone old enough for PG fare, originally aimed for an R, to be a part of the cheesecake teenaged sex comedy genre Meatballs itself was so distinctly not a part of. According to legend (that is, the IMDb trivia page), over 80 minutes of naked sex footage was shot for the international market, removed only when the actors who performed these softcore scenes took offense to their inclusion. Wait, why’d you take part in a whole film’s worth of intercourse if you didn’t want anyone to watch it? So be it, someone actually took the effort to list in great detail every single sex act we missed. You don’t have to read through this whole thing, oh Lord no, but seriously go and check it out!

Meatballs Part II “enjoys” a miserly 3.0 rating on the IMDb, which still somehow makes this the second highest entry in the Meatballs franchise. Boy, these next two are gonna be some real turds!


Related posts:
• No. 1 Meatballs (1979)
• No. 3 Meatballs III (1986)
• No. 4 Meatballs 4 (1992)

Meatballs, No. 2 - Meatballs Part II (1984)


Leaving the world of intelligent, well-crafted comedy behind us forever, we come to Meatballs Part II. The world never really needed a Meatballs sequel, let alone a franchise, and indeed every single one of the original filmmakers seemed to agree, parlaying their modest Meatballs momentum to create classic golf comedies and incredible ghost-busting blockbuster bonanzas. But even when a sequel is not forthcoming, the great rip off machine can swoop in to fill that void with so many cheapo knockoffs, diluting the charm of the original rather quickly.

Seeing as it was the early 80s, the same years that saw countless “murderer at the camp” movies to diminishing returns, it makes perfect sense that a similar vein of “camp without the murderer element” movies would also chug along, to hardly anyone’s interest. Damned if I know what all of these movies were, I don’t care! And in the five years between Meatballs and Meatballs Part II, quality and even comprehensibility went bye-bye pretty quickly.

Now, Meatballs Part II was not initially intended to be a part of the hallowed Meatballs family; rather, it was simply another innocuous, vacant knockoff, soon to be rightly forgotten. But an interesting thing happened in 1984. No, not the rise of a totalitarian government hell bent on reducing people’s liberties (unless you really disliked Reagan). No, I mean the rights to Meatballs switched. Perhaps Meatballs’ independent Canadian production history made it easier pickings, but the fact is that now a particular anonymously crappy summer camp sex comedy could trade in on the Meatballs name, for whatever it was worth. And there’s hardly anything in Meatballs Part II – apart from that non sequitur title and the broad summer camp plot elements that define subgenre more than franchise – that connects it back to the original Meatballs.

Trading in the talented Ivan Reitman, Meatballs Part II was helmed by Ken Wiederhorn, director of…practically nothing else…mostly some TV episodes. Just as unpromisingly, the screenwriters were Martin Kitrosser and Carol Watson, who – Wait, what was that deep, distant rumbling? Oh…no…These two wankers were the worst writers in the entire Friday the 13th franchise, not a good sign…Why do I know that offhand?! I didn’t even have to check the Internet for that one.

The opening credits play over a traveling school bus, credits written in a bright, neon 80s font I mostly associate with era magazines such as Nintendo Power. The second name credit is one Hamilton Camp, and excuse me for momentarily thinking this was an on-screen location title. Then we move into the bus, and – Holy crap! Pee Wee’s driving that bus! If only the bus were one of his anthropomorphic buddies, able to comment on the already-obvious suckiness.

For this bus is filled with our central CIT characters for this entry, a stark contrast to the naturalist members of the first movie. For this is turning out to be precisely the type of film I praised the original Meatballs for not being, full of Hollywood teenagers, their blatantly scripted problems, and flat, TV-quality lighting depicting all this. These characters, whose names won’t be uttered until it’s long past my convenience, include a slut (Tammy Taylor), an innocent girl (Kim Richards), a token tough guy from “Joisey” (Ralph Seymour), a different kind of slut (Misty Rowe, bra obviously padded), and a blandly horny guy (Archie Hahn). There is also Flash (John Mengatti), the leather-clad greaser type of guy who is, I’m convinced, purely an invention of the movies. The police pull Pee Wee’s bus over to usher Flash from their custody to the camp’s – this “passing the bill” arrangement isn’t something that’s worth a single extra moment’s thought contemplating. So basically, all these characters are pretty much the same types you’d find in a terrible slasher movie (recall the screenwriters), only here there isn’t the comfort in knowing most of them are going to die horribly for your amusement at some stage. For viewers, this is actually the more nihilistic experience!

Soon the bus arrives at Camp Sasquatch, nestled in the cheap and budget-conscious mountains surrounding Los Angeles – I’ve spend years of my life working in these very mountains, yet they still look awful in movies. What a change from the lush Canadian scenery in the real Meatballs. Here we become aware of this movie’s other character types, namely the grotesque, lazy cartoons. This starts with an old man who’s supposed to be the head counselor, camp owner, and whatever other position of camp authority they could think off. This is Giddy (Richard Mulligan, a poor man’s Lloyd Bridges, himself a poor man’s Leslie Nielsen), introduced to one Tommy McBee (actor unimportant), a young kid in an unrealistically souped-up wheelchair. Their “clever” dialogue endlessly reasserts that something is “Not unfunny,” a line that isn’t not inaccurate.

For some reason, all the movie’s central young boys (and they are all young boys, causing me to worry about Ken Wiederhorn) count among the grotesques. We have two identical twins, an excuse for some profoundly unfunny sub-Abbott and Costello routines. There’s the aforementioned wheelchair-bound Tommy. And then there’s Tim, whose arbitrary, off-putting character trait is that he constantly lugs around either a stuffed skunk or armadillo…Okay then. There’s also a kid who sells candy bars, and then loses any distinguishing features whatsoever promptly thereafter.

With all these grotesques, and awkward dialogue that struggles with humor like an English-language-learner, it becomes clear that this film’s preoccupation is “komedy.” It’s anxious, eager-to-please, and really, really, really overeager. It’s like these jerks saw Airplane! and chose to mimic its tone, but somehow traded in its world-class poker face for, well, the most obvious “tell” outside of Le Chiffre in Casino Royale.

There’s also a rival camp across the lake from Camp Sasquatch, not so much because Meatballs did it, but because Meatballs’ weak-sauce competitors did it. This is Camp Patton, a boot camp for preteens, and an opportunity for the broadest, least satirical series of military yuks I’ve ever come across. The shrimpy, Napoleonic camp leader Col. Bat Jack Hershey (the enigmatic Hamilton Camp, who certainly took to every possible meaning of his last name) provides a master class in actually out-hamming Richard Mulligan, with acting so outrĂ© it somehow rounds the horn back to being boring. His second-in-command is Lt. Felix Foxglove (John freaking Larroquette, sans dignity), and guess what offensive, broad stereotype they’ve granted him – homosexuality. The gag here is supposed to be the outrageous contrast between the military and the gays and…just make your own joke, okay.

Right, so there are unmotivated rivalries between the two camps, because this kind of movie demands it – the conflict here is noticeably more pronounced and mean-spirited than North Star and Camp Mohawk. To that end, Giddy recruits Flash, that juvenile troublemaker Rebel Without a Cause wannabe, to train for the annual climactic boxing tournament between the two camps. I die a little on the inside.

Then something happens that you’d honestly never be able to guess without prior knowledge of this movie. A – oh good God! – a…a…Okay, I can do this…A UFO hovers over the lake.





[I shriek in anger.]

Not content with somehow transforming the broad outline of Meatballs into the kind of komedy you’d find in between the sex scenes of a porno, they’ve decided to go ahead and throw in an extraterrestrial element, hurling whatever realism remained directly out the window. And it turns out, since this movie is inexplicably concerned with badly mimicking Airplane!, this is their chance to spoof E.T. – if by “spoof” you mean “retell without jokes, heart or whimsy on a restrictively tiny budget.” It seems the legally-distinct-from-E.T. alien child has been sent to a human camp by his (Jewish) alien parents, all for no good goddamn reason whatsoever. So they abandon this creature in the woods, pausing only briefly to relate a truly uninspired space pun that I’m not transcribing.

I grow bored…The quintet of broad yet uninteresting young boys soon enough discovers this alien hiding in an outhouse, affording us lengthy views of the unremarkable beast. Let’s see…His head is totally lacking in detail, no part of his face ever moves, and he simply waddles around ineptly in a way that makes Howard the Duck seem butch. He wouldn’t pass muster in a lesser creature feature from the 50s. And this alien, lovingly nicknamed “Meathead,” is absolutely the best thing about this movie. Oh look, here he is now!

Meanwhile, we leave this non-starter of an alien storyline to join the non-starter of a boxing storyline. Flash heads to the camp’s remarkably large boxing building to train with Giddy and with Boomer (Joe Nipote), an eleventh-rate sketch “komedy” troupe’s idea of a Rocky parody. It’s like a mentally challenged guy somehow failing to perform as a mentally challenged guy. It blows my mind. Oh, and this movie puts in some sort of token effort on a romantic subplot no one is concerned with, so Flash’s sparring is occasionally interrupted for long, loving glances at the innocent girl, whose name is…Shirley? Yeah, I think it’s Shirley.

She too experiences a growing attraction towards Flash (young people are dumb), so she proceeds to ask Nancy the slut about S-E-X. She endlessly asks Nancy about “dorks,” which is this movie’s oddball euphemism for the penis. Actually, they quickly segue over to an even more bizarre euphemism, “pinkies.” I’d accept this briefly, but the movie insists on its overuse rather regularly, possibly due to a combination of zero wit and a PG rating. The various other slutty female nonentities further teach Shirley about the penis, and – wait, did they say Sheryl? Okay, whatever, her name’s actually Sheryl. Damn this movie.

A few more boring gag scenes later, and we return to Camp Patton so the rivalry subplot can develop. Col. Hershey meets with Chief Rawhide – you guessed it, they’re now resorting to lazy joke versions of the Natives, a portrayal MAD Magazine wouldn’t resort to in its worst years (the 2000s). This means Hershey now has the deed to the lake (not the lands themselves, but the lake), which will somehow allow him to put an end to the hated Camp Sasquatch once and for all!

The following day, Hershey and the increasingly-outed Lt. Foxglove head over to Sasquatch to meet with Giddy. Having run out of broad cultural stereotypes that make sense in a komic kamp kontext, the movie now randomly resorts to showing off several Hara Krishnas (you know, because they were in Airplane!). Hershey learns from Giddy…something vague about the Krishnas, which prompts Hershey to enter into a weird little agreement. Basically, plot contortions in this subgenre have to make the camp’s very existence dependent upon the outcome of the climactic sports match, so indeed both Camp Patton and Camp Sasquatch risk the deeds to their respective properties on the upcoming Champ of the Lake boxing match. What little in-movie justification is given is scant and contrived, so let’s just accept this necessary turn of events and move on.

That night (or at any rate, a night, since the passage of time here is never totally clear), there is a big dance over at Camp Sasquatch – and even though it’s now 1984, disco features prominently. Ah yes, the big dance, another required element in these movies. Flash dances with the innocent girl Cheryl (I gave up and checked the Internet – that’s her character’s name), arranging through a komic konversation some sort of ribald tryst later that night. Likewise Jamie and Fanny, the perpetually sex-crazed couple, also plan a tryst. Shenanigans ensue, each male accidentally heads into the wrong cabin, and coitus sees premature interruptus.

Let’ see, which subplot has been most neglected by this point?...Ah, Meathead the alien! I almost forgot, there’s a freaking alien wandering around camp, to the complete and utter nonchalance of nearly everyone. Meathead has disguised himself in a raincoat, what he perceived to be the most common of all human outfits (he must have spent some time on 42nd Street), a non-disguise on a par with Clark Kent’s glasses. Strolling aimlessly, Meathead phases through a wall into Flash’s cabin, to find this ex-con camp counselor enjoying delicious, PG-rated marijuana. Meathead tries a little, floats briefly (these are the jokes here, people!), and I grow bored, bored, bored, bored, bored!

They’re pretty much completely running out of material, because next up we get to see the camp children sitting around watching director Wiederhorn’s only other movie, the comparatively adequate Shock Waves. Flash arranges a skinny dipping session with Shir- wait, Cheryl, made possible because this girl is so innocent she believes “skinny dipping” means “astronomy.” It’s a joke, boy, you’re supposed to laugh, now, y’hear? [Sigh.] So these two head out to the lake, while the various slutty girls secretly follow to catch a glimpse of Flash’s “pinky.” At the same time, the militaristic kids from Patton have crossed the lake for a mostly pointless incursion into Camp Sasquatch. Also, Jamie and Fanny are having sex in the forest, a normal state of affairs (they’d have died three minutes into a horror movie). Then a bear comes along, and all these different plot strands descend into “komic” anarchy, everyone simply racing around and screaming like a bad Benny Hill routine – that is to say, any Benny Hill routine. The end result, the scant little event that ties this unfunny sequence in to the movie’s semblance of a plot, is that the Patton kids kidnap Flash and drag him back to their camp.

And with a full half hour of running time left, it’s time for the Champ of the Lake, meaning we’re due in for a deathless, overly-long boxing match. The entire cast is assembled, many of them vainly and pointlessly crossing their eyes in a wildly misguided attempt to eke a little laughter out of the audience…I dunno, maybe this movie would be funny to stoners. Then again, shoes are funny to stoners. It’s like convincing a teenager to have an erection…Okay, I’ve gotten sidetracked here. I think I don’t want to talk about this movie.

Flash awakes alone over at Camp Patton, totally not locked up or anything, so he can simply wander over to Camp Sasquatch and fight anyway. Nice job with your villainous plan there, Hershey. But Flash is basically naked, in a PG sorta way (skinny dipping and all), so he has to find something to wear. Apparently the only clothes at Camp Patton are the dresses Lt. Foxglove keeps in his closet, never to come out. What a lame, lame, lame way to get your ostensible hero in a dress for the final fight – and then do nothing with that gag once it’s been set up. Again, way to suck, movie.

Hershey releases his feral, raw meat-eating boxer from his cage, revealing Mad Dog (Donald Gibb, stalwart member of the Revenge of the Nerds saga). Then Flash makes his glorious, dress-clad entrance, and the fight is on! Two rounds of the most lackluster fight choreography ever proceed, and the movie is inept enough it can’t even convince us of Mad Dog’s mastery over Flash, a necessary development for any climactic movie fight. They even attempt to retell a comic routine Charlie Chaplin once mastered, and naturally the execution here is botched. Man, there’s nothing quite like trying to write about a bad comedy, is there?

Finally, Meathead gets it into his expressionless alien head to aid Flash, so he goes ahead and uses his red-eyed stoner alien powers to levitate Flash over the ring (on visible wires). Flash floats abou,t landing blow after blow on the stymied Mad Dog, all the while the whole camp reacts with zero emotion to this bizarre, idiotic turn of events. We’ve come a long way from the original Meatballs, I tell you what, so I just keep repeating Bill Murray’s mantra to myself: “It just doesn’t matter!”

Man, this boxing match is taking forever. Hershey alone somehow realizes there is a red-eyed, telepathic alien seated in the crowded bleachers, so he proceeds to do what any of us would and prime a grenade underneath dozens of children. I – Whuh?! Wheelchair-bound Tommy attempts to stop Hershey by walking out of his wheelchair, even though he could have easily wheeled over to the man. But that doesn’t matter (thank you, Bill), so instead Meathead decides to levitate the grenade around, which then chases Hershey out of the building. It explodes him off screen, and because this is the type of movie it is, we know Hershey shall turn up again at the end, simply charred a little bit like Daffy Duck.

Flash tumbles to the ring, Meathead’s telepathic stoner link now broken, so he just proceeds to easily whup Mad Dog right there on his own, you know, just because. It just doesn’t matter! Camp Sasquatch is saved, everyone cheers, and Mad Dog responds to his loss by tearing off Flash’s clothes. Hence his “pinky” dangles out for all the preteen children in attendance to gawp at in horror.

The movie has climaxed, all its plot strands meshing together like an intricate Chinese puzzle box in one glorious penis exhibition. All that’s left is the standard wrapping up, which takes forever. End. Giddy resolves the land deeds with Hershey. End! Meathead’s parents pick him up and act quite the Jews. Eeeend! The buses full of kids leave for wherever, while Flash smooches Cheryl. The camera promptly pans back, so this is the end, right? Thank you, sweet J- Wait, we’re in space now?! Aah! Meathead’s UFO flies around and…Okay, whatever, it’s over, let us never speak of this movie again.

This terrible PG-rated movie, so insulting even to anyone old enough for PG fare, originally aimed for an R, to be a part of the cheesecake teenaged sex comedy genre Meatballs itself was so distinctly not a part of. According to legend (that is, the IMDb trivia page), over 80 minutes of naked sex footage was shot for the international market, removed only when the actors who performed these softcore scenes took offense to their inclusion. Wait, why’d you take part in a whole film’s worth of intercourse if you didn’t want anyone to watch it? So be it, someone actually took the effort to list in great detail every single sex act we missed. You don’t have to read through this whole thing, oh Lord no, but seriously go and check it out!

Meatballs Part II “enjoys” a miserly 3.0 rating on the IMDb, which still somehow makes this the second highest entry in the Meatballs franchise. Boy, these next two are gonna be some real turds!


Related posts:
• No. 1 Meatballs (1979)
• No. 3 Meatballs III (1986)
• No. 4 Meatballs 4 (1992)

speed paint


Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Watch Entourage Season 7 Episode 1 Stunted Online Free

Entourage Season 7
Entourage is back as well as the boys are back again! Entourage Season 7 premieres on Monday, Tuesday 27, 2010. The new season will revolve to Vince to a new life on his A list career.

Watch Entourage Season 7 Episode 1 Stunted




E and Ari panic when Vince agrees to do his own stunts in the new Nick Cassavetes movie. Drama and Turtle have work issues of different kinds, and Ari considers a foray into the NFL.

Meatballs, No. 1 - Meatballs (1979)


The comedy genre tends to operate in waves, these waves often driven by concentrated groups of collaborators. Consider most of the great comedies from the late seventies through the eighties. Time and again you find the same names connected with these films, the same actors, writers and directors: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Landis, Ivan Reitman…

The story of the simultaneous ascent of these various minds, who would largely drive the evolution of cinematic comedy, is far, far too expansive for my lazy ass to attempt tackling right now. So I shall take a reductive approach, rather simply discussing Meatballs, in the hope that at least a scant amount of insight into this overall movement can come to light.

Meatballs was the first directorial effort of Ivan Reitman, following his work as producer of many great movies, and also an Ilsa entry. He had just come off of masterminding National Lampoon’s Animal House, the college film that destroyed all that came before and defined all that followed. This movie, of course, was directed by John Landis, later of The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. At this stage, Reitman was anxious to direct something himself, feeling the timing was right in the interim between Animal House’s production and its release. And since his last movie (as producer) was the quintessential college film, for his follow-up Reitman would simply identify another institution to riff on – summer camp.

The script for Meatballs was fashioned not so much as a narrative, but as a series of idealized summer camp memories. What little narrative it had was simply a scant adhesive to connect the individual moments together. Meatballs would focus on comedy, in marriage with a nostalgic slice-of-life reminiscence on childhood and adolescence – all in all, it’s a younger skewing and more innocent Animal House.

But a vague portrayal of summer camp does not a motion picture make, and so a head camp counselor character was devised to act as a master-of-ceremonies of sorts, one Tripper Harrison. There was only one man Reitman felt could essay this role, a man without whom Meatballs may never have happened, and who wasn’t even connected with the film until three days into shooting.

That man was Bill Murray. This was his first starring role.

Bill Murray is perhaps the brightest star of his generation of comedic minds, best combining wry, caustic humor and a certain common man schlubbishness all can relate to. Despite a total lack of movie star looks, or ego, or workaholism (or because of such things), Murray is, I believe, among the greatest movie stars of all time.

Murray began his comic career at the fabled Second City Chicago, the improv theater responsible for creating countless gifted performers. From there he teamed up with John Belushi for “The National Lampoon Radio Hour,” which led to an off Broadway “Lampoon” show, which then led to the creation of “Saturday Night Live.” Murray didn’t join the show until the second season, replacing Chevy Chase – isn’t it amazing how much historical talent passed through that show in its early years? This was the position Murray found himself in when he agreed to spend a summer with Reitman at an in-operation summer camp in Canada, to create a little independent film. And indeed, with Animal House yet to prove the generational phenomenon that it was, Ivan Reitman had yet to truly prove himself, as did Murray and untested screenwriter Harold Ramis.

Looking at Meatballs from a future perspective, it appears a (minor) part of an incredible string of movies to follow, with rotating creative members from film to film…films such as Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Stripes, Ghostbusters… On its own, Meatballs is a tad underwhelming, but considered in this company, one can find the raw seeds that would make up the later movies.

In tone and narrative, Meatballs seems most akin to Caddyshack, though with somewhat reduced humor and star power. Quick! What’s the plot of Caddyshack? Apart from a basic “slobs vs. the snobs” theme, most people couldn’t answer that, no matter their love for that film. The same answer fits Meatballs, which simply follows a large group of young characters and assorted comic set pieces.

Murray’s Tripper Harrison is the glue, as stated. All throughout Meatballs, head counselor Tripper provides commentary and wry humor in a series of P.A. announcements across camp – commentary that also supplements otherwise gag-free footage of the actual camp operation (real campers interact with the actors on a regular basis).

Tripper’s first announcement precedes a montage of the various late teen counselors-in-training (CITs) who shall make up our main cast – the CITs, it turns out, were initially supposed to be the film’s entire focus, in earlier conceptions. These are the sorts of characters with names like Spaz, Fink, Wheels, Hardware, Lance, Ace, Horse, and the Stomach. Since then, many films have adopted a similar trick, and indeed many of the elements that define Meatballs have been diluted through time and overuse.

These character introductions are peppered with a very generous quantity of good gags, and I realize something – most movies nowadays don’t make the same effort at the mere density of humor. The jokes in Meatballs and its ilk get in and get out, cutting perhaps a little too early and trusting the audience to follow the jokes. Most comedies today are less trusting of audiences, spending entire scenes to set up and over-explain lame gags, lest anyone not get it. The artistry has been replaced with executive worry…but I’m digressing.

The CITs of Camp North Star, owned by mustachioed nebbish Morty Melnick (Harvey Atkin), greet their various young charges before four school buses in a parking lot, ready to spirit them away for a summer of rambunctious shenanigans. Little vignettes set up the standard camp counselor personas – characters who would regularly die horribly in summer camp movies a mere year later. Of chief interest among this group are Spaz and Fink (Jack Blum and Keith Knight), the token dweeb and fatso, respectively, ready for a season full of unrequited sexual awkwardness. There are also a few standard romantic subplots amongst the blander, (relatively) more attractive CITs, but thankfully this never becomes a preoccupation that cuts into the wackiness. And hardly anyone in this movie is supermodel hot like in most teen comedies – Hell, Bill Murray might actually be the most attractive person here.

With all this light silliness, a movie like Meatballs needs heart, something to really ingratiate the audience amidst all the prankery and raunch. Cue Elmer Bernstein’s light, soulful melodies, accompanying preteen Rudy Gerner (child actor Chris Makepeace), a character who embodies all the homesickness and loneliness one experiences at camp. Despite exclusion from his fellow campers, a series of scenes strung consistently throughout the story shall develop a sweet relationship between Rudy and Murray’s Tripper – this is seen particularly in scenes where they jog together through the woods. As is the case with this script, the relationship is sketched in hazy details, but it is the quality of the performances and chemistry that really endears this subplot, and really elevates Meatballs beyond the humor. Murray’s consistent ad-libbing helps, his character doing a fine job to undercut the treacle.

(This particular connective tissue is the result of later reshoots, as Reitman and company understood that comedy on its own could not sustain the picture. It was a good decision.)

While we’re still here in the parking lot, let’s focus on the other major element in this story: Camp Mohawk. In a rare moment of truly arch humor, an actual newsman is on hand to report the start of the summer season at this super-exclusive, $1,000-a-week camp resort, across the lake from the rough and tumble Camp North Star. That’s right, here is the germ of all those “slobs vs. the snobs” eighties comedies (already commonplace in other forms dating back to at least the Marx Brothers). As the first example of the eighties snobs, Camp Mohawk does not come across as nearly as hateful as its followers. One would be forgiven for expecting an entire plotline defined by vindictive rivalries between the two camps, so it’s to Meatball’s credit that the relationship between North Star and Mohawk remains good-natured and sportsmanlike.

Sorry, but one final thing to mention during the parking lot scene (I’ll speed up, I promise). Tripper manages to worm his way into the news broadcast, posing as one of Mohawk’s activity coordinators, an excuse for Murray to perform a truly awe-inspiring bit of ad-libbing brilliance. This is the sort of moment that can be ruined in writing, so I’ll simply mention to watch out for his wonderful bit about Sexual Awareness Week…Heh heh, “raping and pillaging.”

Most of the remaining movie, which we’ve barely scratched, is simply a series of vignettes presenting a lightly comic summer camp experience, buoyed by Murray’s observational antics. I cannot comment directly on how nostalgic or accurate this is to others’ childhood camp experiences; despite my plentiful experience in the wilderness, it’s never been quite as structured – if that’s the right word – as Camp North Star. Still, childhood is childhood, and Meatballs seems truthful where so many Hollywood movies appear calculated. I can’t speak for all directors, but I guarantee Ivan Reitman wasn’t always an adult.

There is little point in actually relating the structure or content of the film. All the comments I’ve made in regards to the characters and humor should suffice. (There is a particularly amusing running prank, though, where the campers transport the sleeping Melnick to a new random exterior location each and every night.) Camp Mohawk has barely even figured into the story for about 80% of the movie, until dialogue goes and announces mere moments before it happens that tomorrow is the big, all-camp Olympiad.

The Olympiad between Mohawk and North Star is an opportunity to grant this rather aimless narrative a climax of sorts, and to give triumphant crowning moments to each of our main characters. But since this is nominally an underdog story, the first day of competition (out of two) sees Mohawk roundly triumphing over North Star, for the twelfth year in a row. Some amount of underhanded Mohawk cheating takes place, but compared to most other movie antagonists, it all seems rather inconsequential. Oh wait…they intentionally break one girl’s leg during field hockey…Yeah, if Mohawk’s lawyers weren’t so high-priced, there would’ve been lawsuits from that one.

If Meatballs has any claim to classic status (apart from just being sorta old), it’s the next scene. Melnick proves just as useless as ever in trying to pump up his camp charges, so our hero Tripper takes the bull by the horns to deliver what is truly one of the greatest pre-battle speeches in film history. And this speech’s greatness comes from how decidedly it mocks all those other speeches – Patton in particular, in my mind. To repeat Murray’s performance here in its entirety would again be futile (if you want, go check out the quote on the IMDb, or better yet, watch the freaking movie). Still, the climactic sentiment warrants endless repetition, both here and as one’s mantra throughout life as a whole: “It just doesn’t matter!” Is there any better way to psych up a ragtag assembly of losers than that?

Indeed, North Star’s newfound Zen-like ambivalence towards the Olympiad leads to their resounding success the following day – all accompanied by a funky, boppitty disco tune (unquestionably dated). At first I thought this tune was called “Big Balls,” (I’m an AC/DC fan, okay) but it turns out, much more sensibly, that it’s called “Meatballs.” Okay, that makes sense, even if the movie’s title itself never does.

A montage carries us through the majority of North Star’s carefree conquests. We win at swimming. We win at baseball – hitting a ball down a big boobed girl’s shirt, for this PG film is the spiritual predecessor to all filthy sex comedies to follow.

Spaz, that lovable dweebazoid, wins in a tense game of…tea cup carrying? Okay then.

Wheels wins rounds of woodsy wrestling with wild, well-timed ways.

Fink feeds fiendishly on fried frankfurter foods (“Look at those steaming weenies.”), triumphing against a Seth Roge-esque moose – these fat kids are lucky Kobayashi wasn’t around yet.

The rival camps are nearly tied, and it’s time for the final event, a four-mile “marathon.” North Star is at a disadvantage, due to that vicious leg-breaking yesterday, but the almighty Tripper has the solution. See, he’s been cross country training with Rudy, the film’s young heart, remember? Rudy protests this honor, but Tripper pumps him up as Rudy “the Rabbit.” Rudy thus earns the confidence he needs to win, finally besting the far-older Mohawk runner in a tense straightaway sprint that I’m sure anticipates Chariots of Fire – if only I’d ever bothered to watch that movie. So North Star wins the Olympiad, and Rudy earns the respect of the entire camp.

The summer has come to an end, surprisingly soon, and it’s time for misty-eyed, heartfelt goodbyes, and promises of more great summers to come (in the form of several unworthy sequels). A sweet song that sounds like the kind of thing Randy Newman writes sees the school buses home, everyone having learned a little from the past summer – even Tripper.

And Melnick is stranded asleep on a raft in the middle of the lake, victim of Tripper’s final prank.

For as much as Meatballs echoes the caustic, anarchic humor that defines so much of Murray’s and Reitman’s careers, it is also surprisingly sweet. It is a decidedly amateur film, but made with hints of the dedication and craft that would serve those films that followed. And indeed many great films would follow Meatballs, only they weren’t sequels. They were the likes of Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters. As for the three alleged sequels, they are mostly unrelated efforts made by different filmmakers and starring different characters. The only thing they have in common is an entirely nonsensical food-based title. And I have little to say about those things…for now.


Related posts:
• No. 2 Meatballs 2 (1984)
• No. 3 Meatballs III (1986)
• No. 4 Meatballs 4 (1992)

Meatballs, No. 1 - Meatballs (1979)


The comedy genre tends to operate in waves, these waves often driven by concentrated groups of collaborators. Consider most of the great comedies from the late seventies through the eighties. Time and again you find the same names connected with these films, the same actors, writers and directors: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Landis, Ivan Reitman…

The story of the simultaneous ascent of these various minds, who would largely drive the evolution of cinematic comedy, is far, far too expansive for my lazy ass to attempt tackling right now. So I shall take a reductive approach, rather simply discussing Meatballs, in the hope that at least a scant amount of insight into this overall movement can come to light.

Meatballs was the first directorial effort of Ivan Reitman, following his work as producer of many great movies, and also an Ilsa entry. He had just come off of masterminding National Lampoon’s Animal House, the college film that destroyed all that came before and defined all that followed. This movie, of course, was directed by John Landis, later of The Blues Brothers and An American Werewolf in London. At this stage, Reitman was anxious to direct something himself, feeling the timing was right in the interim between Animal House’s production and its release. And since his last movie (as producer) was the quintessential college film, for his follow-up Reitman would simply identify another institution to riff on – summer camp.

The script for Meatballs was fashioned not so much as a narrative, but as a series of idealized summer camp memories. What little narrative it had was simply a scant adhesive to connect the individual moments together. Meatballs would focus on comedy, in marriage with a nostalgic slice-of-life reminiscence on childhood and adolescence – all in all, it’s a younger skewing and more innocent Animal House.

But a vague portrayal of summer camp does not a motion picture make, and so a head camp counselor character was devised to act as a master-of-ceremonies of sorts, one Tripper Harrison. There was only one man Reitman felt could essay this role, a man without whom Meatballs may never have happened, and who wasn’t even connected with the film until three days into shooting.

That man was Bill Murray. This was his first starring role.

Bill Murray is perhaps the brightest star of his generation of comedic minds, best combining wry, caustic humor and a certain common man schlubbishness all can relate to. Despite a total lack of movie star looks, or ego, or workaholism (or because of such things), Murray is, I believe, among the greatest movie stars of all time.

Murray began his comic career at the fabled Second City Chicago, the improv theater responsible for creating countless gifted performers. From there he teamed up with John Belushi for “The National Lampoon Radio Hour,” which led to an off Broadway “Lampoon” show, which then led to the creation of “Saturday Night Live.” Murray didn’t join the show until the second season, replacing Chevy Chase – isn’t it amazing how much historical talent passed through that show in its early years? This was the position Murray found himself in when he agreed to spend a summer with Reitman at an in-operation summer camp in Canada, to create a little independent film. And indeed, with Animal House yet to prove the generational phenomenon that it was, Ivan Reitman had yet to truly prove himself, as did Murray and untested screenwriter Harold Ramis.

Looking at Meatballs from a future perspective, it appears a (minor) part of an incredible string of movies to follow, with rotating creative members from film to film…films such as Caddyshack, The Blues Brothers, Stripes, Ghostbusters… On its own, Meatballs is a tad underwhelming, but considered in this company, one can find the raw seeds that would make up the later movies.

In tone and narrative, Meatballs seems most akin to Caddyshack, though with somewhat reduced humor and star power. Quick! What’s the plot of Caddyshack? Apart from a basic “slobs vs. the snobs” theme, most people couldn’t answer that, no matter their love for that film. The same answer fits Meatballs, which simply follows a large group of young characters and assorted comic set pieces.

Murray’s Tripper Harrison is the glue, as stated. All throughout Meatballs, head counselor Tripper provides commentary and wry humor in a series of P.A. announcements across camp – commentary that also supplements otherwise gag-free footage of the actual camp operation (real campers interact with the actors on a regular basis).

Tripper’s first announcement precedes a montage of the various late teen counselors-in-training (CITs) who shall make up our main cast – the CITs, it turns out, were initially supposed to be the film’s entire focus, in earlier conceptions. These are the sorts of characters with names like Spaz, Fink, Wheels, Hardware, Lance, Ace, Horse, and the Stomach. Since then, many films have adopted a similar trick, and indeed many of the elements that define Meatballs have been diluted through time and overuse.

These character introductions are peppered with a very generous quantity of good gags, and I realize something – most movies nowadays don’t make the same effort at the mere density of humor. The jokes in Meatballs and its ilk get in and get out, cutting perhaps a little too early and trusting the audience to follow the jokes. Most comedies today are less trusting of audiences, spending entire scenes to set up and over-explain lame gags, lest anyone not get it. The artistry has been replaced with executive worry…but I’m digressing.

The CITs of Camp North Star, owned by mustachioed nebbish Morty Melnick (Harvey Atkin), greet their various young charges before four school buses in a parking lot, ready to spirit them away for a summer of rambunctious shenanigans. Little vignettes set up the standard camp counselor personas – characters who would regularly die horribly in summer camp movies a mere year later. Of chief interest among this group are Spaz and Fink (Jack Blum and Keith Knight), the token dweeb and fatso, respectively, ready for a season full of unrequited sexual awkwardness. There are also a few standard romantic subplots amongst the blander, (relatively) more attractive CITs, but thankfully this never becomes a preoccupation that cuts into the wackiness. And hardly anyone in this movie is supermodel hot like in most teen comedies – Hell, Bill Murray might actually be the most attractive person here.

With all this light silliness, a movie like Meatballs needs heart, something to really ingratiate the audience amidst all the prankery and raunch. Cue Elmer Bernstein’s light, soulful melodies, accompanying preteen Rudy Gerner (child actor Chris Makepeace), a character who embodies all the homesickness and loneliness one experiences at camp. Despite exclusion from his fellow campers, a series of scenes strung consistently throughout the story shall develop a sweet relationship between Rudy and Murray’s Tripper – this is seen particularly in scenes where they jog together through the woods. As is the case with this script, the relationship is sketched in hazy details, but it is the quality of the performances and chemistry that really endears this subplot, and really elevates Meatballs beyond the humor. Murray’s consistent ad-libbing helps, his character doing a fine job to undercut the treacle.

(This particular connective tissue is the result of later reshoots, as Reitman and company understood that comedy on its own could not sustain the picture. It was a good decision.)

While we’re still here in the parking lot, let’s focus on the other major element in this story: Camp Mohawk. In a rare moment of truly arch humor, an actual newsman is on hand to report the start of the summer season at this super-exclusive, $1,000-a-week camp resort, across the lake from the rough and tumble Camp North Star. That’s right, here is the germ of all those “slobs vs. the snobs” eighties comedies (already commonplace in other forms dating back to at least the Marx Brothers). As the first example of the eighties snobs, Camp Mohawk does not come across as nearly as hateful as its followers. One would be forgiven for expecting an entire plotline defined by vindictive rivalries between the two camps, so it’s to Meatball’s credit that the relationship between North Star and Mohawk remains good-natured and sportsmanlike.

Sorry, but one final thing to mention during the parking lot scene (I’ll speed up, I promise). Tripper manages to worm his way into the news broadcast, posing as one of Mohawk’s activity coordinators, an excuse for Murray to perform a truly awe-inspiring bit of ad-libbing brilliance. This is the sort of moment that can be ruined in writing, so I’ll simply mention to watch out for his wonderful bit about Sexual Awareness Week…Heh heh, “raping and pillaging.”

Most of the remaining movie, which we’ve barely scratched, is simply a series of vignettes presenting a lightly comic summer camp experience, buoyed by Murray’s observational antics. I cannot comment directly on how nostalgic or accurate this is to others’ childhood camp experiences; despite my plentiful experience in the wilderness, it’s never been quite as structured – if that’s the right word – as Camp North Star. Still, childhood is childhood, and Meatballs seems truthful where so many Hollywood movies appear calculated. I can’t speak for all directors, but I guarantee Ivan Reitman wasn’t always an adult.

There is little point in actually relating the structure or content of the film. All the comments I’ve made in regards to the characters and humor should suffice. (There is a particularly amusing running prank, though, where the campers transport the sleeping Melnick to a new random exterior location each and every night.) Camp Mohawk has barely even figured into the story for about 80% of the movie, until dialogue goes and announces mere moments before it happens that tomorrow is the big, all-camp Olympiad.

The Olympiad between Mohawk and North Star is an opportunity to grant this rather aimless narrative a climax of sorts, and to give triumphant crowning moments to each of our main characters. But since this is nominally an underdog story, the first day of competition (out of two) sees Mohawk roundly triumphing over North Star, for the twelfth year in a row. Some amount of underhanded Mohawk cheating takes place, but compared to most other movie antagonists, it all seems rather inconsequential. Oh wait…they intentionally break one girl’s leg during field hockey…Yeah, if Mohawk’s lawyers weren’t so high-priced, there would’ve been lawsuits from that one.

If Meatballs has any claim to classic status (apart from just being sorta old), it’s the next scene. Melnick proves just as useless as ever in trying to pump up his camp charges, so our hero Tripper takes the bull by the horns to deliver what is truly one of the greatest pre-battle speeches in film history. And this speech’s greatness comes from how decidedly it mocks all those other speeches – Patton in particular, in my mind. To repeat Murray’s performance here in its entirety would again be futile (if you want, go check out the quote on the IMDb, or better yet, watch the freaking movie). Still, the climactic sentiment warrants endless repetition, both here and as one’s mantra throughout life as a whole: “It just doesn’t matter!” Is there any better way to psych up a ragtag assembly of losers than that?

Indeed, North Star’s newfound Zen-like ambivalence towards the Olympiad leads to their resounding success the following day – all accompanied by a funky, boppitty disco tune (unquestionably dated). At first I thought this tune was called “Big Balls,” (I’m an AC/DC fan, okay) but it turns out, much more sensibly, that it’s called “Meatballs.” Okay, that makes sense, even if the movie’s title itself never does.

A montage carries us through the majority of North Star’s carefree conquests. We win at swimming. We win at baseball – hitting a ball down a big boobed girl’s shirt, for this PG film is the spiritual predecessor to all filthy sex comedies to follow.

Spaz, that lovable dweebazoid, wins in a tense game of…tea cup carrying? Okay then.

Wheels wins rounds of woodsy wrestling with wild, well-timed ways.

Fink feeds fiendishly on fried frankfurter foods (“Look at those steaming weenies.”), triumphing against a Seth Roge-esque moose – these fat kids are lucky Kobayashi wasn’t around yet.

The rival camps are nearly tied, and it’s time for the final event, a four-mile “marathon.” North Star is at a disadvantage, due to that vicious leg-breaking yesterday, but the almighty Tripper has the solution. See, he’s been cross country training with Rudy, the film’s young heart, remember? Rudy protests this honor, but Tripper pumps him up as Rudy “the Rabbit.” Rudy thus earns the confidence he needs to win, finally besting the far-older Mohawk runner in a tense straightaway sprint that I’m sure anticipates Chariots of Fire – if only I’d ever bothered to watch that movie. So North Star wins the Olympiad, and Rudy earns the respect of the entire camp.

The summer has come to an end, surprisingly soon, and it’s time for misty-eyed, heartfelt goodbyes, and promises of more great summers to come (in the form of several unworthy sequels). A sweet song that sounds like the kind of thing Randy Newman writes sees the school buses home, everyone having learned a little from the past summer – even Tripper.

And Melnick is stranded asleep on a raft in the middle of the lake, victim of Tripper’s final prank.

For as much as Meatballs echoes the caustic, anarchic humor that defines so much of Murray’s and Reitman’s careers, it is also surprisingly sweet. It is a decidedly amateur film, but made with hints of the dedication and craft that would serve those films that followed. And indeed many great films would follow Meatballs, only they weren’t sequels. They were the likes of Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters. As for the three alleged sequels, they are mostly unrelated efforts made by different filmmakers and starring different characters. The only thing they have in common is an entirely nonsensical food-based title. And I have little to say about those things…for now.


Related posts:
• No. 2 Meatballs 2 (1984)
• No. 3 Meatballs III (1986)
• No. 4 Meatballs 4 (1992)

Watch Pretty Little Liars Episode 4 - "Can You Hear Me Now?" Online

Pretty Little Liars Episode 4
Pretty Little Liars Episode 4 airing this Tuesday, June 29 only @ ABC Family. The newest mystery television series will be continuing the unsolved story of four girls and their missing friend which is now found dead.

Can You Hear Me Now? is the fourth episode of Pretty Little Liars season 1. The episode will follows the happenings of episode 3 - To Kill a Mocking Girl. What will happen to the girls now?



Pretty Little Liars Episode 4 is directed by Norman Buckley. The girls are threatened by "A" messages. The mystery continues on ABC Family Pretty Little Liars.

Toy Story 3 : Brand New Disney Masterpiece

Official Site : http:disney.go.com/toystory
Release Date : June 17th, 2010  
Director : Lee Unkrich
Genre : Animation
Starring : Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack,Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Estelle Harris, John Ratzenberger, Ned Beatty,Michael Keaton
 
Hey guys.... Already know about Toy Story 3? The second sequel of the Toy Story franchise which is much awaited by fans. This film was released internationally on June 18, 2010. Well, from some who've watched it, almost all of them filed a positive reaction on the film.
Here are some reviews for those who've watched:

I attended a special screening for Toy Story 3. I went in with HIGH expectations. I LOVED the first two Toy Stories movies. Toy Story is a beloved franchise that almost everyone that I know loves the first two films. Now how about the 3rd film? Well all I could say is that it lived up to my unbelievably HIGH expectations and then some. This is such a good film. It has the laughs, magic and best of all the entertainment. The new characters in the movie feel like they were in the previous two films, they were that engaging and really worked well in the movie. The best part of the movie has to be the ending, I almost cried and was moved to just about to tears. I truly believe that this is one of the best Trilogies of all time. It might even rival the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This movie has a real chance to become the First Animated Film to win Best Picture. I surely would not be surprised. (toughsolia at IMDB.com)
I can guarantee you that you’re going to spend a good portion of the last 30 minutes of this film in tears. I mean, I sat in that hall today surrounded by hardened industry professionals. Exhibitors who care more about how much popcorn & soda they’re selling than the movies they’re currently showing at their multiplexes. And these jaded theater owners – as “Toy Story 3” entered the home stretch – were openly weeping. Tears streaming down hundreds of faces ... (Jim Hill)
 I’m sure it comes as no surprise to any of you — the film is great. Not only do the latest adventures of Buzz Lightyear and Cowboy Woody maintain the high quality that we’re used to seeing with Pixar movies, but this one is also exceptionally emotional. I was surrounded by a group of adults and there were many tears shed throughout the film. (hollywoodinsider.ew.com)
Some interesting facts about Toy Story 3
- The opening sceneIn the trailer, it's show that Woody ride the steam train then fell into a ravine because the bridge has blown. This scene cause several people feel pessimistic to this movie. However, this was just the opening scene (who still remember "Toy Story 2, Buzz's opening fight scene in outer space).

- Last 30 minutes sceneMany people who watched the premiere said that the most memorable scene of the film is the last 30 minute scene. Many were crying and was touched when saw Woody's and his friends's fate finally determined. 
  
- Barbie and KenMany said that scene between Barbie and Ken is the most interesting scene on the film. So, seems Barbie gets more portions in this film than ever before.
Feel a bit curious about this movie? Toy Story 3 was able to deliver a good storyline, humor, funny, and moral message. Just like something was delivered by two previous films. Maybe this film can be serious candidate for Oscar Best Animated Feature for Next Year. Good Job Pixar !!!!
This is the opening scene. If you pay attention, you'll know there are many similarities between old trailer and new trailer

As we seen on the scenes above, what happened in the scenes is just Andy playing his toys on his room.

In Pixar studio, there is concept art from Pixar's Toy Story 3 which I think has to do the same scene of the opening scene. See the picture below

Toy Story 3 on sktech book

Whiplash - Heman rip work in progess



I'm thinking a new styled HeMan fighting game (streetfighter ish),, hence the mma gloves and sponsors on his shorts. Might have a crack at RamMan next.

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