Meatballs Special Edition DVD

Meatballs Special Edition
Bill Murray, Chris Makepeace, Kristine Debell
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Originally released 1979
Sony Pictures Home Video 2007
94 minutes

Meatballs Special Edition DVD is a re-release of the summer camp comedy classic directed by Ivan Reitman (My Super Ex Girlfriend, Ghostbusters, etc.). This camp comedy stars Bill Murray, off his first Saturday Night Live year, as a camp counselor and Chris Makepeace as the young boy he takes under his wing. There is also a whole bunch of other people in Meatballs but you would have a hard time figuring out where else you have seen them. Still, Meatballs Special Edition DVD makes for good family entertainment on a rainy summer’s night.

The basic and rather loose storyline of Meatballs is Bill Murray is head camp counselor and chief trouble maker at Camp North Star, a summer camp for normal kids. Their great rivals are the 1,000 $ a day campers and counselors at Camp Mohawk. The kids take a back seat to the various shenanigans between the counselors, most of which have to do with hormones. The secondary story line is about the relationship between counselor Murray and one of the kids played by Chris Makepeace.

All your basic summer camp comedy and funny movie ingredients are there: the weird leader (Murray), Morty “Hi, Mickey” the butt of all jokes owner of the camp, the nerd, the fat guy, the hot chick counselors, and so on. A lot of the comedy relies on Bill Murray’s ability for improvisation and in this case it usually work. Aside for the rivalry with Camp Mohawk don’t look for much of a plot here as everything is an excuse for a funny scene or two. The running gag in Meatballs is, of course, where Morty’s bed ends up day after day.

Overall, Meatballs is a pretty enjoyable comedy. The Meatballs Special Edition DVD includes a Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, a making of behind the scenes 18-minute documentary, and the usual useless audio commentary by director Ivan Reitman and writer Daniel Goldberg.

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