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Last day of Camp.
To finish out Camp Week we’re going to talk about the granddaddy of all camp movies.
Tyler Clark
July 14, 2023
Good morning Consumers. Good morning Consumers. This is please consume, film newsletter that double butters your popcorn.
Meatballs (1979)
To finish out Camp Week we’re going to talk about the granddaddy of all camp movies.
It’s the film that kicked off the whole genre and led to three sequels (of varying quality).
Today we’re talking about Meatballs.
The Complexity of Watching Older Comedies
Watching this film it’s just a good reminder of the types of comedies they don’t make anymore, which is both a good and bad thing, to be honest.
While you do miss the energy and the random, tossed out comedy in a studio picture, you don’t miss the more, shall we say, painful, parts of this movie.
They’re the scenes that are super uncomfortable to watch and you’re glad we left in the past. And while this film certainly has a scene or two like that, the idea of it being a “sexy” comedy really happens more with the film’s sequels, which are just straight up skinemax movies at times, featuring stoned aliens (these movies got weird).
The Bill Murray Effect
What this film may lack in well aged bits it more than makes up for by having the charm of Bill Murray in it.
Watching this movie really makes you feel like Murray is at the height of his powers. The man is basically humming throughout this movie with bits and gaffs!
At this specific moment in his career, he wasn’t a movie star yet, but we all knew he would be. It’s Murray proving himself as a leading man after his work on SNL (as a part of its original cast) but before his totemic works like Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day. He’s allowed to be free in a way movie stars aren’t these days because they have images to keep up, and it’s simply wonderful to experience.
IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!
Before we close this week out let’s talk about the scene in question, the film's most famous scene, in which Bill Murray gets all the campers to chant like the little nihilists that they are.
When getting ready to shoot the scene, Murray went to director Ivan Reitman and said he wanted the scene to be philosophical but didn't know what he wanted his character's philosophy to be. After going through it for a while Reitman said “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter” and Murray knew he had his philosophy. He then got on set and improvised the whole speech.
And, just for fun, because I’m a huge fan, we are also providing a link to the late great Mac Miller’s song ‘It Just Doesn’t Matter’ because it samples Bill Murray’s speech in a very strange and fun way.
Today’s Scene
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