Rating: NNN
Meatballs (Ivan Reitman) Rating: NNN
Because you couldn’t possibly have made it to all the Canadian films that debuted at the TIFF last September, here they are again, and then some, thanks to The Canadian Filmmakers’ Festival
This year’s lineup includes Velcrow Ripper’s acclaimed doc Scared Sacred, Anais Granofsky’s future-imperfect drama The Limb Salesman, others too numerous to enumerate, a panel featuring Sarah Polley and – drum roll, please – a brand-spankin’ new print of Meatballs!
Yes, that Meatballs. The 1979 Meatballs. Back when Wes Anderson was still in vintage Adidas short pants, Ivan Reitman had Bill Murray bluster his way through his first starring role in a feature film – a Canadian feature. In tiny red shorts, no less.
Meatballs was, like Porky’s, one of the higher-grossing English-Canadian films of the next 20 years, and watching it now, it’s not hard to see why. It had the crude, primitive elements of every hijinks-heavy summer camp film that was to follow, combined with a cheese-laden soundtrack and a degree of sexual liberation that seems almost creepy in this age of no-means-no-innuendoes-about-14-year-olds.
Come for the fine Canadian film, stay for the wisecracking disco kitsch. (April 8, 10:30 pm at the Carlton)
