Meatballs gets Spaghetti-O'd in this fitfully funny 2001 parody of '80s summer-camp flicks—an idea that merits maybe a third of the film's 97-minute running time. But since Reagan-era nostalgia has elbowed aside That '70s Kitsch among cult-movie worshippers, it only figures this would get a seat at the cool kids' table as well. The setting is the last day of summer, 1981, at Camp Firewood, where the campers and counselors engage in the usual end-of-summer frolics: talent shows, astrophysics, same-sex marriages, telekinesis. Featuring members of Stella and the defunct MTV sketch-comedy troupe The State, much of this is disappointingly tame: it's basically Pinball Summer with, well, gay sex and telekinesis. But a few gags push the genre's clichés to extremes of bunk-wetting absurdity—like the demolition of that old stand-by, the trip-into-town montage, which is too good to spoil. Watch for pre-breakout glimpses of Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler and Elizabeth Banks; Law and Order: SVU's Christopher Meloni as a squirrelly Vietnam-vet cook; and a talking can of mixed vegetables. The film is this weekend's late show at the Belcourt; if you want to make noise, come Friday night.
Fri., Aug. 29, 11:59 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 30, 11:59 p.m., 2008
