Movie Junction

“Meatballs” (1979) occupies a special place in the comedy genre for a couple of reason. First and foremost, the film launched the big-screen careers of director Ivan Reitman (“Stripes” and “Ghostbusters”) and actor Bill Murray. Produced on a small budget, “Meatballs” over the years has developed into a cult hit, mainly through word of mouth. Another cult hit, “Animal House” (1978), preceded “Meatballs,” and it helped the later film to cement its position in the genre, as both films deal with the themes of partying using different age groups. Sure enough, just like “Animal House,” “Meatballs” is pure Americana, representing the America’s younger generation at the time.  “Meatballs” will always be remembered for Bill Murray’s debut performance. Before this film, Murray’s status as a comedian gained prominence in 1976 in the second season of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”  Murray’s success in the show landed him his first acting gig and started his long film career. In “Me...

Based on the novel,"The Hunter" by Julia Leigh, writer-director Daniel Nettheim presents “The Hunter” (2011) as one man’s journey in the Australian landscape. While the film’s title might suggest some sort of a hunter-hunted relationship, the film is a rather somber affair, lacking the action elements of a traditional survival movie. This aspect is obvious in the opening act, wherein the plot moves slowly and the narrative is dominated by a lead character’s point of view. The film’s story attempts to depict an interaction of a loner with nature and how it changes his heart. Willem Dafoe plays the lead character, a mercenary named Martin David, who is sent by a biotech company, Red Alert, to find the last living Tasmanian tiger. David travels to Tasmania in search of the tiger, under the pretense that he is working as a university professor. In town, he has run-ins with the local loggers who think of David as an environmentalist. Unable to find a place to live, Davi...

Stories of underdogs in the sports genre are nothing new for Hollywood. Since sports movies date back to the silent era, the list of sport movies is growing every year, making the stories more familiar and predictable with each new offering. But, in spite of the predictability factor attached to the genre, sports films have always been about personal and team triumphs. Of course, most of the time we know the end result. An underdog team might claw back to win against the favorite team, or an individual delivering a knockout performance in spite of odds stacked against him are examples of the results that we might see right from the start. For instance, “Hoosiers” (1984) and “Dodgeball” (2004) are stories about coming-from-behind team victories. However, some genre classics are not about the end result, but more about emphasizing game play, overcoming mediocre game skills, and building team bonding--the panacea for all team-based sports. A recent ice-hockey film, “Goon” (20...