Meatballs 4
5 tonight
UPN/Channel 13
As any poor schmuck who watches movies over and over and over some more knows, sequels rarely work. Godfather II, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban—sucked, blew and, okay, maybe if they turned it into a book. Fortunately, motion pictures' Meatballs franchise has been immune from this phenomena. There was, of course, the 1979 original, directed by Ivan Reitman and starring his future Ghostbusters cast member Bill Murray as the wiseacre camp counselor who fires up his team and a depressed young man. There was, of course, that solid follow-up Meatballs Part II (1984), directed so ably by Ken Wiederhorn that he's been promoted to spotty TV work, and starring the late Burt from Soap. Who even knew there was a Meatballs III: Summer Job? But, of course, the ENTIRE UNIVERSE knows of Meatballs 4—or just The Four as we hardcore fans refer to it at the conventions. Yes, one does not simply watch The Four: YOU LIVE IT! The irascible, shamefully Oscar-ignored Corey Feldman plays Ricky Wade, a hotshot water-ski instructor who has been rehired by his financially troubled former camp to attract more campers. But paradise faces a takeover bid from a rival camp, and this financial clash must be settled in the most logical place for these types of routine business transactions: in a lake, at a winner-takes-all water-ski competition. The Four—whose writer/director (sorry, his name escapes me) was the genius behind that other classic comedy Repossessed—was released in 1992, four years before creepy co-star Jack Nance of Eraserhead/Twin Peaks fame committed suicide. Guess we now know what inspired him.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.
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