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Thirty-something years later, the little Canadian gem Meatballs is still the quintessential rowdy summer camp movie. It’s one of those flicks that if you saw it for the first time as a kid you still love, while later generations may have a hard time getting into its '70s groove. In his first real post Saturday Night Live break out role, Bill Murray carries Meatballs as the camp's head counselor. He and director Reitman would go on a comic rampage with their next couple of films, dominating early '80s comedy. This was an era in movies when nerds were nerds, everyone just wanted to get laid, and sexual harassment was considered comedy not bad behavior. For my generation this was the film that made you fantasize about going to summer camp, an unfulfilled fantasy I still carry.

Meatballs goes for an Altman-like ensemble, splitting between the counselors and the young campers at Camp North Star. But two characters eventually become the main focal point, the goofy but charismatic head counselor, Tripper (Murray), and a wimpy first time camper, Rudy (Chris Makepeace who plays almost the exact same character a few years later in the equally memorable My Bodyguard). Most of the counselors and their love life issues are interchangeable, except for the often cruelly pathetic escapades of ultra nerd Spaz (Jack Blum) and his overweight buddy Larry Finkelstein (Keith Knight who later played a tough punk in Class Of 1984). Spaz’s goal is "scoring" but in a sweet moment he does find some satisfaction in holding a girl's hand.

Before the success of Fast Times At Ridgemont HIgh and John Hughes’ condescending acne epics, the teen movie genre barely existed. In the late 1970s, the early teen years were usually either scary (Over The Edge) or whimsical (A Little Romance). The terrific film, My Bodyguard, manages to combine both and then split the difference. Journeyman actor Tony Bill made a very effective directing debut with My Bodyguard, it’s now considered a minor classic of the teen genre. He would follow it up with the awful Dudley Moore/Mary Tyler Moore weeper, Six Weeks, but then redeem himself with the interesting cult flick, Five Corners. Since then he has become a reliable TV director.

Clifford Peache is a typical teen movie nerd - shy, sensitive, and unpretentious (played by Chris Makepeace who did an even wimpier version of this character a year earlier in Meatballs). Clifford’s father manages a fancy Chicago hotel where he lives with his kooky Grandma (played by Martin Mull and Ruth Gordon, their eccentricities are a little sitcomy and are the least memorable parts of the film). The good stuff happens at school where Clifford, the new kid, gets off to a rocky start with the resident bully, Moody (Matt Dillon), who continues to sadistically harass Clifford and the other school nerds. One kid at school has even the bullies spooked, Ricky Linderman (Adam Baldwin), a hulking outcast who was said to have killed his brother. After Clifford learns from a teacher that his brother died by accident, he begins to stalk Ricky, eventually employing him as his bodyguard against Moody. The two end up bonding and help each other become better people and all that.