Mark R. Deming Movies
- 1980
- R
Chaos reigns in the Catskills in this low-budget teen comedy. Kavell (Michael Lembeck) and Bergman (Philip Casnoff) are college students who spend their summers working in the dining hall at Camp Oskemo, an upstate New York summer camp where they're the senior waiters. Serving food to bratty children doesn't interest them nearly as much as trying to make time with the female counselors at the camp, among them pretty but chaste Vicki (Lisa Shure) and attractive but significantly less virginal Evie (Fran Drescher). Kavell and Bergman also wage an annual war against the junior waiters with the help of deranged server Grossman (Dennis Quaid), but their real nemesis is Wallman (David Huddleston), the owner of the camp who makes no secret of his dislike for the waiters. Over the course of one eventful summer, Kavell, Bergman and their fellow food slingers dose the entire camp with amphetamines, taint the Kosher meals with pork, screen pornographic movies during Parent's Weekend, run a tank through the campgrounds and destroy the waiter's housing and most of what surrounds it. Hilarity, or something like it, ensues. While seemingly influenced by Meatballs, Gorp was actually shot at roughly the same time as Bill Murray's summer camp vehicle, though it was released nine months later. Director Joe Ruben later went on to better things, including True Believer, Sleeping With The Enemy and The Forgotten. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael Lembeck, Dennis Quaid, (more)
Robert Altman's over-frenetic satire on American marriage rituals and hypocrisy concerns the upper-crust marriage between Dino Corelli (Desi Arnaz Jr.) and Muffin Brenner (Amy Stryker). As the film begins, a senile bishop forgets the lines to the wedding ceremony and Nettie Sloan (the groom's grandmother) drops dead in an upstairs bedroom. Nettie's death is not disclosed to the two families who converge at the wedding reception. As the two sets of in-laws slam into each other, the bride and groom disappear in the ensuing whirlwind of chaos as both extended families vie for sexual favors and try to keep hidden never-discussed family secrets. Regina Corelli (Nina Van Pallandt) is revealed to be a drug addict, while Luigi, is endeavoring unsuccessfully to keep his Mafia connections under wraps. Meanwhile, the bride's family, although more down to earth, are revealed to be no better. Tulip Brenner (Carol Burnett) begins to flirt with one of the wedding guests, Mackenzie Goddard (Pat McCormick), while Snooks Brenner (Paul Dooley) acts like a lout and drinks heavily. And flying around the edges of the action like Tinkerbell is Buffy Brenner, the Brenners' youngest daughter, who is pregnant by the groom. As other characters bang into each other -- sexual degenerates, hard-nosed radicals, raw-boned emotional wrecks -- the wedding reception heads for its inevitable nuclear explosion. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Carol Burnett, Paul Dooley, (more)
