Bill Murray

Caddyshack

A no-brainer that has become a low-brow classic, this 1980 comedy makes anarchy the rule of the day, unleashing the antics of Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Chevy Chase. Caddyshack is about the scheme of a vulgar land developer (Dangerfield) who wants to build condominiums on the site of a ritzy country club. Director Harold Ramis (who later reunited with Murray to make Groundhog Day) is content to let the comedy follow a variety of wacky detours, most notably Murray's maniacal war with a gopher that has been digging up the golf course. Dangerfield ultimately steals the show, firing off a battery of one-liners, insults, and tasteless gags. Caddyshack is the kind of movie some people have been known to watch several times a year, reciting every line of dialogue like the followers of a bizarre comedic ritual. --Jeff Shannon

No Description Available
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: CHASE/DANGERFIELD/KNIGHT/O'KEE
Title: CADDYSHACK
Street Release Date: 05/15/2007
Domestic
Genre: COMEDY VIDEO

Little Shop of Horrors

A skid-row florist's "mean green mother" of a monster plant is the center of "the looniest nuttiest most outrageous movie musical comedy in years" (Jeffrey Lyons Sneak Preview). Rick Moranis Steve Martin Ellen Green Billy Murray and other comedy greats star.Running Time: 95 min.System Requirements:Running Time: 94 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG-13 UPC: 085391832522 Manufacturer No: 18325

Hilarious, cheapie black comedy from 1960 that may be the best film by B-picture master Roger Corman, other than Bucket of Blood, made about the same time with the same writer, Charles Griffith. Seymour (Jonathan Haze) is an assistant in a skid-row flower shop who's on the point of losing his job when the unusual plant he's developed turns the store into a major attraction. The only problem is that the plant needs human blood to live, all the while crying, "Feed me! FEED ME!" Luckily, Seymour causes a series of inadvertent deaths that more than make up for the food shortage. Jack Nicholson provides a comic sidebar as a nutjob masochist visiting a dentist's office. Giggling and wild-eyed from the same impulse that might lead others to read scandal sheets, he can be seen in the dentist's waiting room reading aloud from Pain magazine. Famous for having the shortest shooting schedule on record (two days and a night), The Little Shop of Horrors spawned an off-Broadway musical that was in turn made into a successful film in 1986, starring Rick Moranis and Steve Martin. It was in just this quick-shoot atmosphere that Corman nurtured the careers of many of America's most celebrated film directors; this little shop of honors included Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, and Jonathan Demme. The DVD has optional Japanese subtitles, very generous bios of the stars and filmmakers, and a clean, crisp transfer. --Jim Gay

The Royal Tenenbaums (The Criterion Collection)

In a fitting follow-up to Rushmore, writer-director Wes Anderson and cowriter-actor Owen Wilson have crafted another comedic masterwork that ripples with inventive, richly emotional substance. Because of the all-star cast, hilarious dialogue, and oddball characters existing in their own, wholly original universe, it's easy to miss the depth and complexity of Anderson's brand of comedy. Here, it revolves around Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), the errant patriarch of a dysfunctional family of geniuses, including precocious playwright Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), boyish financier and grieving widower Chas (Ben Stiller), and has-been tennis pro Richie (Luke Wilson). All were raised with supportive detachment by mother Etheline (Anjelica Huston), and all ache profoundly for a togetherness they never really had. The Tenenbaums reconcile somehow, but only after Anderson and Wilson (who costars as a loopy literary celebrity) put them through a compassionate series of quirky confrontations and rekindled affections. Not for every taste, but this is brilliant work from any perspective. --Jeff Shannon

The family of three former child prodigies reunite after learning that their father, Royal Tenenbaum, has a terminal illness.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-SEP-2004
Media Type: DVD

Rushmore

Wes Anderson's follow-up to the quirky Bottle Rocket is a wonderfully unorthodox coming-of-age story that ranks with Harold and Maude and The Graduate in the pantheon of timeless cult classics. Jason Schwartzman (son of Talia Shire and nephew of Francis Coppola) stars as Max Fischer, a 15-year-old attending the prestigious Rushmore Academy on scholarship, where he's failing all of his classes but is the superstar of the school's extracurricular activities (head of the drama club, the beekeeper club, the fencing club...). Possessing boundless confidence and chutzpah, as well as an aura of authority he seems to have been born with, Max finds two unlikely soulmates in his permutations at Rushmore: industrial magnate and Rushmore alumnus Herman Blume (Bill Murray) and first-grade teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). His alliance with Blume and crush on Miss Cross, however, are thrown out of kilter by his expulsion from Rushmore, and a budding romance between the two adults that threatens Max's own designs on the lovely schoolteacher.

Never stooping to sentimentality or schmaltz, Anderson and cowriter Owen Wilson have fashioned a wickedly intelligent and wildly funny tale of young adulthood that hits all the right notes in its mix of melancholy and optimism. As played by Schwartzman, Max is both immediately endearing and ferociously irritating: smarter than all the adults around him, with little sense of his shortcomings, he's an unstoppable dynamo who commands grudging respect despite his outlandish projects (including a school play about Vietnam). Murray, as the tycoon who determinedly wages war with Max for the affections of Miss Cross, is a revelation of middle-aged resignation. Disgusted with his family, his life, and himself, he's turned around by both Max's antagonism and Miss Cross's love. Williams is equally affecting as the teacher who still carries a torch for her dead husband, and the superb supporting cast also includes Seymour Cassel as Max's barber father, Brian Cox as the frustrated headmaster of Rushmore, and a hilarious Mason Gamble as Max's young charge. Put this one on your shelf of modern masterpieces. --Mark Englehart

A gifted, rebellious teenager finds himself in competition with a wealthy older man for a favorite teacher's affections.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 22-AUG-2006
Media Type: DVD

What About Bob?

Murray plays a therapy patient who won't leave his therapist alone, even when the therapist goes on vacation.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 1-JUL-2003
Media Type: DVD

Ghostbusters Double Feature Gift Set (Ghostbusters/ Ghostbusters 2 and Commerative Book)

Prepare to spend some quality "slime-time" with GHOSTBUSTERS and GHOSTBUSTERS 2 together for the first time in this exclusive DVD gift set! These spooktacularly successful fillms captured the imagination of audiences around the world- and redefined the action-comedy genre in the process. This gift set includes the two films each with an assortment of otherworldly extras and a deluxe Collector's Scrapbook loaded with production notes character sketches insider info and more. Because when it comes to supernaturally classic comedy Who you gonna call?System Requirements:Running Time: 213 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 043396051607 Manufacturer No: 05160

Where the Buffalo Roam

Bill Murray is in his early-career, shambling glory as Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist with a fondness for Wild Turkey and firearms. While Murray does not do as exact an impersonation of Thompson as Johnny Depp (in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), he does capture Thompson's dazed, anarchic nature. Unfortunately, the movie around him is just anarchic: a series of episodes (true or invented) from Dr. Thompson's career, circa 1968-72. The haphazard structure is probably meant to suggest the spirit of the counterculture or something, but it's just flabby storytelling. Thanks to Murray's blissful delivery, there are scenes that have a stoned giddiness to them: Thompson and his attorney (Peter Boyle) terrifying an unsuspecting hitchhiker, or Thompson alone in a men's room with Richard Nixon. Neil Young contributes some music, and Murray warbles "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" while drunkenly piloting a plane. --Robert Horton

Stripes (Unrated Extended Cut)

Bill Murray was heading toward a career peak on the back of comedies such as this one from 1981, the second film in his ongoing collaboration with director Ivan Reitman (the two went on to make Ghostbusters). Murray plays a chronic loser who joins the army and fails to find a fan for his ironic sensibilities in his by-the-book sergeant (Warren Oates). When push comes to shove, however, the smirking hero takes charge of his ragtag unit and turns them into fighting machines, albeit to the rhythm of hit songs by Manfred Mann and Sly Stone. The film is occasionally funny, but it mostly plays like any one of a dozen underachieving comedies featuring players from Saturday Night Live and SCTV. --Tom Keogh

Bill Murray has joined the Army and the Army will never be the same! When John Winger (Murray) loses his job his car his apartment and his girlfriend all in one day he decides he only has one option: volunteer for Uncle Sam. He talks his friend Russell (Harold Ramis) into enlisting with him. Where else they figure can they help save the world for democracy and meet girls! John and Russell find basic training a snap: they are arrested twice have endless run-ins with their drill sergeant (Warren Oates) and get into a big mess at a female mud-wrestling match. They even steal a top secret government vehicle to take some gorgeous female MPs on a date and wind up behind the Iron Curtain. Stripes is outrageous fun! And that's the fact Jack!System Requirements:Running Time: 107 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 043396059948 Manufacturer No: 05994

Meatballs (Special Edition)

Set at a low-end summer camp and aimed squarely at a teen audience Meatballs is a light screwball comedy that turned its low-budget Canadian roots into a very profitable box-office run. The biggest reason for the film's success is Bill Murray who stars as Tripper the head counselor who runs things at Camp Northstar with the help of his love interest Roxanne (Kate Lynch) and the camp's director Morty (Harvey Atkins) who is affectionately known as Mickey. Camp opens with Tripper and Morty preparing the misfit counselors-in-training Spaz Fink Crockett A.L. Candace Wendy and Wheels among them for the arrival of their hyperactive little charges. After settling in kids and counselors begin their activities with a soccer game in which depressed 11-year-old Rudy (Chris Makepeace) accidentally loses the game. Cast out by the other children Rudy runs away only to come across Tripper who befriends the boy and makes him his running partner. Romance sexy fun and comic hijinx usually with the heavy-sleeping Morty as their target lead up to an annual Olympiad in which Camp Northstar battles the wealthier and athletically superior residents of Camp Mohawk. The challenging events include cup stacking potato-sack racing and a nauseating hot dog-eating contest in which the portly Fink devours his way to victory. With the two-day event tied up it comes down to the cross-country run in which Tripper enters Rudy. Meatballs was the first major directorial effort by multi-talented filmmaker Ivan Reitman whose name has since become synonymous with the comedy genre.SPECIAL FEATURES: Three-Part Making-of Documentary Commentary with Ivan Reitman and Writer/Producer Daniel GoldbergRun Time: 94Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: PG UPC: 043396143623 Manufacturer No: 14362

Decades before he was winning accolades for his work in Lost in Translation and Rushmore, Bill Murray was making moviegoers snicker with his breakthrough comedy Meatballs. This film--which was released theatrically in 1979--stars a 29-year-old Murray as a horny camp counselor named Tripper Harrison, who is just barely more mature than the kids he's looking after. Tripper seems like a screw up because he is, but the audience sees soon enough that he has that proverbial heart of gold, which is offset by an acerbic tongue. Looking over one of the unhappy children in his charge, Tripper says, "You must be the short, depressed kid we ordered." Camp North Star isn't the type of destination kids dream about during the school year. As envisioned by director Ivan Reitman (who would again collaborate with Murray in Ghostbusters), it's a place where kids do their time until their parents let them return home. But in his own way, Tripper makes it a fun place for the kids to learn about the opposite sex and get a feeing for competition. Unlike Little Darlings, the coming-of-age camping film starring Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal that was released a year later, there really isn't a strong moral to this film. But there is a sense that thanks to Tripper's unorthodox madness, he makes Camp North Star a place that kids want to return to the following year. While not as self-assured as he would be in a smaller role in 1980's Caddyshack, Murray is highly likeable here as an overgrown doof.

On the DVD
In the special edition version of this DVD, the extra features include some insight into Murray, who is somewhat elusive about committing to film projects. Reitman reveals that he actually wasn't sure Murray (who wasn't a big name back then) was on board for Meatballs until he showed up for filming the first week. Interestingly enough, this comedy originally was supposed to focus its attention on several camp counselors, but Murray was so good in his role that the plot was adjusted to focus primarily on Tripper. Also included is a three-part "making of" featurette that includes insight into casting, the use of real campers because they didn't have enough money to pay for extras, and interviews with some of the cast members. --Jae-Ha Kim

Stills from Meatballs (click for larger image)

Beyond Meatballs at Amazon.com

More Films by Bill Murray

Get Ready for Camp

Comedies about Underdogs

Ed Wood (Special Edition)

Edward D. Wood Jr. was an actor writer-director-producer, occasionally in drag, who combined meager bursts of talent with an undying optimism to create some of the most bizarrely memorable "B" movies to ever come out of Tinseltown. Though Wood died in obscurity as an alcoholic in 1978, his films have been considered cult classics for years. He is consistently voted the worst director who ever lived. You would think this an odd subject, but director Tim Burton harnesses the undying hopefulness that made Wood such a character. Shot in black and white, just like Wood's creations, this stylized, witty production captures the poetic absurdity of Wood's films and his unconventional life. Burton's recreation of Wood's wonderfully awful Plan 9 from Outer Space looks much better than the original low-budget quickie. Burton tackled an extremely strange subject matter for a biopic, but Wood is presented as naive almost to the point of delusion, so the story works. The pace sags in the middle, as the weirdness starts to wear thin, but Depp proves himself an adroit actor, even while wearing angora and a blonde wig. Wood's unconventional repertoire company is faithfully reproduced, including an Academy Award-winning Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi. Landau is pathetic, droll, and charismatic as the elderly junkie who made his last screen appearances in Wood's films. --Rochelle O'Gorman

From Tim Burton, acclaimed director of BIG FISH, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and BATMAN, and the producer of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, comes the hilarious, true-life story of the wackiest filmmaker in Hollywood history, Ed Wood! Johnny Depp (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL, CHOCOLAT, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS) stars as the high-spirited movieman who refuses to let unfinished scenes, terrible reviews, and hostile studio executives derail his big-screen dreams. With an oddball collection of showbiz misfits, Ed takes the art of bad moviemaking to an all-time low! The all-star cast features Bill Murray (LOST IN TRANSLATION, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS), Sarah Jessica Parker (TV's SEX AND THE CITY), Patricia Arquette (STIGMATA, LITTLE NICKY), and an Academy Award(R)-winning performance by Martin Landau (Best Supporting Actor, 1994) as Bela Lugosi. Hailed by critics everywhere, this laugh-packed comedy hit is sure to entertain everyone!