Stripes (1981)
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Hard-luck cabbie John Winger, directionless after being fired from his job and dumped by his girlfriend, enlists in the U.S. Army with his close pal, Russell Ziskey. After his barely satisfactory performance in basic training, the irreverent Winger emerges as the figurehead for a ragtag band of misfits. However, his hijinks threaten to cause an international scandal when he inadvertently commandeers a military assault vehicle behind enemy lines.
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What critics compared Stripes to
Given that director Jason Reitman’s father, Ivan Reitman, is best known for making movies like “Stripes,” “Ghostbusters” and “Kindergarten Cop,” there was no reason to think that Jason Reitman’s comedies would be anything more than disposable entertainments.
Director Jason Reitman, son of Ivan Reitman ( Ghostbusters , Stripes ), shows his chops in this analogue to his feature debut, Thank You For Smoking , also about a dedicated pitch-man with a conscience-devouring job.
While it may be only Reitman's third feature (after Thank You for Smoking and Juno) the 32-year-old son of producer/director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Stripes) has a firmer command of star and story than many veterans twice his age and experience.
Annie's self-medication for fear-of-flying interferes with a Vegas jaunt, setting the stage for things going from bad to worse; Wiig's character rather resembles Bill Murray 's cab-driving, perpetual screw-up in the classic " Stripes ," only Annie can't use the Army as an escape.
But if you do in fact enter the theater as the film’s action moves to San Francisco, you will be better able to enjoy “Venom” as a loose remake of the 1981 comedy “Stripes,” with the stalwart actor Tom Hardy in the Bill Murray role.
The performances are solid throughout but Rockwell steals it, doing a riff on the characters Bill Murray played in movies like “Stripes” — the fast-talking, smart guy who really has a bigger heart than he likes to let on.
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Did Bill Murray learn anything in Stripes or Meatballs?
Consider director Jason Reitman — son of famed director Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters, Stripes) — with his second directorial effort Juno, he has now successfully made two incredibly smart and overwhelmingly well received films.
The movie wants to be "Crimson Tide" meets "Stripes" except Grammer is no Bill Murray.
Watching “The Internship,” I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reliving “Stripes” all over again—only instead of Bill Murray and Harold Ramis as the laid-back, unconventional “leaders” of a bunch of misfits we get Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn.
Director Shawn Levy follows the anarchic formula devised by Animal House and perfected by Murray in Meatballs and Stripes: smart alecks where they don't belong proving to those who do that no-rules accomplishments are better, coaxing misfit sidekicks to join the revolt.
Think Bill Murray’s “Stripes” or Tom Hanks’ “Volunteers” meets the nerds vs. the super nerds of “Real Genius.”
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That's about the best analogy that I can make about No Strings Attached as helmed by Ivan Reitman, whose skills may have dipped over the years but who is still the director of Ghostbusters, Dave, Twins, Kindergarten Cop and Stripes.
What's even more astonishing than the casting is the fact that veteran director Ivan Reitman (Dave, Twins, Ghostbusters, Stripes, Meatballs) has lost all sense of comic pacing.
The film's director is the veteran Ivan Reitman and, while he's in his mid-60s, he hasn't entirely tossed away the frat-house sensibility that gave us such sophisticated sparklers as Meatballs and Stripes.
That is the carnal proposition posed by No Strings Attached, a romantic comedy in reverse from the legendary Ivan Reitman, director of such screen classics as Stripes (1981) Ghostbusters (1984) and Twins (1988).