Posted on 06/14/2011 7:15:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Twenty-five years after its release, John Hughes's most-loved work doesn't hold up
Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which hit theaters 25 years ago this week and will soon be re-released on Blu-Ray and DVD, inspires a special kind of reverence in suburbia. "Today you'd be hard-pressed to find an American high-school yearbook that doesn't quote somewhere in its pages Ferris Bueller's view on existence," author Susannah Gora writes in her book You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, And Their Impact on a Generation. Before going with a bromidic Bob Dylan lyric, I almost made my own senior quote, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." In hindsight, it seems about as profound as a fortune cookie. I guess being 17 is a good excuse for banality.
Adults, on the other hand, should know better. Yet they too remain fixated on Ferris, a role that earned Matthew Broderick a Golden Globe nomination. The line, "Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?", delivered by Ben Stein's monotonic economics teacher, is American educators' go-to, passive-aggressive rallying cry. References can also be found outside the classroom. This February, Baseball Prospectus writer Larry Granillo dedicated two blog posts to determining the precise Cubs game Ferris and his pals attended while playing hooky. An episode of the FOX medical drama House that aired in March centered on a homeless guy who called himself Ferris Bueller. "I think," Juno director Jason Reitman says in Don't You Forget About Me, a 2009 documentary about the late Hughes, "Ferris Bueller's a perfect movie."
A quarter century after its release, the explanation for why Ferris Bueller's Day Off remains a pop-culture touchstone is simple.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
My Mom used to subscribe to The Atlantic and honestly, I couldn’t read more than a paragraph into any of the articles. I recall that the magazine had a long-established reputation of quality writing.
While the magazine clearly has a liberal slant, the articles rapdily descend into what I inevitably find to be mental agitation and cavil with little or no ability to state a thesis and support said thesis with reason and/or logic. It’s just mental agitation for the sake of occupying otherwise unused neurons with no apparent benefit. It’s just “buzz”. And I don’t even find it that well written.
I love The Last Starfighter.
Graduated in 1985 here.
Good times.
I miss those days...
Baloney. I was in High School from '70-75. Disco didn't become a force until late '75...when I was in high school Paul Simon, early Wings, the best Stones ever, Queen, Grand Funk, Bad Company, George Harrison, Carole King, The Spinners, Elton John, Eric Clapton, The Stylistics, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Jeff Beck, Carly Simon, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Yes, King Crimson, Loggins and Messina, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, The Allman Brothers Band, Traffic, Derek and The Dominos, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Chicago, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Tower Of Power, Miles Davis, a resurgent Beach Boys, Seals And Croft, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Weather Report, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, Return To Forever, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Eagles and Steely Dan sold millions upon millions upon millions of albums, toured constantly to sold-out houses all over the world and were considered popular, mainstream acts...even Miles and the fusion bands could fill college basketball arenas. Trust me. I was there.
The music of that era so overshadows the sequenced pablum emanating from the airwaves in the '80s that a comparison isn't in order. The 80s were a decade of musical stupidity. The biggest sellers were Madonna and Michael Jackson. LOL!
Loved Ferris Bueller. “his” house is about a block away from here in LBC. And strangely enough I also know the Rose family who owned the house in Chicago in the “trees” that held that magnificent garage where Ferris’s friend’s dad’s Ferrari was kept. At least I don’t know the pervy principal.
Reminds me of the saddest part of the movie. Saddest... because in the America that was, this was funny:
Ferris: You speak English?
Parking attendant: Uh, what country do you think this is?
Ferris: Ok.
GABBA GABBA HEY!!!
:-P
Never heard of the guy but i haven’t been to a movie in over 50 years.
Mr. Reed doesn’t watch movies. He eats, sleeps, f*cks and makes money...not necessarily in that order.
“You missed Vertigo?”
I’ve known people aflicted with it but never had it.
At the time this movie was released I looked so much like Matthew Broderick that I used to get stopped on the street all the time and my friends called me Ferris. It was kind of a pain in the ass.
We must be twins. See post 94.
Alas, the years have not been kind to lovely Mia...:-(
“My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night...”
John Hughes’ movies were so awesome! Especially because some were filmed at my friends’ mothers’ alma mater (Maine East — yep, she went to school with HILLARY!!! UGH!)
“My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night...”
John Hughes’ movies were so awesome! Especially because some were filmed at my friends’ mothers’ alma mater (Maine East — yep, she went to school with HILLARY!!! UGH!)
A combination of jazz, blues, be-bop and beatnik, "Small Change" is simply an extraordinary piece of work - musically, lyrically and even vocally when one gets past that gravely voice that fits his songs perfectly.
As Tom Waits said during an "interview" on "Fernwood Tonight"..."I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy"
25 years later we realize that only a complete idiot would miss a class taught by Ben Stein...
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