Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

Clio: 4.6/5 stars, 8.2/10.
Carolyn: 5/5 stars, 8.6/10.
Native ratings: 4.0/5 stars Netflix, 7.9/10 IMDB.

I rated this a bit lower than Carolyn… Maybe it didn’t live up to my hyped up expectations. That is the problem with going back and watching old things. Nostalgia causes us to remember things as being better than they really were.

But this was still awesome. I had totally forgotten the context of “Bueller? Bueller?”.  And knowing the principal in the movie has now been arrested for child porn kind of adds an interesting flavor to his acting. This movie is an undeniable classic.  It still holds up.  Not so much of a party movie, but the execution of everything unfolding works out well.

Kid decides to skip school with his best friend and his girlfriend and have a Ferrari-ride caper around the city, while dodging his parents and principal. Sort of a predecessor to Parker Lewis Can’t Lose (there was an actual Ferris Bueller show that didn’t do as well as Parker Lewis Can’t Lose…. because the fact of the matter was that Parker Lewis was a better Ferris Bueller than the Ferris Bueller they had for the TV series.)

Starring Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck as the tightly-wound hypochondriac best friend (Star Trek 7, Speed, I Love You Beth Cooper, Twister, The Edge, eps of Mad About You, principal in The Happening); Mia Sara as the girlfriend (Harley Quinn from Birds Of Prey, Timecop); Ben Stein (famous role for him), Jeffrey Jones as the principal (Sleepy Hollow, 4 eps of Invader Zim, Justice League, Beetlejuice, The Devil’s Advocate), Jennifer Grey as the sister (Dirty Dancing, Red Dawn), Cindy Pickett as the mom (Sex And Death 101 — also as someone’s mother), Lyman Ward as the dad (Not Another Teen Movie), Edie McClurg as the principal’s secretary (Wreck-It Ralph, The Life & Times Of Tim, and of course, she was Mrs. Poole from Valerie/Valerie’s Family/The Hogans), and also a bit part from Charlie Sheen. I totally didn’t see Louie Anderson (Life With Louie), but he was in there too. I also didn’t notice Kristy Swanson (Buffy The Vampire Slayer [the movie], Hot Shots, 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag, Dude, Where’s My Car?)

“To produce the desired drugged-out effect for his role as the drug addict in the police station, Charlie Sheen stayed awake for more than 48 hours before the scene was shot.” Staying up for 48 hours and playing druggies is a gateway drug to being Charlie Sheen…

Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward, who played Ferris’s parents, married in real life after filming this movie. Awwwww.

 

Jeremy Turn3r: “It’s funny how, aside from this movie, Broderick has mostly made a career out of playing guileless, wide-eyed doofuses. Yet in this movie he’s motherfucking Machiavelli.”

Sheer Panic: “Ferris Bueller will always be a 10/10 for me.”

Soundwav: “I once read a comparison of FBDO to fight club that was amazing. That ferris only existed as a fantastical figment of an awkward boys mind to cope with an overbearing father and a lack of friends. I’d post a link if I wasn’t afk and hammered.”

J. Walter S: The Ferris Bueller Fight Club Theory

 

Carolyn: Heh, that’s very interesting.

 

LINK URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/combined