John Hughes: Ferris Bueller Will Live On

I was about to go into fifth grade that summer. I was at my dad's office watching his television. I caught a movie with Matthew Broderick that I had never seen.

"That's Ferris Bueller's Day Off," my dad said.

My dad taped it on Showtime when it came on later that day. What a film and I hadn't even seen the first half. I had to go to summer daycare at my school that Monday. My dad asked if I could watch it. They ended up letting anyone who had seen it watch it. Imagine 15 fourth through sixth grade boys in a dark kindergarten room watching Ferris take the Ferrari out, sing in a parade and get the girl all while putting one over on everyone. We all dreamed of being Ferris Bueller. We wanted the popularity, the charisma, to be a person that always made it happen, who never surrendered, who believed you could never go to far.


While most guys identified with the cool nerds in “Weird Science” and “Sixteen Candles”, we all wanted to be Ferris Bueller. He was in total control of his destiny.

John Hughes had a knack for the underdog characters. The guys that never got the girl. The counterpart to the charming Ferris Bueller was Cameron Fry. He was Jack Nicholson before “As Good As It Gets.” The original Monk. Of course twenty years later, that character would be hopped up on so much antidepressant and anxiety medicine, we would seize to see his charm and character at all.

It is the era of Ferris Bueller the first minute he is on the screen. He was the audacity of hope twenty years before Obama. Everyone loved him. He was brilliant as he hacked into the attendance computer.

“I asked for a car. I got a computer. How’s that for being born under a bad sign?”

He could move and adapt under pressure, snatching Abe Froman’s reservation at the restaurant.

"We're going to graduate soon. We'll have the summer. He'll work and I'll work. We'll see each other at night and on the weekends. Then he'll go to one school
and I'll go to another. Basically that will be it."


This is maybe the most insightful yet underrated line of dialogue in the film. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is the only film dealing with the twilight of high school life, accepting the end of the road and relishing the final moment. Ferris has the foresight to see his time with Cameron as the golden age that is about to be over. I didn’t even find depth in this monologue until I was 28 years old.

When you’re in high school, you are certain you are going to hang onto these friends of yours. You’ll never forget them as it is inscribed in yearbooks everywhere. The problem is life gets in the way. You go to college, get new friends. You see people at Christmas break. Facebook has the ability to salvage a lot of friendships that would otherwise be on life support. You get out of college and you get into work mode. You see friends a little bit less. Then you get married and you have to get a kitchen pass to leave the house. When you get married, you get the girl plus her extended family. Your time is getting strapped. Then when you have kids, forget about it. You are booked.


John Hughes died of a heart attack this year, the one man who could bring Ferris back for a sequel or dream up a character that rivaled him. That door has closed. Matthew Broderick never landed a part as a leading man as great as Ferris Bueller. None of us became Ferris Bueller. No one has written a charismatic character to rival it. The ideal of Ferris Bueller may never come again, but it lives forever onscreen.

Avatar: Take Control of Your Film Experience

A few days ago, I went and saw "Avatar", the hyped game changer, the return to the silver screen for James Cameron who left us after hitting an iceburg in "Titanic." I had done the ground work to preserve a good screening and experience but had to fight tooth and nail to keep it.

I had an advanced ticket I bought on Fandango on Sunday for opening day at 4:00. I got out of work a little after 12:00. If I wanted to push it, I could've tried for the 12:30 showing. I decided not to. I was pretty tired and didn't want fatigue or irritability to cost me in my experience. Little did I know, I was hellbent and determined not to let anything get in the way of my experience with the film.

While I was in line to pick up my reserved ticket, the woman in front of me also had a print outfor an advanced ticket. I knew she didn't go on Fandango for a ticket to "The Blind Side." We talked about "Avatar", the Carmike theater at the mall sucking and half price drinks and appetizers at the bar at On The Border.

I had a Red Bull before the movie. I had to wait in linejust to get into the theater. I was behind one woman that became a whole family with kids and large popcorns. This 8 year old kid had a Coke bigger than I ever had in my life.

I walked into "Avatar" and got the aisle seat next to the left, first row with the rail in front of me. I put my jacket in the seat next to me to nonverbally convey it was taken. It worked while the lights were still on as people bypassed my row to snatch up seats above and below. When the lights went out, I didn't have that nonverbal signal any longer. I had some people I could smell from the aisle walk up and ask if they could sit there.

"It's taken," I said.

They didn't hear me.

"It's taken," I said.

They found seats in the orchestra section.

Before it went dark, I saw some women with an old man. I'm thinking of the scene in "Trading Places." "Who is that your father or something?" This guy was old. "Where did you dig up that old fossil?"

"Alright Poppy, you're gonna sit up here with Greg, we're gonna sit down here," the women said.

Why did they want to sit with their dad? Then Greg shows up with large popcorns and Cokes. As the previews started rolling, the girls would periodically treat their father as a deaf child.

"Do you want some popcorn Poppy?"
"Do you want your 3D glasses on Poppy?"

Thank god that settled down.

A little bit later, one guy asked if those seats were taken.
"This one is but this one is not," I said.

He asked the people next to the empty seat if he could sit there. He sat down at the seat to the left of my jacket. So yeah, I'm okay with one low maintenance guy but not anyone with the potential to destroy the experience. One low maintenance guy, not a women with her kids, a cellphone and a need to be updated on whatever her friends just twittered as if it were breaking news.

During the previews, I had the urge to pee but maybe I could hold it for the next three hours. After about an hour and during a possibly small scene, I would leave my seat to go to the restroom. What about the Kharma of turning people away from the seat? What if I left my jacket? Would I not only leave my seat but my jacket? I made a run for it abandoning my jacket to defend itself as a territorial tool. What if I lost my seat? What if Kharma felt the need to take my jacket as well? A jacket I have had since the Bush/Kerry election.

I hustled there and back to the theater. Seat empty. Jacket still lounging in the seat next to mine. Crisis averted.

Too many times we concede a filmgoing experience and do not take control. Thank God it was the first day of a huge movie and very few lit cellphones were in the dark. Too many times we have to take what we get.

Many times, there are too many cellphones to even begin to start policing it. If I could, I'd call in the National Guard to round up those cellphones.

Was it unethical to say the seat was taken when it was only by my jacket? Should there be preferential seating given to people with advanced tickets? Should there be a first class seating for movie theaters for people who have respect and appreciation for the film and not feel the need to check their phones even for the time? Time for most of the population to reinvest in a watch. Should I be given preferential seating because I got there twenty minutes early to stake out the seating or should someone be able to stroll in passed the start time during the previews and stumble onto a seat next to you? There should be a Bill of Right for Filmgoers. For people who have significantly more invested in the film than others.