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.

Yo Johnny, I'll See You In The Next Life

While I was never a fan of "Road House" or "Ghost", "Point Break" is one of my all time favorite movies that has held up to hundreds of viewings since 1991. It was released in the summer of 1991 but I didn't catch up with it until it made its way on video. I remember at 11 years old loving it so much, when it was over, I hit rewind and watched it again.

It was the first movie I remember seeing where you loved the bad guy. Patrick Swayze was great at Bodhi. He was so great, there were all those knock offs of "Point Break" trying to use his rules for bank robbery.

It was great to see "Hot Fuzz" pay such homage showing Nicholas and Danny watching it after a night at the bar, Danny explaining how Keanu Reeves can't shoot Swayze because he loves him so much. "Point Break" is the quintessential bromance of the 90s.

"Point Break" is a throwback to when Swayze was still a star and Lori Petty was still a viable actress. Keanu Reeves has gone on to do some good films but "Point Break" still holds up as his other films fade.

I remember a friend spoiling the ending before I saw it. He told me Swayze surfs a hurricane wave at the end. When I think about it, he didn't really spoil it. That scene where Johnny Utah lets him go to die doing what he loved, he was thanking Bodhi for changing his life. Then the FBI shows up and says, "You let him go," and Utah says "No I didn't." Then those FBI guys say, "We'll get him when he comes back in." Utah says, "He's not coming back". Then you see Bodhi ride that wave to the score of the film. The end of his life wasn't as glorious as Bodhi's, but Swayze had ridden enough big waves to justify his run.

"Yo Johnny, I'll see you in the next life."

1999: The First Rule of Fight Club is.........

Where "Office Space" hatched a plan to rob from the country stolen from Superman III and "American Beauty" had blackmail, Lolita like lust and drug use, neither pushed the envelope like David Fincher's "Fight Club."

"Fight Club" is a masterpiece on all accounts even on things having nothing to do with the film. This film caught all the right breaks at the right time from timing to studio backing. The money was there from Fox because you had Brad Pitt. Fincher wasn't executive produced to make mainstream film.

It is a film that isn't handicapped because it has to have a love interest. Marla Singer's part plays a pivotal role in the film. The timing of this film was brilliant, just two years before 9/11. With acts of vandalism and terrorism, there's no way this would've been released after that.

"Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk worked with the screenwriter Jim Uhls on the script. The source material wasn't just ravaged by hack screenwriters. The film cost 63 million and only took in 37 million. It made its money overseas and on video.

You have this incredible director, two of the best actors of their generation, a script and a studio willing to release it. As great as this film is, it still hasn't been seen by the masses like you would think. More people have probably seen "Office Space."

Then there are people who have seen it only for the fighting. Meatheads of the world, the film isn't really about fighting, it's about the male experience. It's about society. Our culture. It's about spitting in the face of all the expectations and norms we have.

In the film, Jack blackmails his boss like "American Beauty" and uses the money to start up Fight Clubs all across the country. Fight Club becomes Project Mayhem, a group who pulls pranks all over cities with their big goal being to blow up the credit card companies. The debt goes back to zero. Everyone starts over. The film is about ridding your life of all the stuff that doesn't matter. It's about human sacrifices that give rebirth. It's about selling women's cottage cheese back to them.

We had "The Sixth Sense" earlier but "Fight Club" caught us off guard because Tyler isn't a ghost. Turns out he's a figment of Jack's imagination. We've seen this device countless times over the last ten years to where it's standard, but in 1999 it was a jolt. Fincher has done some good films notably "Zodiac" but none of them have been a masterpiece. Brad Pitt has done a lot but will he ever get to play a counter culture character of this magnitude? Will Ed Norton get to have a character and story of this level that has a studio backing?

When asked about the miracle of how this got made, Slashfilm Managing Editor Dave Chen summed it up best.

“You have to accept that Fight Club was kind of a happy accident. You have an auteur director taking on a big budget film that’s virtually unmarketable.”

If a studio accountant looks at that equation, that is why we may never see a film of that caliber ever again.

1999: American Beuty...Look Closer

"American Beauty" also dealt with waking up to life in suburbia in a dead end job in a loveless marriage saying "We're not gonna take it anymore." Kevin Spacey plays Lester Burnham who gets little respect at work and even less at home. He feels he's lost something. He meets his neighbor, teenage Ricky Fitts who invites him to smoke some grass. Something more was lit than the joint cause Burnham trades in a Camry for a 1973 Pontiac Firebird, blackmails his boss and stands up to his wife and daughter. Where "Office Space" was rebellion against the corporate life, "American Beauty" was a rebellion against the American dream we've all been sold. In the directorial debut of Sam Mendes, this film went onto make out of the Oscars like gangbusters. Every performance is the peak for each actor and while Mendes has done some interesting work, nothing with the gravity of "American Beauty."

Party Like It's 1999: Have You Seen My Stapler?

The fall out from "Wall Street" wouldn't be felt for twenty years when the economy nose dived our 401Ks. The "greed is good" manifesto that yuppies and everyone from the financial sector to desperate housewives justified for their every indulgence seems to be finally catching up on us.

In the 80s, baby boomers went from peace sign smoking hippies to yuppies bent on decadence. "Greed is good" must've been the 80s investor's favorite movie line comprable to the 90s Swinger's line, "You're so money and you don't even know it." We had seen shades of the fall out of the Wall Street mentality in films like "Falling Down" but that was a little too psychotic. Who would deliver our first counter corporate film of 1999? The man who brought you Beavis and Butthead.

"Office Space" grossed ten million dollars in its initial release. The little movie that could is probably in your dvd collection because regardless of how much studios preach first weekend grosses, this film had legs because it was great. Even if it's not in your collection, you've probably quoted lines about "TPS reports" or "I wouldn't say I'm missing it Bob." "Office Space" stars "Swingers" alum Ron Livingston as Peter Gibbons, a working stiff who one night after being hypnotized wakes up with a whole new attitude. Instead of being a slave to the grind, he comes in when he wants, cleans fish in his cubicle and tells efficiency experts how little work he gets done during the day. "Office Space" gives Ron Livingston his last great role and Mike Judge may have peaked with this one as well. This film brought us a true big screen adaption of "Dilbert" to the big screen.

Party Like It's 1999: Angelina Jolie Before She was Tabloid Fodder

Angelina Jolie burst onto the scene with "Gia" in 1998, then the next "It" girl, where would she head? In the fall of 1999, she was in "The Bone Collector." From Netflix, Rookie cop Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie) reluctantly teams with Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) -- formerly the department's top homicide detective but now paralyzed as a result of a spinal injury -- to catch a grisly serial killer dubbed The Bone Collector. The murderer's special signature is to leave tantalizing clues based on the grim remains of his crimes. This movie is unforgettable ten years ago after seeing it in theaters. All I remember is it trying to be as good as Fincher's "Seven" and how the killer just popped out at the end, like they just picked a name out of a hat. Luckily for all of us, this wasn't Jolie's only film in 1999. She had a small part in "Pushing Tin", a remarkable film because it makes air traffic controllers looks cool. She showed us what she could do in "Girl, Interrupted."

"Girl, Interrupted" starred pre-kleptomaniac charged Winona Ryder as Susanna Kaysen, a girl in the 60s who is sent to a mental institution because she didn't know what to do after high school and didn't want to turn out like her mother. It mentions she swallows a bottle of aprin with a bottle of vodka. So the girl has her issues, seems pretty tame to everything else we've heard about the era. In the institution she meets all kinds of new gal pals including the with the rebel yell, she cried more, more, more Lisa played by Angelina Jolie. Jolie takes her Gia character and splashes danger and psychotic psychedelics to this 60s film. The role garnered Jolie an Oscar. Ryder is good in it but for all intents and purposes, Jolie elevated this out of Lifetime M.O.W. status and made it something more. James Mangold directed the film which would be put him on a path of making quality films for years to come: "Identity", "Walk The Line", "3:10 to Yuma". For pure oversight and fairness, he also did "Kate and Leopold". It's an underrated film with some flaws but the role of Lisa is one of the best female written roles in the last ten years. After "Gia" and "Girl, Interrupted", Jolie went on to play video game vixens, "Tomb Raider", sexy drivers, "Gone in 60 Seconds", assassin wives, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", grieving wives, "A Mighty Heart", secret society assassin, "Wanted". I'm afraid Angelina Jolie is playing the sexy fill in the blank way more than she should. Are the studios to blame for not focusing on good scripts for women or are they not just wanting to make them? Angelina Jolie could be much more than Cambodian adopting tabloid fodder. I wish her assistant, her agent, whoever is the Ari Gold and Eric Murphy to her Vincent Chase are able to find a role to keep her in the game when she can no longer play the sexy fill in the blank, though she could probably convince all of us as the sexy geriatric in the nursing home.