Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The story of Ferris Bueller's Day Off is very similar to that of The Princess Bride. I don't mean the actual  story of the movie itself, (although if I was feeling particularly academic and argumentative and pretentious I could write some sort of parallel between the two), I mean my experience of the two films was rather similar. I saw the beginning of Ferris Bueller's Day Off in my PE class in 7th grade (I think seeing this movie in school was highly ironic... especially a PE class... I hope it had been raining that day). But, of course, middle school class periods were only 45 minutes long which really wasn't much time to do anything, and it certainly wasn't enough time to watch a movie. So, we watched half a movie and I never came back to it... until now.

Well, sort of. The movie was on MTV, so I recorded it using my handy DVR (product placement?). I then sat down to watch it relatively late at night, when I was home alone and missing my boyfriend. I fell asleep in the middle of the movie... and ironically at approximately the same place I had stopped watching in my middle school PE class! 

It ended up the third time was the charm when watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The next day I woke up, and (drumroll please) finished the movie! Really, it was a good movie, and I don't know why it had taken me so long to get around to finally watching  the whole darned thing (and I would like to apologize to John Hughes up there for falling asleep during his movie, I truly am ashamed), especially since I am also a huge fan of 1980s teenager movies. 

But let's get down to talking about pop culture. Like The Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a movie that gets referenced in everyday conversation relatively frequently, and it is one that people are always shocked, SHOCKED I haven't seen before. Whether it's "Save Ferris" or "Bueller" repeated in that dull, monotone voice of the teacher (I think it was TBS that had an ad that for their station or the fact they were playing the movie that literally just consisted of that scene of the teacher saying "Bueller"), it's a movie that's engrained into our popular culture.

Why? Well, it's because Ferris Bueller's character is basically who we all want to be. I don't know how the following bit of information got into my head, but it's a bit of information I like so I'll write it here: movies we like to revisit and watch over and over are movies about worlds we want to be in. This especially applies to movies about bad (but likeable) characters because we all secretly want to be Ferris Bueller, even though we know society would just collapse if we all had the ability to sneak into a parade and create a party on the streets of Chicago. I know I want to be Ferris Bueller!

But this movie isn't perfect. I have to say, I wasn't a huge fan of Matthew Broderick in this movie. I liked what his character did and what his character said, but Matthew Broderick struck me a little bit too sheep like to completely pull off being the wild and crazy Ferris Bueller. You know who would have been awesome as Ferris Bueller? John Cusack. But that's really because I'm a huge John Cusack fan [especially in Better Off Dead, which if you haven't seen it, you need to go to your local video store, or put it on your queue on Netflix, or watch it for free on YouTube (you criminals, you!)]. And I am not as big of a Matthew Broderick fan because he made a movie about Richard Feynman which I didn't realize until I was halfway through writing a screenplay about Richard Feynman. How many movies can there be about Richard Feynman? Exactly.

Well, kiddies I should go watch some more movies now (or write another blog post on one of the movies on my list I've already seen...), but before I go I would like to give you this fun Ferris Bueller link. Now go entertain yourselves for hours.

COMING SOON: Mr. Smith goes where? Oh. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.