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Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $11.24
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Teenage class entitlement fantasy
Review: John Hughes certainly had his finger on the way teenagers thought in the 1980s, and this monster success shows how well he could gauge the tastes of his public. Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), the most confident and popular boy in his high school, decides to take the day off from high school with his best friend (the woeful faced Alan Ruck) and his girlfriend (the pretty but uncharismatic Mia Sara); he contrives an elaborate plot to fool his parents and his school he's home sick in bed. Ferris's plans for the day are fairly tame, nothing to which anyone could seriously object. He and his friends want to do little more than go to a fancy restaurant downtown (to pretend they're adults) and to go to the Chicago Art Museum (where they hold hands with an group of elementary school children to pretend they're kids--essentially, this film is a celebration of pretending you're the age you're not).

What's offensive about the film is how Ferris goes about getting what he wants. His elaborate scheme is accomplished largely with the fancy electronic equipment his wealthy parents have purchased for him: the film celebrates Ferris's wealth, and clearly holds up Ferris's nemesis, the principal (Jeffrey Jones), as a figure of disdain for his lack of such money. Jones drives a shabby car--nothing like the beautiful dream Ferrari Ferris appropriates from Ruck's father--and when he sneaks through the wealthy suburbs of Chicago to check up on Ferris, it's clear he's a class invader who, by the film's moral standards, deserves to be not only expelled but literally physically punished for venturing into a neighborhood where he doesn't belong. And the manipulative, lying Ferris himself never gets any kind of comeuppance. Smarmy and self-adoring, he is the utter picture of self-satisfaction--and as such is touted as the teen ideal. (He perpetually lectures the camera, telling us why we should all strive to be just like him.) It's no wonder the film was so popular with its target audience. It's of value now solely as a testament to the worst suburban entitlement fantasies of the Reagan era.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of my favorite movies ever!!!
Review: I went to Wal-Mart looking for a cheap DVD with only $12. I found two DVDs for $9.44 a piece. They were Black Sheep and Ferris Bueller. Since I had already seen Black Sheep(which is a great movie also)I bought Ferris Bueller. I started watching it and I wasn't expecting one of the best movie I have ever seen. But that is exactly what I got. I highly recommend buying this movie for the movie, not the "special feature". The special feature is commentary with the director, I think they could've thought of something better than that. Oh, well this movie is still awsome.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Timeless and Hilarious
Review: I watch this movie with a constant grin on my face, and I still laugh out loud at several scenes.

Spoiler

The DVD may be a little bare-bones, but The John Hugues commentary actually makes some scenes even funnier, such as when Ben Stein is giving a boring history lecture and it shows all the student's bored expressions. "Now these students, they're not just bored, they hate him. they despise him...Now this girl...she's furious. She's going to get him..."
It's funny because that is so true of my high school experiance!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: worth hearing the computer cough.
Review: Everyone who was born in the sixties needs this one in thier collection. The DVD lets us feel like it was made today, but the quick, dumd, humor puts it in with Tommy Boy, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and Planes Trains and Automobiles. It is worth it just to hear Ferris,s computer cough.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A 'gotta have it' classic
Review: A timeless classic. Smart, funny, clean... a movie that teenagers can watch with their parents without feeling uncomfortable, and vice versa (unlike other teen movies, like Fast Times at Ridgemont High - another classic - and the American Pie series that have explicit sexual situations). No matter how many times you see it, it's still just as funny as the first time. This is a definite must have in your DVD collection.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My All Time Favorite!
Review: It doesn't get any better than this! No matter how many times I see it, I'm still laughing! It will always be my favorite movie of all time!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My Favorite Movie (Part 3, The DVD)
Review: There's only one "extra" on the DVD. John Hughes' (writer and director of Ferris Bueller's Day Off) commentary track can be run with the movie. Much more so than many director tracks, there's some really good stuff here. For instance:

* Matthew Broderick and Alan Ruck worked extensively with each other on Broadway before doing Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which helps explain their easy chemistry. It's no stretch to watch these two guys react to each other, and believe they've been friends for years.

* The best bit of commentary, for my money, is when Hughes discusses the sequence set in the Art Institute of Chicago, which was a kind of sanctuary for him when he was in high school. The paintings in this scene are those that were his favorites. Hughes' tone of voice, the emotions he expresses during this scene, are really touching. Prior to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the interior of this building had never been filmed for a movie, and it was a big deal for Hughes to go back to this place that had been so important to him, and show people how beautiful it is.

* Charlie Sheen was only brought in for one day to play Garth Volbeck during the police station scene. With little or no time to rehearse, he burned up the celluloid anyway. If I can believe the Internet, Charlie stayed awake for 48 hours before shooting to give himself the proper strung-out look. In this scene he looks so much like his Dad at the same age it's eerie.

* The parade sequence was filmed during an real parade in downtown Chicago. This wasn't a situation where the street was cordoned off and filled with extras. The Ferris crew had a float in the actual parade. No one knew who they were. The crowd didn't know, probably the city fathers didn't know. When the music for Twist and Shout started blasting, totally of their own accord, people from the surrounding areas were drawn in, started dancing and singing along. All the shots of individual faces from the crowd weren't actors, they were "real people," there because they wanted to be, looking like they were having fun because they were. The construction worker dancing on a scaffold, way up on that half-finished building? A real construction worker. John Hughes saw him dancing, grabbed a cameraman and said, "You've got to get this guy." Then he looked at the street, saw it absolutely packed with thousands of people, all dancing and singing along with "Ferris," totally into it, and said to the guy on the camera crane, "TELL me we got that shot." Because there's no way they could have afforded to stage it, or even imagined something that wild. It just happened. TOO cool.

* There were several sequences actually filmed but cut from the final version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In one, Ferris goes on a radio program and talks about wanting to be the first teenager to ride the space shuttle. This was actually included in what would have been the final cut, and a trailer went out with some of that material in it. Unfortunately, the day after the trailer was released the Challenger exploded; the studio pulled the trailer and Hughes had to recut the movie to trim the shuttle stuff. I actually remember that trailer. I saw it during the day or two it was in release. If I remember correctly, a voice asks various people, "What do you think of Ferris Bueller?" and one of the respondents, a high school kid, says, "Ferris Bueller? He's going to be the first teenager to ride the space shuttle."

* Also cut was Ferris' relationship with the Volbecks, the Charlie Sheen character's family. Garth Volbeck's father owns the tow company that hauls away Ed Rooney's car.

* Another excised bit: In the restaurant, when Ferris, Sloane and Cameron are brought menus, none of them want to admit they can't read French so they order something, then start eating, having no idea what it is. Then we get to see their reactions when they find out it's pancreas. This is referred to later in the cab scene when Ferris, listing to Cameron the things they've done that day, says, "We ate pancreas."

It would have been nice to have the original trailer, revised trailer, and deleted scenes included on the DVD. While chances of seeing that level of work put into the DVD for an 18 year old movie, no matter how good, are slim (even assuming the chopped footage still exists) I can dream that maybe one day, on a future version of this DVD, it might happen. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

While we're on the subject of wishes, why oh why was the music from Ferris Bueller's Day Off never released as a soundtrack? A crime, since it's got one of best combination of songs I've ever heard in a movie. Another "I'd buy it in a heartbeat" situation that'll probably never happen at this late date.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One Funny Movie
Review: I love Ferris Bueler. It is one of my alltime favorite movies. Everything about it makes me rate it a five out of five.

Matthew Broderick is excilent as Ferris a high school senior with a HUMONGOUS case of senioritis who wants to ditch.

Alan Ruck from Spin City plays his always sick pal perfectly, but I always wonder why they picked a 32 year old married father to play a 17 year old high school boy.

Mia Sara is good as Ferris' girlfriend Sloan also.

All in All I would have to say this is a great movie because it is every high school kids fantase. Hang out with your best friend and girl/boyfriend and actually get away with skipping school.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: i love the 80's
Review: This kid plays a trick.. To pretend to be sick from school. Hilarious the way he gets into and out of trouble while the school is in on his act knowing he is in fact pretending , but he is always outsmarting them.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I guess I'm all alone on this one
Review: High school student Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) decides to take the day off from school and uses his superior wits to treat his best friend (Alan Ruck) and girlfriend (Mia Sara) to a good time. I am astonished that this film has developed such a following over time. It is a very slight story, not particularly funny, with a sappy ending and two truly annoying performances from Broderick and Ruck. I didn't like it when I first saw it back in the 80s and it hasn't improved over time. However, 256 (as of this writing) other reviewers have apparently taken this film to their hearts, so why listen to me?


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