   It pains me to realize I've gone two solid months on X-E without even touching on the magic that is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. We've all seen it, we all love it. There really isn't much room for review here...if you don't like that movie, get the fuck away from this site and don't ever come back! Anyways, I remember when I saw this flick in the theatres. God knows how old I was, but it was definitely pretty young. My parents took me, citing a need to 'get back in touch' with the younger generation. Not really, but I don't like to think of my parents as the type who'd go see a Matthew Broderick movie. When the movie stopped rolling...the entire theatre stayed for the credits. And then...after the credits. In fact, the entire place stayed a good ten minutes after the movie was over and the screen was black. It was that good. Nobody wanted to leave. This was an 80s movie at it's absolute best. No film has even come close to recapturing the free-spirited greatness Ferris gave us. From start to finish, it was just an amazing good time. John Hughes gave us plenty of movies in the 80s that we'd carry into the 21st century like some sort of cult, but this one definitely leads the pack as far as I'm concerned. And it wasn't even a Brat Pack film! I guess there's only so many incarnations of Judd Nelson you can take.    Best Scenes: Though there's about six dozen scenes in Ferris Bueller that bear rewinding over and over again, there's a couple that really stand out in my memory... * The number one for me will always be where Jeanie and Ed Rooney meet up in Ferris' house. Those three kicks to Ed's face make me rewind the tape at least 10 times every time I watch it. * Twist & Shout became my favorite song after I saw this flick. That scene was just too great. I remember every radio station on Earth playing that thing every 20 minutes when the movie came out. * Cameron's Ed Rooney impression. Classic. * Any scene with Grace, who many of you will remember as Ms. Poole from The Hogan Family. She's untapped talent! I swear, I'd pay good money to go clothes shopping with that woman. She seems like such a good time.    Why's Ferris still such a popular movie? Quite simply, there's never been a movie like it. Or to rephrase that, there's never been a movie like it that's been done well. In our generation, movies like Ferris and other 80s classics like The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire have paved the way for a host of younger-generation films geared mostly torwards teens and 20-somethings. Unfortunately, the films of that type today are more inclined to try to be 'hip' than to actually be good. Ferris Bueller's Day Off didn't try to be cool. It just was. There's no kid in the world who didn't want to live that day themselves. And, if you want to get technical for a bit, the script was pure genius. It has to be one of the best-written movies I've ever seen. Even better than the second Ewoks movie, which won several oscars for it's triumphs in the intellectual field. ;) Acting? Terrific. Matthew Broderick is still a fun guy to watch in his more recent movies, but at the risk of sounding flaming, he was absolutely irresistable in this. Jeffrey Jones' portrayal as idiot principal Ed Rooney has got to be the funniest thing he's ever done. Everyone was really on the ball in this movie. It's a shame that Hughes would later kinda drip off as far as movie-making goes. I guess when his well ran dry with this genre, he moved into other stuff. Let's just say his work in the 90s can't hold a candle to the decade before. But we'll forgive him for that. After all...he gave us Ferris Bueller...one of the best fucking movies of all time.    - Matt | |||