DD: I Think I Just Ended My Life

<Something About Bueller>All targets hit today. Your take on the subject is already CHUD legend. Hard to dispute. However, if smug, irresponsible, sociopathic assholes can't be heroes, would we really have many comedies? I mean isn't Broderick just playing a teenage version of Bill Murray circa Stripes & Ghostbusters? (Lord knows, Chevy Chase's ever popular Fletch/Clark Griswold/Ty Webb aren't exactly stable or non-asshole-ish! John Belushi? Socially irresponsible, crazy even, in nearly every movie. Jim Carrey? Mike Myers? Both bastard sons of the wink at-the-audience shenanigans) Why take it out on Broderick's Ferris? Because he's a kid? Because the movie came out amidst pro-Reagan suburban hoopla? True it didn't sneak any counter-culture/subversive/political message thru like Risky & Trading P., but we're talking John Hughes here, not Capra, Huston, Kazan, or Ray. In a decade that perhaps was the golden age of teenager, Hughes was the most popular voice. A voice empty from the get go. In his films you don't get truth. You get proto-Beverley Hills 90210. (For the true heart + insight-almost to a fault-see Cameron Crowe) If you're gonna hate Ferris B., save a little for Judd Nelson (Both inspirations for slacker culture/false icons). I'd agree FBDO is misunderstood, even call it overrated, if we didn't make a habit of making heroes outta jerks. So let the people eat their cake; have their harmless fun. Fuck 'em. I'll be watching Valley Girl or Repo Man anyways. (Dare Broderick be compared to Brando? His Ferris is a real "wild one ". What's he rebeling against....what you got?)

<Something more about Bueller>Just read your article a second time, Dre. You were really, really on! If the film discussion generated by the debate is like a heavyweight prize fight, you and Beaks delivered some body blows. Who won? It's going the distance! Great article!

Wouldn't the world be a better place if Georgie W. Bush was a fan of Baby, It's You or Pretty In Pink instead? (Never considered the Bueller Xenophobia charge before. Well said)

Again, with Murray, it's about Slobs vs. Snobs. Even with Ty Webb, it's about rich assholes who don't know they're assholes, vs. rich assholes who know they're assholes, but aren't going to shit on the help. I mean Ghostbusters has them facing up against the EPA, but that's less troubling (though still vaguely Republican). You can have a character be rich, shit you can have a character be anything, but generally if a character is rich in the comic archtypes, it's so they can get away with doing certain things. But Hughes has confused his rich/poor dynamic. Bueller complains about the things he has because he doesn't have exactly what he wants. Which makes him an asshole.

Great debate. New takes on the familier. Awesome punch-counter punch. Best article of fantastic series. Don't understand people's complaint about "reading too much into a movie". It's called thinking. Why so afraid?! if not looking deeply into art, whether painting, book, song, or film, not only is truth not reached-miss experiencing life's wonderment. Some out there are parents. Resist passing on the same tired anti-intellectual mindset to children.

You're Ferris Bueller dissertation is marvelous. The spirit of the site in a nutshell. (Enjoying the hell out of this!) Is the fact F.B. is a dick, an asshole if you will, enough to disqualify him for hero/star of the picture status? If some of his mentality(leisure rules) and attitude (irresponsibility, selfishness)hadn't seaped into-been embraced by- Gen-X would that make a difference on your viewpoint? Did you hate the movie right off the bat, or was it a slow grower? (I'd like to claim I was so enlightened, seeing through the phoniness at age twelve-unfortunately I was too busy boogieing to Twist and Shout!)

I was going to say you probaly hated the Blues Brothers, then I remembered they embraced black culture and took on Illinoise Nazi's! Would you say Fletch is the closest in spirit to Bueller? And that Adam Sandler could be his retarded younger brother? (A self-satisfied man/child, selfish streak a mile wide, putting down and insulting his friends & neighbors; asking the audience to laugh along with his anti-social behavior)

The point Jonathan Banks added to yours was a good one. Dead on. Thanks. (I think the Kevin character in HOME ALONE is also an extension/descendant of Ferris!)

A horrible side consequence of today's article is wanting to revisit Ferris Bueller just to observe the points you & Beaks make! (And I'm strictly in the anti-John Hughes camp)

(Re: A Clockwork Orange) Few movies bother me. This one does. I usually have a fondness for anti-heroes. (nor am I typically reactionary) Not with Alex. I'm repulsed by his slimey persona & cocky charm; angered at how Kubrick rubs my nose in his misdeeds. I guess it's a testament to McDowall that the character became a sort of latter counter-culture icon. I'm disappointed and a little disturbed by that. Would the film be lessened if Kubrick had taken a side and found a way to rebuke him? Yeah, probaly. But my moral compass would've felt better. Thoughts?

Don't know whose idea, but going Ferris and Alex back to back was kinda brilliant. Rock on!

I stand by Donnie Darko as a generational touchstone. I know you've argued better than i ever could against emotion as a criterion. But I think a movie like Donnie Darko effectively challenges that notion. I was the one citing (in an embarrassingly rambling way) it as an important post-9/11 film.( I know a lot of my friends & I discovered it right in the aftermath. I'll always associate it with those heady days) Wondering your thoughts on the film.

I didn't involve myself in the DD discussion because I loved it when I saw it, but haven't revisited. I haven't because it was such a perfect viewing that I don't want to disturb what it left me with, which is a very beautiful love story, though that may not have been Kelly's intent. I think emotion is a crucial factor in appreciation, it's just that while you might laugh at Wild Hogs and Duck Soup, one is sublime. Hamburger vs. filet, etc. I saw this movie Light It Up, there was a moment that made me tear up, but the film is terrible. It's the idea that having an emotional response is justification of quality. The thing that could make someone dislike a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre because it scares them, or Straw Dogs because it explores dark places and makes the viewer question their beliefs about moral grays. But, as a critic, I'm very much pro-analysis.

I get where you're coming from. For the most part I agree. But I think it was BobClark on the MB who made an interesting point that there's a difference in how we process film as opposed to literature. Visceral vs intellectual. I must concur. It's the visceral that causes a movie to impact us, stay with us, and seep into pop culture. (if the intellectual, text/subtext is what's important about cinema, the visceral is what I love, the magic-if you will-of the movies)<why you love Knock-Off?> It's just too bad when easy emotion is embraced & critical thinking is resisted.