Deja Viewed: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

http://childpsychiatryassociates.com/treatment-team/maggie-mcgill/ Ferris Bueller's Day Off – IFC Center

Some art has a lyrical note to it.

Not in the overt sense, like you’d find in symphonies, operas, ballets and musicals on stage and screen. But in a more sublime sense, particularly in the visual arts.

Whether it’s a memorable theme song (M*A*S*H*, Cheers) or a show fully aware of the music of its time or place (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Community), some pieces just feel like they can carry a tune. Like porn, it’s hard to define. But you know it when you see it. Here’s how to tell whether art is lyrical. Think of a favorite show or film. Did it introduce (or, better yet, re-introduce) you to a song, singer, band or genre?  If so, it’s lyrical.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is the lyrical film incarnate. From Ferris singing Danke Schoen in the shower to the introduction of Yello’s Oh Yeah, the trailer for director John Hughes’ 1986 film announces up front: Either get in rhythm, or get out of the way.

But how could we get out of the way of this irresistible movie? Bueller would not only become one of the Mount Rushmore faces of the modern high school comedy; it would seal John Hughes’ reputation as the Hollywood voice of Generation X adolescence. Between Bueller, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, Hughes wrote the book on teenage suburban angst — and set a template that exists to this day.Vintage Pick: John Hughes Triple Threat | The Harbinger Online

Bueller, though, breaks from its predecessors by not taking itself so seriously. If anything, Bueller is a zen meditation compared to the psychopathy of the earlier films. Ferris doesn’t fret school; he sees principals as comic foils. He’s Bart Simpson in a cardigan and beret.

Which may explain the lyrical joy of the movie. Hughes packs Bueller with as many logic-straining adventures as any classic Matt Groening episode, complete with unexpected musical numbers. In an 1 1/2 hours, Ferris:

  • Jacks a Ferrari.

  • Visits the Chicago Museum of Art.

  • Catches a Cubs game.

  • And crashes the real annual Chicago parade.

All while crooning, dancing and lip-syncing his way out of the clutches of infantile Principal Rooney. Ferris professes an enlightened rationalization for his 10th absence of the school year: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Name another high school film with that message at its core.

Bueller even manages to accomplish the heretofore impossible: improve a Beatles tune. Close your eyes at the 2:20 mark of the Chicago parade; see if Twist and Shout doesn’t sound better with a horn section, clapping hands, stomping feet and a chorus of rising voices.

Which is, ultimately, what makes  Bueller so catchy. Don’t just stop and look around, the movie seems to implore. Stop and sing out.

There’s a wistful element to Bueller, The movie would mark Hughes’ (who died at 59) last high school film, as his pictures would later focus on what Ferris might have become as a dad (She’s Having a Baby), a divorcee (Uncle Buck) or both (Planes, Trains and Automobiles).

Right before Twist and Shout, the film ponders Ferris’ future after high school. Bueller’s buddy Cameron suggests Ferris will become a fry cook on Venus. In DVD commentary, Hughes saw a future of extremes. Ferris would either wind up in prison, the director speculated, or he’d become president.

We should be so lucky. To quote the would-be future king: Anda one, anda two…

 

 

 

Where’s Bountygate?

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You gotta hand it to the Republicans. They may be nuts, but they’re great at slurs and slogans. Just look at how clever phrasing can cut — and, perhaps more potently, undercut — at issues of importance to them.

Consider just recent phrasing by the party writ large: Obamacare, Right to Life, Creationism, ANTIFA, Snowflakes, Cucks, Gun Rights, et nausea. On the personal front, look at the Great Leader’s knack for insult: ‘Lyin Ted,’ ‘Crooked Hillary.’ ‘Sleepy Joe’ might have been an offensive smack at Joe Biden — had the idea of a presidential nap, perhaps quite a long one, not been so tempting.

Meanwhile, Democrats can’t help but rule by committee when it comes to chants. “Defund the police”? Did anyone think that name through? At the very least, why not “Re-fund the police”? It doesn’t need an explainer, is more accurate and doesn’t make the ear flinch.

Speaking of ears, how are Dems not pinning Trump’s back on his continued genuflecting to Vladimir Putin?

Quick poll: when was the last time you heard a story on allegations that Russia was paying bounties of up to $100,000 per American soldier head? It had dropped so precipitously off the news radar I thought it had been disproven and CNN/MSNBC simply let it fall unnoticed.

Nope. The New York Times ran a story on July 14 that American intelligence is now looking at whether a 2001 car bomb that killed three Marines was tied to the plot. An investigation that is ongoing.Marines transferring the remains of Staff Sgt. Christopher K.A. Slutman, who was killed in Afghanistan, last year at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

How the fuck are silent about this? How is this, at the very least, not worthy of a catch-phrase? I propose Bountygate. But whatever you pick, Dems, PICK SOMETHING. Make it stick. Add it to the hit parade. Tack on an indictment.

Putin’s Puppet Theater. Russia-Lovers. The Red 9. The New Confederacy.  Anything.

Come on, Joe. You don’t have to come out of the bunker, but pick a fearless VP who knows how to tweet and take this fool down. Between Bountygate and Trump’s unidentified storm troopers snatching up Portland protesters, we should be taking the man to more than task. Nancy, why don’t I see you front and center, proclaiming “If he hadn’t put us through the agony of one impeachment, Donald Trump would be facing jurors for this.”

I know Republicans will go to extremes to deny a blue platform. Deny global warming. Deny masks. Deny science.. Deny the reality in which the vast majority of us reside.

But I haven’t heard one Republican warm up to Russia. Not one who will admit or accept that Trump has the distinction of losing The Cold War.

But look at Putin’s s spoils of a won war. He helmed an American election. He is plundering COVID research. He’s placed a bounty on heads, the kind American Western movies love to depict. How is this left unspoken? How is Trump not painted in a McCarthy-era Better Dead Than Red scarlet sash?

I understand a Democratic political strategy of letting Trump impale himself on his own blade of insanity — and allowing his Dwight Schrutes to follow suit in a communal hari-kari. And Biden has a double digit lead in the polls, so perhaps it’s a sound plan.

But America wasn’t founded on being silent. And if we don’t speak up before Nov. 4, we may not have a say-so in any ballot box.