Movie Review: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

A comedy about friendship and coming of age, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a deceptively simple story about a high school teen getting a jump start on life as an adult.

Resourceful Chicago high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) feigns sickness, fools his parents (Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward) and skips school for the day. After some effort, he convinces his uptight and frequently sick friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to also take the day off. Together they concoct a plan to smuggle Ferris' girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) out of school, from under the nose of principal Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), a ruse that involves driving the precious vintage Ferrari belonging to Cameron's dad. Ferris also spreads rumours that he is practically on his death bed, triggering an outpouring of sympathy that spreads throughout the city.

Both Rooney and Ferris' sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey) are convinced that Ferris is not sick at all and separately set out to catch him in the act. Meanwhile Ferris, Cameron and Sloane enjoy a day that includes trips to the Sears Tower observation deck, a Cubs baseball game, a meal at a snooty restaurant, visits to the art gallery and the mercantile exchange, and impromptu participation on a parade float. Rooney and Jeannie suffer their own misadventures as they try to uncover what the trio are up to, and Ferris will need all his wits to wrap up the day with no one the wiser.

Written and directed by John Hughes in the heart of his personal golden era, Ferris Bueller's Day Off is the definitive teen dream movie. The film is funny, fast-paced and also the perfect Chicago travelogue, Hughes showcasing the best that his favourite city has to offer on a gloriously sunny day. The central character is cool, calm and courageous, always several smart steps ahead of anyone trying to ruin his day. And the film's mantra of life moves pretty fast -- if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it, may as well be the most perfect pre-written excuse to occasionally step off the treadmill and test all of society's rules.

Ferris narrates the film and regularly breaks the fourth wall, adding to his appeal and firmly pulling the audience to his side and against his adversaries. And Ferris' opponents are easy to boo, with Rooney the worst type of bug-eyed foam-at-the-mouth authority figure, and Jeannie the sibling too worried about what her brother is up to rather than carving her own path (her perspective only changes upon meeting her own rebel in the form of Charlie Sheen).

Building on his break-out success in 1983's WarGames, Broderick finds his perfect role as Ferris Bueller. His boyish charm and the sly but disarming smile are deployed to full effect, and it's impossible to dislike his roguishness. Indeed, a large part of the film's appeal lies in Ferris being universally liked by all the high school factions, an impossible ideal that elevates the character's powers to legendary status in teen circles.

While superficially about a kid who takes a day off, Hughes has a couple of not-so-hidden agendas, and he reveals them early. Not too many high school kids skipping school choose to go to an art gallery, the mercantile exchange, or a stuffy restaurant. Fewer still would propose marriage to their girlfriend. These are literal and figurative adult actions and destinations, and the intrepid Ferris is using his last day off crack open the door to the grown-up world that he and his friends will need to soon live in.

And the greater purpose of the day emerges in the relationship between Ferris and Cameron. Initially Ferris' insistence that Cameron join him in skipping school appears self-serving (he needs to drive that Ferrari!), but Cameron's quietly tortured character emerges as the one spot of darkness at the heart of the film. Ferris' agenda blossoms as the afternoon progresses, and rather than achieving personal fulfillment, his goal is revealed to be much more about providing an emotional lift to a friend in need, the most satisfying act on a most lively day off.

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Movie Review: Dirty Dancing (1987)

A romantic musical about young love and the transition to adulthood at a vacation resort in 1963, Dirty Dancing catches lightning in a bottle. The music, dancing, romance and social class tension subtext come together in a scorching package.

It's the summer of 1963, and teenager Frances "Baby" Houseman (Jennifer Grey) joins her father Dr. Jake Houseman (Jerry Orbach), mother Marjorie (Kelly Bishop) and older sister Lisa (Jane Brucker) at a family vacation resort in the Catskill Mountains. Baby is bored by the programmed activities for the wealthy guests, and soon sets her eyes on the dangerously hunky Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), the lead dancer in the working-class troupe hired to provide dancing lessons and entertainment.

In their own quarters, off limits to the guests, Castle and his dance friends including Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) hold sweaty parties centred on rock and roll music and sexy dance moves. As a romance heats up between Baby and Johnny, he teaches her how to dance. Penny finds herself in abortion trouble, Baby calls on her Dad's medical skills to help, and Johnny is accused of causing trouble just because he looks like a likely troublemaker. As the vacation draws to a close, Baby and Johnny face an uncertain ending to a tumultuous summer.

Filmed with a cast of mostly unknowns on a tiny budget by Vestron, an unknown video distribution company, and filled with unplanned scenes that could have been out-takes but were instead turned into movie magic, Dirty Dancing is the little film that came from nowhere to cause a cultural sensation. Unashamedly celebrating the sexual rock 'n' roll revolution just about to sweep the 1960s, and mixing in some 1980s hairstyles, outfits and dance moves with Shakespearean impossible love ingredients, the film is a classic feel good coming of age romance.

Director Emile Ardolino skips past some rudimentary dialogue and contrived plot elements, and just immerses the film in the dreamy state of adolescence softly breaking free from childhood and making the inevitable transition into the adult world. This is Baby's summer, when she will apply the lessons of her father in unexpected ways, while charting her own path and exploring previously forbidden fruit. And Johnny Castle provides the perfect gateway into the new world, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks, a legend among his peers but certain that he will never be accepted in better circles.

Despite a reportedly rocky off-screen relationship, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey positively sizzle on the screen. Their romance is sinewy, smouldering and sexy, born on the dance floor, nurtured through dance lessons, and reaching an outstanding pinnacle at the very end of the film. Dirty Dancing's final scene is a sizzling, goosebump-inducing climax, set to the immortal (I've Had) The Time of My Life, Johnny finally taking charge of his life, freeing his girl from a corner, and showing the world how it's done. The film launched Swayze into superstardom, but Grey unfortunately could not capitalize on the opportunity and faded into obscurity, not helped by the ill-advised decision to alter her distinctive nose.

Jerry Orbach as Baby's father and Cynthia Rhodes as the other lead dancer in Johnny's company provide able support. Orbach gives Dr. Houseman the gentle authority to lament his daughter's transition into womanhood, while Rhodes' energetic dancing contributes an additional spark.

The film's best selling soundtrack album revived interest in early 1960s rock 'n' roll hits, including Be My Baby (The Ronettes), Big Girls Don't Cry (Franki Valli and the Four Seasons), Do You Love Me (The Contours) and Love Man (Otis Redding). In addition to The Time Of My Life, a couple of other modern songs helped to propel the soundtrack's popularity: Eric Camden's Hungry Eyes, and Swayze himself singing She's Like The Wind, the former accompanying the film's montage sequence featuring Johnny teaching Baby how to dance. It is a textbook example of how to pull off a stellar montage sequence with humour and clever editing while celebrating unguarded moments. Johnny repeatedly and unintentionally tickling Baby (outtakes that proved to be must-keeps) and Penny helping with Baby's posture are exceptional highlights.

Dirty Dancing burns up the dance floor with a combustible mix of honest emotion, sweat and body heat.

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Movie Review: Red Dawn (1984)

World War III starts with Soviet and Cuban soldiers invading the United States and occupying large swaths of the land of the free. But America is also the home of the brave, and in a small rural Colorado town, a group of high school teenagers take refuge in the mountains and wage guerilla warfare against the occupiers.

Red Dawn deserves some credit for imagining an outlier Cold War scenario, and examining the consequences of bringing a foreign war to the United States. The portrayal of citizen resistance against foreign occupiers in a modern global conflict is inherently intriguing. The premise could have been worthwhile, except that Red Dawn does not help itself with an asinine script courtesy of director John Milius and Kevin Reynolds.

The occupying Cuban and Soviet forces are generally portrayed as vicious buffoons, despite somehow possessing the skills to pull off a successful invasion to begin with, and the lines of dialogue throughout the movie would make an eighth grader proud. The combat sequences have a lot of bullets perforating any sense of reality with non-survivable wounds. Red Dawn does earn back some respect by not flinching from the ultimate outcome: victory has to be found within the ashes of annihilation. 

The cast features emerging and veteran talent. Patrick Swayze leads the teenage rebels, joined by his brother Charlie Sheen. C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson are also in the group. Powers Boothe joins them briefly as a downed fighter pilot, and Harry Dean Stanton has a single but memorable scene as the incarcerated dad of Swayze and Sheen. Deep into the cast Ben Johnson and William Smith add colour to secondary characters.

Red Dawn's tragedy lies in the lingering impression that with an injection of just some quality, a classic was at hand. Alas, this resembles a comic book for juveniles.

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