the groundhog day project

Shermer High School. I would not want to be a student there. Principal Edward Rooney, Assistant Principal Richard Vernon. It's got to be a police state. On a good day. There are certainly some interesting people there. Jeannie Bueller. John Bender. Sloane Peterson. Cameron Frye. Claire Standish. Ferris Bueller. Andrew Clark. Allison Reynolds. Brian Johnson. Garth Volbeck. Simone Adamley. And so many more. Hell, even Rooney and Vernon, and Carl Reed, Grace (whatever her last name is), Florence Sparrow, that boring English teacher, that boring Economics teacher... Everybody is worth some time sometime.

I’m home from a spontaneous trip to the Hollywood Hills tonight. Went up there with my son, and we hiked around in the dark and took some cool photos of the city lights. It’s the kind of spontaneous trip that makes life quite interesting. The kind of trip that slows life down so you can look around. Ferris’ philosophy, which he relates at the start and end of the film, is like the thesis statement for the Groundhog Day Project . For Groundhog Day . For Phil Connors. I think of my WWPCD? bracelet and the answer is simple—take whatever Ferris Bueller would do and shave off a little dickishness. But, there are some other things to get out of the way on this, Day 7 with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off . The lost topics. i.e. the topics I could get to if I had more days. I mean, if I had another week or more with this movie, I could do an entire series of entries on German-American immigrant history in Chicago and how this film is a celebration of their contribution to America—you think it’s a...

"It's one of those things a person has to do; sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly" - Edward Albee, The Zoo Story (Sounds a little like Phil Connors.) Cameron Frye, to make a journey that is entirely internal, has to spend the day out and about. He's got to make a phony phone call, eat some pancreas, see a Cubs game, spend time at a museum, steal a car and later wreck it. This day Ferris has built is like a failed acupressure exercise--each event corresponds to some portion of Cameron's mind, but ultimately, it comes down to a failure (the odometer) and his own somewhat deliberate property damage to pull him out of his funk. (As I mentioned in passing, yesterday , in the shooting script, Cameron does not kick the car in a fit of rage but does knock the car off the jack, and does the latter on purpose.) And, wouldn't it be nice if real life worked like that? If depression like Cameron...

At least this movie is not all about sex. Unlike, say, Porky's or Fast Times at Ridgemont High . In the shooting script (1985, July 24), Ferris, Cameron and Sloane do go to a strip club, however--a "garrish, nearly deserted strip joint." I won't paste the entire scene but basically, Sloane isn't impressed--"I'm losing respect for you by the bucket," she tells Ferris early in the scene--and Cameron is amazed (but has very little to do in the scene). Some highlights: Ferris: "You don't think it's amazing that we got in? Sloane: Who wants to get in? ... Sloane: I'm not interested in watching someone jiggle their mammary glands. Ferris: Point well taken. But consider why she does it. Why she does it and you don't. Sloane: I'm not a tramp. Maybe not the best angle for Sloane, but at least it offers a little more depth to her character than the movie really does. Ferris: Maybe her life fell apart. Maybe she lost somebo...

I would say Ferris Bueller's Day Off is classist, but a) I'm kind of in the mood to be more rambly and thoughtful and b) it's hard to argue a class conflict between Ferris, Cameron, Sloane, and Jeanie and the richer folks in the city... well, no, it's harder than it should be, but it's not hard. The problem is that the Bueller family is obviously well off. Katie Bueller works in real estate, Tom works in advertising--and, seriously, he needs to be the guy the same actor plays in the beginning of Planes, Trains & Automobiles (and the garage attendant's friend should be Gummy from Fletch , having had enough of Los Angeles the year before). No good reason for it, but there's no reason he can't be, and movies connecting to one another is awesome, especially when it's just for shits and giggles (like most of Quentin Tarantino's movies linking up tangentially). Also, the Bueller family was supposed to have two more kids, 7-year-old Todd and 12...

So, Invaders from Mars ... cheesy mid-80s fun, not as funny or scary as it should have been. Weird thing was, it reminded me a whole lot of Spielberg's Super 8 , the kid POV, the aliens in the tunnels, copper being important in the end even reminded me of the Super 8 aliens taking all the metal at the end of that film. It made me think of the conspiracy theory about Stanley Kubrick using The Shining to reveal that he faked the moon landing or how Harold Ramis used Groundhog Day to reveal that he actually made The Shining . Invaders from Mars reminded me so much of Super 8 --well, minus that meta first act--that I had to doublecheck on whether or not a theory I've heard was that Spielberg actually directed Poltergeist and not Tobe Hooper or vice versa. For the record, Tobe Hooper has the director's credit, Spielberg the writer's credit on Poltergeist but then here's this "Tobe Hooper" film that is echoed quite thoroughly in Super 8 three decades l...

“Here is one of the most innocent movies in a long time, a sweet, warm-hearted comedy about a teenager who skips school so he can help his best friend win some self-respect.” ( Ebert, 1986, June 11 ) “But that the film doesn’t live up to our anticipation of a rollicking good time is only part of its disappointment.” ( Siskel, 1986, June 11 ) “That was awesome.” (Me, probably... circa June 15 (the Sunday after Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came out)) I say “probably” because, obviously I did not record my response to the film and I certainly wasn’t blogging back then. But, hell if this movie didn’t live up to my anticipation. I say “circa” because, I am not actually sure when that weekend we saw the film, but it was most likely Sunday afternoon... Also in theaters that weekend: #1 for the weekend was Back to School but I wouldn’t see that until sometime later at the Academy second run theater. Ferris Bueller was #2. Top Gun (click 1 2 3 4 5 6 for more on that film) was stil...

"Sportoes, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, dickheads--they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude." Don't we all? Even though he's a bit of a selfish jerk, his heart's in the right place. He--being Ferris Bueller. Class clown... perhaps; in the film we never see him in school, of course, and we'll ignore the follow-up TV series for now. "Righteous dude." And, maybe a bit of a pied piper out to inspire his fellow teens. Day 1 with a movie I've seen many times, I should have a lot to say, but I find myself just sitting here enjoying the show. I suppose what matters here is what Ferris Bueller's Day Off adds to the conversation I've gotten going with Porky's and Fast Times at Ridgemont High . The initial topic worth discussing is adults. In Porky's , the adults were either the enemy or just as bad as the teenagers--remember, Officer Jarvis and Coach Brackett join in the final conflict with...