John Hughes built up a considerable reputation with his first three movies in the 1980s, the pop classic Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science. An old man who seemingly was able to connect to the fantasies and frustrations of the young, Hughes has become far too synonymous with the teen flick thanks to the movies he wrote in the 1980s. Things happily changed with Planes, Trains and Automobiles, his first movie not to feature underage leading characters, but in 1986, before kissing Molly Ringwald goodbye and letting his sentimental streak got the best of him, he cemented his contributions to young adult features with FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (Paramount Pictures; rated PG-13 for some language and thematic material; 102 minutes; released June 11, 1986), a warm and consistent comic romp that, like all of Hughes' teen films (with the potential exception of the somewhat dated Weird Science), has stood the test of time and remains a lot more authentic and clever than any teen movie after Cameron Crowe's Say Anything...

Matthew Broderick was known at the time for such movies as War Games and Ladyhawke, although he was largely doing Neil Simon's works on the Broadway stage before sliding into Ferris' jacket. If Hughes will be remembered for his mid-1980s work over the material that followed from She's Having a Baby onward, then Broderick will be forever known as Ferris, the cocky and rebellious yet charming title protagonist who would rather live life on his own terms than by someone else's. The king of his school and the principal of cool, Ferris is a senior student who, as the film opens, lies in bed feigning sickness to the woe of his parents (Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett) and the anger of his sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey). This is just the first step in the grand scheme of the day, which affords Ferris the chance to get some R&R.

After he sets up the proper manipulations to fool the school faculty and his own parents that he is at home and in bed, Ferris convinces his long-time best friend, hypochondriac Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck), to take the cherry red 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California convertible Cameron's father adores to school in order to pick up Ferris' striking girlfriend, Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara). Together, the three of them hit the metropolis that is Chicago and get in a full day's worth of sights and sounds before Cameron discovers what the valet personnel had done to his daddy's car.

But there are two potential roadblocks to this situation. The first is Jeannie, who decides to cut class in order to catch Ferris Bueller and bust him for good their parents get home. The other is Ed Rooney, Dean of Students, played by Jeffrey Jones as a persistent yet inept principal who gets jealous of the power that Ferris has over all of the students, especially when such a role model has nine sick days...or is that, eight, seven, six, five...Anyway, Rooney decides to go after Ferris himself, which takes him to the Bueller residence, where he can either beat Ferris at his own game or embarrass himself mightily.

Let's just get this out of the way now: this movie makes Chicago a prominent character in its own story in the way the films of Michael Mann and Martin Scorsese do to, respectively, L.A. and New York. This is set in the span of one continuous day, where the hustle and bustle of the city as well as some of the class and exuberance come alive in the eyes of our young travelers, whose point of view drives the film. The museums, the restaurants, the parades, and the skyscrapers all look very picturesque and marvelous, and Hughes captures it all with skill. Of course, the time it would take an actual person to make it around the city on foot probably would take one into sundown, but this is as much a fantasy as Sixteen Candles or Weird Science, with wise-for-their-age teenagers who defy authority and come to terms with the outside world through their own experience. I'm not saying this is a true coming-of-age film, but Hughes' teen movies have an arc to them that works.

Looking back now, it's rare to find that teen movie that manages to find the perfect cast, but professional casting duo Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson, both of whom managed to effectively fill out such great 1980s movies as The Sure Thing and The Outsiders, found the right kind of cast that seemed destined to play these roles. The smirking Matthew Broderick is, to cop a Bueller-ism, "so choice" in taking the role. He perfects the cunning and the whimsy that fleshes out Bueller, and he's seems quite natural speaking at the audience from the screen [insert your favorite Ferris quote here]. Alan Ruck similarly slides comfortably into the role of Cameron, a ball of frustration and pent-up aggression who deserves his own mental vacation. It helps that he has a real life friendship with Broderick, which makes their chemistry as buddies all the more affable. Mia Sara is nothing short of striking as Sloane Peterson, who has as much a sense of wonder as Ferris. As the bitter but honest Jeannie, Jennifer Grey displays a surprising flair with comedy, which got sorely underlooked. A pre-scandal Jeffrey Jones perfects the type of bumbling patsy that would become a cliché unto itself. Don't forget the brief supporting turns by Ben Stein ("Bueller? Bueller?"), Hughes regular Edie McClurg (who improvised the line "They think he's a righteous dude!") , Richard Edson (as one of the valet attendants) and a very young Charlie Sheen (the boy at the police station).

In all honesty, the movie doesn't pack either the emotional resonance of The Breakfast Club or the laugh-a-minute chaos of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF seamlessly binds the two together with a nice dose of counter-cultural sentiment in the way we see Cameron's transition from neurotic to dogmatic. It's a three-dimensional turn of events, something John Hughes has been able to excel with in terms of teen-oriented comedies in a time most movies went for the dirt cheap yuks. It's the most fun movie in Hughes' canon, with more than enough joy to fill both Wrigley Field and the Sears Tower.

If the legacy left by this movie feels somewhat betrayed by the dreary likes of "Sleepover" or New York Minute, watching this movie in its newest DVD package is a relieving breath of air. Paramount have once again saddled a gimmicky name to their double-dip, this one being FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF: BUELLER...BUELLER...EDITION. Newly remastered and presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (enhanced for 16:9 TVs, of course), the transfer is a lot better than before by simple comparison. The colors have a more distinct glow to them, particularly in the reds and blacks, but they don’t bleed or suffer any noise issues. And whereas the previous disc was marred by murky contrast and instances of print damage, things have gotten better this time around, with only moderate specks/grain and the occasional lack of definition in the case of interior shots. Detail on the whole is accurate, and the film looks greatly improved from the 1999 edition. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, however, sounds like a holdover. Although stereo imaging was limited to the forward channels, the mix showed decent separation and plenty of clarity in the effects, music and dialogue. The rears didn't do much but enforce the soundtrack, and speaking of which, I kept listening to Yello's immortal "Oh Yeah" on my system to hear any real positives in terms of low-end, but the bass was relatively light in its activity and didn’t pack as much oomph as I hoped, although I'm glad I even heard it at all. Alternate language options: English and French Dolby Surround 2.0 as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles.

When I first heard about the disc, it was supposed to be a double-disc bonanza, but the final product is somewhat disappointing. This is a one-sided single disc which contains many new bells and whistles, but I wouldn’t recommend tossing out the old copy of the disc based on this one fact: the John Hughes commentary track is AWOL. Hughes rarely lends himself to special edition DVD releases (although I hope he allows us to see some of the deleted material from The Breakfast Club in a future special edition, if it ever develops). The commentary track he provided for “Bueller” on the old DVD was good enough to warrant a purchase even from me, and it did contain some nice reflections and anecdotes from the former filmmaker. So you’d think Paramount would revisit it for this new special edition. Well, my friends, they left the cheese out in the wind. And we still don’t get a theatrical trailer or any deleted material, which probably lies with Mr. Hughes.

However, Paramount provides the obligatory featurettes in spades, and we begin with Getting the Class Together: The Cast of FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF (27:44), which contains notes from Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson as well as archival interview material from John Hughes and contemporary interview footage from all the principal performers minus Mia Sara, who appears in an on-the-set interview from 1986. The participants: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Jeffrey Jones, Jennifer Grey, Lyman Ward, Cindy Pickett, Ben Stein, Edie McClurg, Richard Edson, and even Kristy Swanson (who played Simone in a brief scene with Mr. Stein) & Jonathan Schmock, who was the maitre'd of the classy restaurant Ferris and friends attend as the Abe Froman party.

Nearly all the performers have their own very amusing stories to tell on how they got their parts: Ruck got the role of Cameron after Emilio Estevez said no (Hughes even says Ruck was supposed to be in the original Breakfast Club), Grey admitting infatuation with Hughes upon first meeting him, Ward and Pickett's tale of real-life romance while playing Mr. & Mrs. Bueller, and Swanson's recollection of her brief appearance which Hughes had written as a favor after her initial role as the telephone girl had to be shot with another actress to keep production efficient. With these anecdotes and many more, this is easily the most worthwhile and informative of all the pieces created for this DVD.

The Making of FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF, at 15:28, details some of the most memorable moments in the film, including the Von Steuben parade sequence and the '61 Ferrari's last stand. This opens well enough with the cast and producer Tom Jacobson recalling how it was to work with John Hughes, who was commissioned to write a script quickly before a writer's strike and churned out "Bueller" in a mere six days. I particularly enjoyed hearing from Jones and McClurg on how they had to improvise the panic in the principal's office.

Who Is Ferris Bueller? (9:12) basically throws Broderick and his most famous character front and center, with a greater emphasis on older interviews, including a different John Hughes confessional (from 1987) where we see him with a mullet that makes him look almost like a dead ringer for Bill Hicks. We hear mostly about how Broderick got along with the cast, including the chemistry he had with Jones and how he managed to chill out Alan and Mia during a wardrobe test misunderstanding. This would've actually worked better if it was edited into the previous documentary.

The World According to Ben Stein (10:50) gives the one-time Nixon speechwriter turned cult hero a chance to explain his past achievements (his first movie wasn't "Ferris," but Cameron Crowe's forgettable The Wild Life) and how they led him to play the dull economics teacher who tries to teach the Great Depression to his catatonic pupils. Ben even remembers encountering both Kurt Cobain and current President Bush, who both shared the same response when they met him: "Bueller? Bueller?" The inclusion of classic and recent interview material with the former star of Win Ben Stein's Money should be enough to seal the deal for most hardcore Ferris fanatics.

If that won't sway you, then Vintage Ferris Bueller: The Lost Tapes (10:15) will. We've seen so much of Broderick and Ruck in recent interviews that it's about time we get some more rare behind-the-scenes chatter with the main cast. Broderick and Ruck goof on each other about their characters (is Cameron Frye like Lee Harvey Oswald?) as well as fill us in on the real life camaraderie they developed on Broadway. We also get Broderick interviewing Sara and Ruck on camera as well as some idle conversation between Broderick and Jones. Look out for a section that shows the filming of a segment that wasn’t in the final cut of the movie.

The disc finishes up with an 18-slide Class Album that contains publicity photos of Broderick, Ruck and Sara. The disc opens with previews for Airplane: Don't Call Me Shirley Edition, Tommy Boy: Holy Schnike Edition and Elizabethtown, and they can be accessed via the special features menu. No insert has been provided as like on the previous disc, but the scene selection is just the same as it was before, except that the menus are now full-motion jobs with music. The amaray keepcase comes with a cardboard slip that boasts different back cover artwork.

"The moon...beautiful! The sun...even more beautiful!" The movie? Just as beautiful. The disc? A little less beautiful, but still, after over six years of waiting, all I can say is "Oh Yeah!"

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12