'80s Movie Montage
Breaking down our favorite decade of flicks. Hosted by Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke.
'80s Movie Montage
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
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With special guest Julia Manis, Anna and Derek discuss why high school is "a little childish and stupid" and other pearls of wisdom from Ferris and company in the John Hughes' classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).
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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.
Julia Manis is a critically acclaimed actor and filmmaker born and raised in Southern California. Classically trained and with a BFA in Acting from USC, her work has been featured on Film Shortage, Hollywood Fringe Festival, and Production HUB. Her short film "Mel and Ruby" premiered at Sherman Oaks Film Festival and was a finalist for Indie Shorts Mag's Best Short of the Year. When she's not acting you can find her baking, nerding out on history, and singing along to Motown.
If you don't stop and look around and go out, you can miss it. Hello and welcome to 80s movie montage, our special edition from the surface of the sun. I'm Derek.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm Anna.
SPEAKER_00:And today's movie is, of course, Ferris Wheeler's Day Off. Which is a pretty good movie, it turns out.
SPEAKER_04:It's a great movie. It is the second of the John Hughes films that we are covering. What's the film? No.
SPEAKER_00:Oddly enough. I thought he wrote that story.
SPEAKER_04:It feels very John Hughes-esque, I know, but no. So yeah, this is the second of, I guess I should say, like kind of his teen films that we'll be covering. I'm sure we'll venture out into others, but these, these in particular, I love.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So uh we have an amazing guest that we, as always, had an amazing conversation with about this movie. So we're gonna dive in so we could get to her sooner than later.
SPEAKER_00:We learn a lot about the movie and a lot about ourselves.
SPEAKER_04:A lot about ourselves. Yeah. So, like I mentioned, uh, another John Hughes film. This one came out in 1986. And because we did cover John Hughes in our very first episode, which was on the Breakfast Club, I'm gonna kind of a little bit sweep past him. And if our listeners want to learn more about John Hughes, I recommend that they go back to that first episode and listen to the code.
SPEAKER_00:I would say if you want to listen to a podcast that almost doesn't even seem like it's the same podcast as the one you're listening to right now, go listen to the Breakfast Club and you'll also learn about John Hughes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, you grow, you change, much like some uh characters do in John Hughes films. So yes. So please, you know, uh go easy on us if you go back to that very first episode.
SPEAKER_00:I wonder how many people just listened to that first episode.
SPEAKER_04:And like, nah, not for me.
SPEAKER_00:And then maybe, maybe they see blood sport and they're like, maybe I'll give you guys one.
SPEAKER_04:Maybe I'll give her a chance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but yes, it was it was both written and directed by John Hughes. So that's where he takes credit. Um one thing that so we we have done this before. I believe I did this with um uh Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I feel really similar uh feelings, I guess you would say, about this film as I do about that in terms of casting. And I wanted to give a shout out. It's really good. It's really good. I mean, we talk about this with our guest, how I, you know, for better or for worse, Matthew Broderick will always be identified with this role.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Alan Ruck will always be identified. Yeah. I mean, maybe he doesn't want that, but yeah, I mean it's maybe neither of them want that.
SPEAKER_04:It's a whole conversation about what that means to the actor to always be identified with a single role.
SPEAKER_00:I would say the fact that I identify Ben Stein mostly with his role, maybe he does want that. Maybe he should want that.
SPEAKER_04:Maybe he should want that. So I want, yeah, I want to give some props to the individuals who are behind the casting of this film because you know, I think a lot of people would agree, I'm sure there's some outliers, but that Matthew Broderick pretty much is perfect as Ferris Bueller in this film.
SPEAKER_00:He is so much that I was really confused when I saw Ferris Bueller in a Godzilla movie.
SPEAKER_04:Right? No, exactly that. So, okay, so the two people that are credited for the casting in this film, they go by, or I don't know why I'm saying that as if it's an alias. Um their names are Janet Herschenson.
SPEAKER_00:All right.
SPEAKER_04:And Jane Jenkins. So very similar to when we did uh speak about the people behind the casting of Raiders, a lot of these individuals kind of work as like partnerships. Um, doesn't mean that they do every single casting project together, but I wanted to highlight uh no less than 20 different films that these women are behind. And I hope that I I really, really hope that for our listeners that this shows just how important this role can be. Because I want to give you, and and I had to severely pare down all their credits uh that they're responsible for. But here are just some of the films that they worked on for casting.
SPEAKER_00:Lay it on me.
SPEAKER_04:Red Dawn. Okay, The Sure Thing. I I wanted to highlight some of the 80s greats since this is what we do. Real Genius.
SPEAKER_00:Bang up job on that one.
SPEAKER_04:I knew you would appreciate that one. Stand by me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Adventures in Babysitting.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:The Princess Bride.
SPEAKER_00:Really? Mm-hmm. So we must have brought her up in that episode.
SPEAKER_04:Uh, well, I don't talk about casting in every single one. So so that's the thing, is that like these people should be recognized more, but um, and and sure, I would say that like there are iconic casting choices in Princess Bride, but um There's one in particular.
SPEAKER_00:I'm waiting to see if it uh made your list.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, okay. Um so moving on, Plans, Trains, and Automobiles. So it seems like they also kind of have a relationship with John Hughes because they've come on for a couple of his other films. Um Beetlejuice. Okay, another iconic casting of Michael Keaton, Willow, Mystic Pizza.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, Willow's so good.
SPEAKER_04:So good. When Harry Met Sally, Ghost, Home Alone, another John Hughes. Yep, A Few Good Men. All right. And and I mean, there are like as if all those films aren't great already, but like Jurassic Park.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:Mrs. Doubtfire, okay, Apollo 13, Space Jam, A Beautiful Mind, and The Da Vinci Code. Those are just some of the films that these women have cast for.
SPEAKER_00:Dare you omit Remo Williams The Adventure Begins. And Remo Williams The Prophecy, a TV movie, which I've never seen.
SPEAKER_04:Well, whose whose IMDB are you looking at right now?
SPEAKER_00:I'm looking at uh hers, actually.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I named two women, so who which her?
SPEAKER_00:Janet.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. So maybe, maybe the reason why I didn't include them is it's Oh, your list was from both of them. From both of them. Okay. Yeah. That's probably not the real reason why I didn't list that movie, but let's just say that.
SPEAKER_00:Um I mean, I'm double checking them both right now.
SPEAKER_04:But but to to my point, like Yeah, it's both of them. It's uh well in any case, um yeah, so that's how important casting can be. I mean, when you follow all these like really amazing films and Ferris in particular. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's easy to forget that. It's like, oh sure, yeah, of course, of course, John Candy is is in uh Blaine Trailer. Yeah, of course Steve Martin. Exactly. But someone actually to go through that process and fill those roles.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and that's what I like to kind of shed a little bit of light on sometimes because these people often don't get their their recognition that are that's due. They almost never do. Almost never do. Yeah. Um, okay, moving on to cinematography. Who shot this film? Okay, so this is an individual that I mean, again, super, super impressive resume. Uh, it's a gentleman by the name of Tak Fujimoto. And I I was shocked when I saw his list of credits because I was like, oh, wow, had no idea. I mean, this guy, one of his earliest credits is Badlands. Wow. Which I don't know if um, so we can't really talk about this gentleman on the show because he didn't really do anything in the 80s, as far as I know off the top of my head. But Terrence Malik, an amazing filmmaker, amazing director. This is one of his films, and one of the things that is very much associated with his work is just beautiful cinematography, and that all goes back, at least for this film, to Tak Fujimoto. Um, also did talk about like range. Death Race 2000.
SPEAKER_00:Nice.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I thought you would like that one.
SPEAKER_00:I don't I didn't really like that one, but oh, you didn't?
SPEAKER_04:It's a it's wacky. Um Pretty in Pink. So another Hughes film. Silence of the Lambs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh singles. I mean, again, this guy just goes back and forth every genre. Uh Philadelphia, Devil in a Blue Dress, That Thing You Do, The Sixth Sense, and Signs. Two my my two favorite M. Night Shalom.
SPEAKER_00:I'm saying his name or just we'll just move on.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Uh films. And then I wanted to give props because he wasn't the cinematographer, but again, uh going back to some of his earliest work, he was second unit photography on Star Wars.
SPEAKER_00:That's pretty impressive. Pretty cool, right? And uh director of photography for a gladiator.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, I missed that one.
SPEAKER_00:But I don't think it's the same gladiator. No, it's the boxing gladiator.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't think so. Yeah, I was like, I think I feel like I would have picked up on that one. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I always hated turning on the TV and seeing Gladiator and expecting Russell Crowe asking me if I was entertained and seeing some boxing movie.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's always uh risk when you like use the same name as another film. Anyway. Um, okay, another individual that I wanted to bring up that we don't typically talk about this part of the movie making process, costume design. Okay. The reason why I wanted to bring it up is because as I kind of jersey? Yeah. Really? I well, partly. I mean, okay, so uh sidebar conversation. That is literally the one thing that's always bothered me about this film. Is I have to be looking at this. I mean, look, I love Gordy House, so it's fine, but I have to be looking at this Red Wings jersey, the almost the entirety of the film.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I think I've seen one um possible explanation is that Cameron does it just because they live in Chicago and he's just that kind of person where he just as kind of like an F you to Chicago, he's like, I'm gonna wear a Red Wings jersey all the time.
SPEAKER_04:I came across a lot of different theories of why this jersey is in the film.
SPEAKER_00:Hughes was a Red Wings fan, right?
SPEAKER_04:Um, yeah, so that's the thing is And a White Sox fan. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get to Well, well, let's we could just go to it now.
SPEAKER_00:So, like, yeah, okay, so Sorry, I'm I'm derailing this and sending it into many different directions.
SPEAKER_04:No, it's all good. It's all good. So the reason why I wanted to bring up costume design is because of everything we were just talking about, the fact that like there's this very iconic look that both Cameron and Ferris have because Ferris, like, as soon as you think of Ferris Bueller, you're thinking of that leather jacket, you're thinking of that uh, you know, what is it, leopard? Leopard sweater vest that he wears underneath it. So, so they have this really iconic look to them, and that goes back to costume design. So the woman behind it, she she actually, again, like highly successful career, but probably rarely brought up. Um, Marilyn Vance. And she definitely has um a relationship with John Hughes. It is a name that I'm familiar with because she's in so many of his or works on so many of his films or did. But um, among some of her other credits, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. All right, Romancing the Stone. Amazing, which will be our next episode, actually. Uh, The Breakfast Club, another film where they all have really iconic uh attire.
SPEAKER_00:This is Marilyn Vance. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04:Weird Science, some kind of wonderful, so very strong relationship with John Hughes. Uh The Untouchables.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I wouldn't be surprised if she got more attention for for like a period type of piece like that versus typically they do. You know, that's why the work that she's done in like 80s movies, people just kind of like assume that it's like part of the era. Yeah, we'll just emulate that 80s like right.
SPEAKER_04:Um, I need to throw this in because it's such a contrast to her other credits, Predator. Okay. Yeah, right. Right. Throw Mama from the Train. All right, The Great Outdoors, Die Hard, and Pretty Woman.
SPEAKER_01:All right.
SPEAKER_04:Are among some of her credits. Uh, another film, Pretty Women, definitely she has some iconic outfits in that film. So, yeah. Go Marilyn Vance.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, I guess at the time she wasn't trying to make the 80s look in the sense of it being they were made in the 80s. Now we just kind of take it as a matter of like, oh, of course, yeah. But it was it was spot on.
SPEAKER_04:These are all cho like, I mean, here's the thing. We can have m a very long rabbit hole conversation about it, but it the costume design is it's so important because you are immediately learning something about the character the second they walk on the screen, given what they're wearing.
SPEAKER_00:It's true.
SPEAKER_04:It is, it absolutely informs who the character is. And so, you know, don't discount the role that these people have on these films. It is really, really important.
SPEAKER_00:Um I thought they just showed up wearing what they're gonna be filmed in and everyone's like, cool.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, sometimes that happens on really well, on really super low budget stuff, you know, or sometimes um, I mean, I have heard that like directors sometimes want the actors to bring in what they think that character so so it can be very collaborative. And I know for a fact that on The Breakfast Club, they just weren't finding the right outfit for Molly Ringwald's character, Claire. Really? And so, yeah, they just like couldn't quite nail it down. And so, if I remember correctly, Hughes and Ringwall like just went to the mall and she picked out her own outfit. So that is one outlier, but that usually doesn't happen that way.
SPEAKER_00:I bet Harrison Ford just showed up looking like Han Solo.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely, yeah. Or Indy with the hat.
SPEAKER_00:Both, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, okay, moving on. Uh, so the editor on this film, Paul Hirsch, again, uh crazy resume. He cut a little movie called Star Wars.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, I'm not familiar with that. Is that anything like a new hope?
SPEAKER_04:Right, the first one. Yeah. So crazy. Creep Show.
SPEAKER_00:That movie has not aged well as a horror film. No, it's but it's pretty bad, in fact. We we watched it last year. Yeah. The one with Leslie Nielsen, I think, is the one where into dancing. Yeah, good lord. It's so bad.
SPEAKER_04:It's but it's funny. We might be watching in the next month or so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's super campy fun, but good job on the editing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Foot Loose. Okay. The Secret of My Success, which I love that movie. I know that's not exactly like has mass appeal, but we might be covering it at some point. Playing Streets and Automobiles. Alright. So another Hughes film. Mission Impossible, the very first one.
SPEAKER_00:First one was was great. Yeah. Second one, not great at all. Everyone after number two, pretty good.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Ray. The Jamie Foxx film. And then unfortunately not our favorite of this movie, but he did the 2017 The Mummy.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm sorry. That's worse than the Adventures of Pluto Nash. He also worked on that.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay. Okay. So moving on to this cast that we've kind of already brought up several times. Of course, the star of this film, Matthew Broderick, who plays Ferris Bueller, has had a long career since. However, like I said, I think a lot of people identify him with this role pretty strongly. But among some of his other credits, War Games, Ladyhawk, we'll be covering these films at some point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Ladyhawk is amazing. I can't wait to watch that. You're really excited about that one. There's a little, there is that slight nod to War Games in Ferris Bueller's day off with the changing, like him hacking into the computer at school.
SPEAKER_04:He is often a computer hacker.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Project X. Um, here's what I thought was interesting. So I noticed in his credits, it's uncredited, but apparently he ha he uh is in She's Having a Baby as Ferris.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, really?
SPEAKER_04:So I was like, okay, we're gonna have to go back to that movie to see where that comes up.
SPEAKER_00:And by that, I I'll I'll like read the Wikipedia thing, maybe. I'll I'll do some investigation.
SPEAKER_04:So actually, one film that I it is it is a hard watch because it is so emotionally impactful, but glory.
SPEAKER_00:It is, yeah. It's it's a I mean, it's weird. I have most of my memories of that movie are watching it in school.
SPEAKER_04:Me too.
SPEAKER_00:That was I think that was how public school taught you about the Civil War.
SPEAKER_04:And private school.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_04:All right, well, we definitely watched it in school. And uh, I believe it's an 89 movie, so I think it is something that we can cover at some point. Nice. But um, for anybody who hasn't seen it, it is a tremendous film, has a beautiful score, and Matthew Broderick among I mean, he's just one of several amazing actors in it. Um, Carrie Elways is in it, Denzel Washington is in it, Morgan Friedman is is in it. I believe Denzel Washington won his first Oscar for that role for supporting actor, I want to say.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but it's in my uh least favorite Jim Carrey movie.
SPEAKER_04:What's that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I don't know. He I I there are probably other Jim Carrey movies that I like less than the cable guy, but the cable guy Oh, we're getting it back to Matthew Broderick.
SPEAKER_04:Sorry. Yeah, sorry. I was like, Denzel Washington was in a movie with Jim Carrey. I was really confused.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe they are, I don't know. It's possible. It's possible.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, the cable guy with Matthew Broderick just made me uh it just made me cringe the whole time.
SPEAKER_04:But if I may, I I won't go on too long, but I just want to say that like if you end up watching Glory, just literally have a box of an entire box of tissues with you because the end is heart-wrenching, but it is so, so good. Um, okay, and actually Cable Guy was the very next credit I had for him after that. So another great film that he's in uh plays a very different character, Election.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um, and we talked about that with our guests. So great movie. The producers, yeah, okay, so I had to bring up another really kind of weird credit for him because I was like, what is this about? I've never seen this movie, New Year's Eve. It's one of those like ensemble flicks that came out, I think, around like 2000. I don't even know. But he's credited. I know that's how little I really care about it. But um, he has an uncredit credit as Mr. Bueller Ton.
SPEAKER_00:That's great.
SPEAKER_04:So I I'm like, okay, I might just watch that movie for that because I want to see what that's about.
SPEAKER_00:We gotta check out a couple of these now.
SPEAKER_04:Right. And then he has other multiple credits, he's in train wreck as Matthew Broderick. I know we've both seen bits and pieces of that movie. Nice. He has a credit again as Matthew Broderick in the Jim Gaffigan show. All right. Yeah, I don't know. And then he's uh, I guess on the show Better Things or has been. So interesting credits for him. Yeah. Um, okay, moving on to a gentleman you brought up a little bit ago, Alan Rock, who plays Cameron Fry. Uh, another, and we talk about this uh at length with our guest about you know the breadth of his career and and that he has continued to work up until this very day. Um, but some of his credits, uh, I guess he had a part in Three Fugitives. I haven't seen that in a really long time.
SPEAKER_00:It's been a while.
SPEAKER_04:It's been a while. Um, also Young Guns 2.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_04:Mm-hmm. Okay. Here's the film where I was like, oh yeah, it's Cameron Speed.
SPEAKER_00:Guy on the bus.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, guy on the bus. Twister. I do definitely remember him from Twister.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, he was very enthusiastic about researching uh weather anomalies.
SPEAKER_04:I feel like a lot of people in that film were were very enthusiastic.
SPEAKER_00:They were all about it.
SPEAKER_04:They were all about it. Um, you mentioned it while we were talking with our special guest, Spin City. So he had a long uh recurring role in that. I guess he's in the happening, but I don't I don't I feel like I've just kind of blocked a lot of that movie out of my memory.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I mostly just uh remember Wahlburg going like it's in the trees. It's in the trees, it's in the grass.
SPEAKER_04:So he was on the TV series The Exorcist for a while, but I never caught that. Um, and then also as our guest brings up, he is currently on Succession, which is a highly successful HBO.
SPEAKER_00:It is a highly successful show that we have not watched.
SPEAKER_04:That we have not watched. Okay, moving on to Sloan Peterson, played by Mia Sarah. Crazy. We were just watching this yesterday.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Her very first acting role was for Legend. That was like her very first credit. Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_00:Weird movie.
SPEAKER_04:Weird movie.
SPEAKER_00:Ridley Scott movie.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, Tom Cruise, um, Tim Curry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So she, I mean, I feel like some people are like, oh, whatever happened to her. I mean, she has almost 50 acting credits uh on IMDB, so it's not like she went anywhere, but like I kind of get into with our guests, sometimes these people they're working. It's just things that maybe not everybody is seeing. Yeah. Um, but she also some of her credits, A Stranger Among Us, Time Cop, Chicago Hope, Birds of Prey. So some of her credits.
SPEAKER_00:I remember the uh collection of stories, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, which is from Stephen King, and she played a role in in that TV miniseries as well.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:She was credited with the role of beautiful passenger.
SPEAKER_04:That sounds about right.
SPEAKER_00:There you go.
SPEAKER_04:She she is a very attractive woman. Okay. So moving on to a gentleman by the name of Jeffrey Jones who played Ed Rooney. Okay, so uh I'm gonna go through his credits first. Let's do that. Um so among some of his credits, Amadeus, which actually from what I read, Hughes saw his performance in Amadeus and was like, that's Edward Rooney. So he got the Edward Rooney role off of his performance in Amadeus. All right. Um, another really great film. It is an 80s film, won best picture for 1984. People should see it. Okay, Howard the Duck.
SPEAKER_00:Wait, are you just saying that Howard the Duck won Best Picture? Yeah. Or were you talking? You were talking about Amadeus.
SPEAKER_04:I was talking about Amadeus. Sorry for the first time. I thought this is a lead up for Howard the Duck. I mean, I I can see how people would be confused.
SPEAKER_00:I had never ever dreamed of hearing an endorsement like that for Howard the Duck, but uh Beetlejuice, which probably a lot of people know him from. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, The Hunt for Red October.
SPEAKER_00:He's in He Yeah, he is. I can't remember, I can't place him, but I do remember him being in that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Edwood.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:The Crucible, The Devil's Advocate, another Tim Burton film, Sleepy Hollow. Heartbreakers, which I think that's a really underrated film with Sigourney Weaver, uh, and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Yeah, it's a very fun kind of type of movie. And then the TV series Deadwood. Oh, okay. Among some of his credits. So, okay, here's the thing. Um we don't often go into the personal lives of the individuals who are associated with the films um on our show. But I do feel like we should just very quickly uh acknowledge, yeah, that um Jeffrey Jones, uh you can go to all of our listeners, um, do your own research on as much as you want to what occurred in this circumstance, but he is actually currently part of the national sex offender registry. Um, got into some legal trouble, uh, and it looks like it wasn't something that was unwarranted. Um, he definitely acted in uh gosh, I don't even know what the word is. Um I'll just say illegal. It was illegal activities that um put him on this list.
SPEAKER_00:I'm gonna say that according to the Wikipedia article that talks about Jeffrey Duncan Jones, he pleaded in 2003 no contest to a charge of soliciting a minor to pose for nude photographs. So as much as I get like annoyed at the character of Ed Rooney, like what the fuck is with this guy's deal? Why is he such an asshole? Turns out Ed Rooney as a character in this is a way better person than Jeffrey Jones, the actual human who played him. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And he also, to what I have read about it, was in possession of child pornography.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So So we have to acknowledge that. We do I mean, but Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Moving on. Yeah. Let's just say moving on.
SPEAKER_00:Please.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. To Jennifer Gray. Oh, right. Who plays Jeannie Bueller. I thought you played Shauna. Yeah, right. It's such a weird. I don't know why you would go from Jeannie to Shauna. Anyway, um, but here's the thing is that again, we kind of did a deep dive on Jennifer Gray because she plays Baby in Dirty Dancing, which is episode seven of our show. Featuring special guest, Michelle Lang, who is amazing. So um, I'm gonna again kind of sweep past her just because we we definitely talked about her at length. But it's putting her in a corner? I am kind of putting her in a corner. Um, but if you want to learn more about her, I would say check out episode seven. And this is gonna actually probably be happening more often because we, as we go along, we're gonna come across people who are in multiple films.
SPEAKER_00:So for sure is gonna happen, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It is going to happen.
SPEAKER_00:It's gonna happen with the guy that we just talked about, and I don't know how we're gonna bring it up every time, but Yeah, I mean, we do have Beetlejuice coming up. We will refer people back to this episode.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. Um, okay, so moving on to some of the supporting cast, Cindy Pickett, who plays Katie Bueller, the mother. Okay. Um, so again, she's, you know, she keeps working. Um, she's done a lot of television. I mean, among some of her credits, Guiding Lights, Saint Elsewhere. She also wasn't son-in-law.
SPEAKER_00:With uh Pauly Short. Yep.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. Um, and then a film called I think it's a film. I think I listed it as Age of the Living Dead.
SPEAKER_00:Age of the Living Dead.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting, huh? And then we talk about this with our guest. So I don't I I want to say it's probably pronounced Lehman, Lehman Ward, who plays Tom Bueller the dad.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So yes, the parents in the film did actually fall in love and get married in real life. They they aren't together any longer, but um, but kind of a fun little story that came out of the making of the film. Uh, he also, you know, working, he was on Heart to Heart.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. Um He was, we'll we'll have to probably watch this very soon. A nightmare on Elm Street 2, Freddy's Revenge.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:He was in the film version of the Beverly Hillbillies. This is one thing, this is one thing that I actually I bring up because I always think it's funny. So he was on Murder She Wrote uh three different times, played three different characters.
SPEAKER_00:He was in Matlock, too.
SPEAKER_04:I yes, I saw that. Yeah. And then also another, not another teen movie, which I'm wondering if he plays maybe somebody some since it's always a spoof of films like this.
SPEAKER_00:Like a spoof of Ferris's dad.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I it I know I've seen actually, I think we own that movie.
SPEAKER_00:He was uh a Secret Service guy in Independence Day.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh, I'm looking at it right now. We do own that movie, so we'll have to maybe check that out.
SPEAKER_00:What are you looking at?
SPEAKER_04:Not another teen movie. Okay. Yeah. Okay, moving on to just a treasure in in film and TV, Edie McClerg. She's amazing. Um, she plays the secretary Grace in the film. This woman has at this point in time over 200 acting credits on IMDB, among some of those credits. So in her early career, she was in the movie Carrie, the original Carrie. Oh, okay. Yeah. Um, The Secret of Nim.
SPEAKER_00:Man, that movie is that movie is really good.
SPEAKER_04:It's really good. It's very emotional.
SPEAKER_00:It's very dark. It's it's from that era of like pretty dark animated kids movies where I don't even know if kids would be allowed to watch that. Yeah. Now it's a good idea. Right.
SPEAKER_04:It's like 80s kids had very different viewing than what today's. Yeah, pretty much. Uh Mr. Mom. She was a bit part. Mr. Mom. Yep. Back to School, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
SPEAKER_00:She's back to school?
SPEAKER_04:She has she has a part in it. She has a credit. Uh now I remember her mostly from Small Wonder.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I I feel like I should remember her from that, but I can't. Who was she?
SPEAKER_04:It's okay. I think she's like a neighbor. She's like a nozy neighbor. Um, she's having a baby. She is. The movie. Got it. So she seems like she has like a relationship with John Hughes. Um Snorks, remember Snorks?
SPEAKER_00:I remember Snorks, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, Snorks. Valerie. I also remember her from that show. Um which eventually became the Hogan family.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_04:When Valerie Harper left it. Uh Curly Sue. A River Runs Through It, Flubber, and then I had to put this in uh Misguided, the show that had like just like a half series or a half season run.
SPEAKER_00:But we hardly we hardly knew ye.
SPEAKER_04:We hardly knew ye, but um my my teensy tiny claim to fame is that uh the company I worked for at the time did the opening credits for the film. I feel like I brought this up in another episode for some reason.
SPEAKER_01:It's possible.
SPEAKER_04:And uh and so my high school photo is in the opening credits of Misguided, as uh are the photos of some of my friends from high school because I asked if we could use their their pictures. So kind of a fun little thing, huh? Okay. So moving on to a gentleman, some people may maybe have come across his work before, Charlie Sheen. Uh I'm not gonna actually get too much into him because I feel pretty confident that we're gonna have other films. And he's so big. Yeah. Um, we're gonna have other films where he's more prominently featured.
SPEAKER_00:We might shortchange the boy in police stations. But we'll get to him.
SPEAKER_04:We'll get to him. But like obviously, people Don't worry. I had to bring this up though because it was like such a fun thing when we brought it up before. Like, I think literally his very first credited film role is in Grizzly 2 Revenge, which we have talked about. We've brought it up a couple times now. We've brought it up before. Also in Red Dawn. Um, and Lucas, another film that we'll be bringing up. Actually, he was uh he was primarily filming Lucas at the time that he had this like guest spot in Ferris Bueller. Um, so he's filming them simultaneously. Patoon, that's probably gonna be at some point. Like that will probably be the film that we talk about him mostly in, or Major League, one of those two, because he is like kind of the star. Wall Street.
SPEAKER_00:Major League's gonna have like a half-hour disclaimer on all the things that can't be done now.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right. Um, he and then also he for quite a while, I think he came in once Michael J. Fox exited Spin City.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Okay. I think that's how that traded off. Um, of course, many, many, many people know him from Two and a Half Men.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And Anger Management. So that is Mr. Charlie Sheen in a nutshell. Um, okay, moving on to a gentleman that you mentioned earlier. I did. You know who I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00:Uh Denzel Washington.
SPEAKER_04:Is Denzel Washington in this movie? Ben Stein.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The economics teacher.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. Which it's so okay. What I read is that um I don't really remember the connection between him and Hughes, but I do know that I mean Ben Stein really does have a background in in economics and law. He actually comes from a family of like renowned uh intellectuals in the in these two realms.
SPEAKER_00:It may explain, I guess, in part, some of his uh political proclivities. Yes.
SPEAKER_04:Um and when he agreed to do this bit roll, Hugh said to him, like, literally, I want I want you to put together an economics lecture. So outside of the roll call, what he's doing is really a lecture that he would have done. Um and I mean, kind of to what we were just saying, like he actually was the valedictorian of his 1970 Yale law school class.
SPEAKER_00:So he's he's very smart, and I think people probably would recognize him in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And then there was also that long-running game show, Win Ben Stein's Money, that I think probably even more people would recognize him from. But he hasn't really been on anything positive that I can think of in a in a while. Especially lately, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but he actually kind of has parlayed this uh between like his knowledge and this like really identifiable monotone voice of his into an acting career.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, thank goodness, this person who obviously came from like what appeared to be a well-off family, and also good on him for making something out of himself. So glad he made it work. Thank goodness.
SPEAKER_04:But among some of his other credits, uh Ghostbusters 2, he has a bit part in. Um Charles in Charge, that show. Um The Wonder Years.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Richie Rich, which that kind of makes sense to me. Uh Casper, and then I guess he has a he voices a character on the fairly odd parents.
SPEAKER_00:I I know what that is, but I haven't. Yeah, same.
SPEAKER_04:Same.
SPEAKER_00:I I just wanted to real quickly kind of we we've covered a little bit of like the difficulty in in talking about Ben Stein, I guess. But he did have a great, super wholesome quote about the movie and how much the movie moved him. I mean he he called it the most life-affirming movie possibly of the entire post-war period and said, It is two comedies, what gone with the wind is to epics. He said, he went on to say, it will never die because it responds to and calls forth such human emotions. It isn't dirty, there's nothing mean-spirited about it, there's nothing sneering or sniggering about it. It's just wholesome. We want to be free, we want to have a good time, we know we're not gonna be able to all our lives, we know we're going to have to buckle down and work, we know we're gonna have to eventually become family men and women and have responsibilities and pay our bills, but just give us a couple of good days that we can look back on. And I really enjoyed that quote of his. I agree. It's a great characterization of the movie.
SPEAKER_04:Totally agree. Yep, and I'm really glad that you brought that up. That that is a really great quote, and I think it very well encapsulates. Is that right? I think it's right.
SPEAKER_00:I think that it's a thousand percent the longest Ben Stein quote I will ever have to do that. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I agree. Okay, la last shout out. Um, and again, I mean, I don't know honestly if we're gonna bring her up. Um, it's kind of a really interesting, like, little cameo because she has gone on to have like a really huge career, but Chris Christy Swanson.
SPEAKER_00:Buffy.
SPEAKER_04:But yeah, that I mean, that is absolutely here, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Buffy, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So she plays Simone, I think it's in the Benstein class where he's doing roll call, and she's the one that has this really great, very convoluted explanation for why Ferris isn't in school. So she does she has you know just a couple seconds on screen, but she does a really great job with it. Um, she also is in another. Do you know what other John Hughes film she's in?
SPEAKER_00:I don't. I mean, I could cheat and just click it up real quick, but I'm just gonna say I don't.
SPEAKER_04:Click it up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, so she is they she they credit her as a ducket, but she's at the very end of Pretty in Pink when Ducky.
SPEAKER_00:Is that just like a fan of Ducky?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I guess that's how they mean it. But essentially, like Ducky tells Andy, like, go off, go with Blaine, be happy. And he's kind of like just looking around at prom and then she gives him the eye.
SPEAKER_00:Oh.
SPEAKER_04:So she's at the very tail end of the Duckett, um, Flowers in the Attic, Knots Landing, Hotshots. So that's like much again, Charlie Sheen.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_04:Um, like you said, she is the star of but the movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
SPEAKER_00:I think Sarah Michelle Geller has probably taken over the identity of that at this point after like seasons and seasons. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um she's also in The Chase, another Charlie Charlie Sheen film.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, she's not she um she's just like a character in that. She's not the um co-star.
SPEAKER_04:No Charlie Sheen's. No, I think she is. Is she? Yeah, yeah. Uh Dude, where's my car? Dude, where's my car? Where's my car? Uh she's on the show Psyche. And then currently she's on SEAL team. Okay. So I've heard good things about Psych.
SPEAKER_00:I've never watched it. Me neither. I know a lot of people are excited that it was like a movie or a lot of people.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Okay. Thank you for hanging with us with that. But it it is a huge ensemble cast, so it's like you gotta talk about these things.
SPEAKER_00:It is. I don't know if it was at the time, but it is. It has become that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um you're gonna really enjoy this. Uh so film synopsis. Oh, yeah. Here's what here's how it's worded. A high school wise guy is determined.
SPEAKER_00:I'll let you go. Sorry.
SPEAKER_04:I will start over. A high school wise guy is determined to have a day off from school, despite what the principal thinks of that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Sorry, first of all. Second of all, is this like a mafia movie? Right? High school wise guy. Who wrote that?
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. I do not know.
SPEAKER_00:Despite what the principal thinks of that, okay, this might be the worst synopsis.
SPEAKER_03:Pretty bad.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. They may as well have just said the title character, Ferris, has a day off.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, there there are so many other options that they could have gone with for describing who who Ferris is. I mean, look, the I guess like when you really boil it down, yeah, he is determined to have a day off school. That that part is true. And they do bring into it the fact that there is like this conflict between him and the principal of the school, but it doesn't really do j justice. And it doesn't bring Cameron into it, and Cameron is such a huge part of this film. I think that that warranted a part of the synopsis. But in any case, here's my synopsis.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. The most popular guy in high school shows his friend how to have a good time, also everything works out for him, and he proposes to his girlfriend, but they don't get married the end.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if we really a synopsis.
SPEAKER_00:They don't really say the end at the end of the synopsis, do they? No, they don't.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if we really need to bring in the whole marriage part of it. I don't know if that is actually.
SPEAKER_00:I bring it up a few times.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. Um, and also I do think that Rooney deserves a place in that synopsis. He didn't come up in your synopsis.
SPEAKER_00:I was holding it against the uh the actor, I think.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. We need to move past that though, because like he is a part of the film. I mean, like, as much as he is maybe not a great person in life, like his character is a significant part of the film.
SPEAKER_00:That's true.
SPEAKER_04:I know you really are fighting this. Um but uh okay, as far as like this is something that obviously always comes up with our guests, and we ask about kind of their first memories of seeing this film. Um, I think we we both kind of go into that with her. I mean, I'd really actually more like to know how you felt about seeing it on our most recent screening.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, I mean it's it's something that is like a lot of these 80s movies, they're just randomly on. So we'll watch bits and pieces. But that's the first time I've watched it from start to finish in a while. And it's just uh Matt, especially now, especially with uh I'll say especially in 2020, yeah. And especially, especially in like September of 2020, it's just like a super wholesome. Like, yeah, they'd steal a car, technically, kind of, but uh, they just go see a baseball game and like eat lunch at a fancy place. Like it was just a really nice, uh, stupid, like kind of wacky, wholesome movie to watch. So I really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_04:I yeah, I I really agree with everything that you said about what it means right now to watch a film like that. And uh yeah, it just it it definitely is one of those films that can um provide a means of escape from from like the reality of the world right now.
SPEAKER_00:I do worry a little bit for Ferris. Like, what are you going to do when you're done with high school? Because at a certain point, you're gonna have to show up, pal. That's true.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, and we get into this with our guest. I mean, he is a character that like everything just kind of like you said, seems to work out for him. And I do feel like that as far as like what's gonna happen to this guy, I do kind of feel like he will be okay. Um, I feel like he you know, one thing you brought up, actually, when we were talking with our guest was uh so when he's hacking into the school system to change the number of days that he was absent, you do very quickly glimpse his grades.
SPEAKER_00:You do.
SPEAKER_04:And I know you you make a really excellent point that if he can change his absent days, he can probably change his grades.
SPEAKER_00:I don't believe those are his real grades at all.
SPEAKER_04:I believe those are his real grades. Because if he's smart enough to be able to hack into his school's computer system and also just pull off all the other things that he's pulled off throughout the course of the day, I think he actually probably earned those grades.
SPEAKER_00:I he's he's certainly like like quick and and clever. I don't know if he's like book smart in high school, and that was his character in um in war games. Like he he was a really smart kid that didn't really study, so he was changing his grades in that movie. I think maybe he did, maybe he didn't. I'm not buying it. I think he I think he did change his grades.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, fair.
SPEAKER_00:So he could be like a pretty smart kid and just not give a shit about high school, and I a hundred percent respect that.
SPEAKER_04:There's lots of people like that. Yeah, there there definitely are a lot of people, and I guess the one thing that I can probably go down this path is that he is so intelligent and needs like kind of it seems like constant stimul stimulation. He could probably be very bored by school.
SPEAKER_00:He wasn't challenged enough by high school, right?
SPEAKER_04:And I have, you know, in real life have heard that a lot where kids are actually just too smart for and they and they sometimes underperform because they're just not stimulated.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, so so that's very possible.
SPEAKER_00:It's the teacher's fault.
SPEAKER_04:It's the tea It's not the teacher's fault. It's not the teacher's fault. Um okay, so before we dive into our conversation with our guest, we actually have montages.
SPEAKER_00:Oh shit, we do. We have several.
SPEAKER_04:We have several in the film. So one we actually what's up?
SPEAKER_00:Getting back to our roots.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's right. Um we talk about one at length with our guest, and that's when they are they are at the Art Institute of Chicago.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, so I'm gonna leave that for that conversation. But um, the other one that's like I guess the most prominent is when they are actually driving into the city.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I really like that song that they uh start off with before they head out in the in the Ferrari. I keep calling it a Porsche.
SPEAKER_04:That's okay. It kind of looks like a I mean, I'm not a car person. I I don't want to anger car people, but it looks like a Porsche to me. Um yeah, and so it look, it absolutely serves its purpose. It gets them from the suburbs into the city so we can continue moving the story along. You're right, it has a great song.
SPEAKER_00:It's a much longer drive than uh what that montage would lead you to believe.
SPEAKER_04:It is, but that is the purpose of the montage, is that it kind of cuts through all that. Um, and it sets up really well the second, essentially what is the second half of the film, because it cuts to all these like glimpses of downtown Chicago, so we know exactly where we're going.
SPEAKER_00:You can even tell they're coming from the north side of uh of that area when they're on Lakeshore Drive and you can see some of the buildings off to the right, which is something I definitely wouldn't have picked up on the first several times I saw it. But after having been to Chicago many times, uh I picked that up and I really I like After marrying somebody from Chicago? Yeah, exactly. And it's fun to see a movie that I've seen so many times where I can still pick up new things from it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, me too. Um so that is probably I mean, like I said, it's a really effective part of the film. It gets us where we need to be. Um and also what I like is that as we're kind of getting all these different cuts of the city, it's cutting back to Ferris, Sloan, and Cameron. And it also just shows their different personalities and what the dynamic is going to be between the three of them for the second half of the film. So, so it does a really good job of all of it on all accounts, I would say. I agree. All right. Well, I think it's about time that we bring Julia into this conversation. Let's do it. And we are thrilled to have on the show actor and filmmaker Julia Manis. Julia, thank you so much for being with us today.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for having me. It's been my dream to be on a podcast, so you are fulfilling my dream.
SPEAKER_03:No, I actually do remember you mentioning that. So happy, happy to make that dream come true.
SPEAKER_00:That's how we uh we market the podcast with don't just let your dreams be dreams.
SPEAKER_04:Our 80s movie montage. We make your 80s dreams come true. Um, thank you so much. We're so stoked to have you on the show. And this is gonna be a really I mean, Ferris Bueller, it it's just fun. It's just like how can you not enjoy it? I was mentioning that in the last episode when we were just kind of telling um our listeners what was coming up next. I was like, I don't think I've ever met somebody who hated this movie.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's that's true. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, how have you ever come across? I mean, we're gonna definitely dive into, you know, question we'll we'll get into all of it, I promise. But like, have you ever come across anybody who's like, oh no, that movie is terrible?
SPEAKER_02:No, I can't, I can't say that I have. It's yeah, it's a crowd pleaser for sure.
SPEAKER_00:I've talked to people that don't like Ferris.
SPEAKER_03:Sure. And we'll we'll get to that too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:His sister hates him. That will be no, I think that's actually gonna be a really interesting part of our conversation because yes, I do know that sometimes people have strong feelings about Ferris.
SPEAKER_00:But um it's pretty wholesome where like the worst thing he does, I guess, is convince his friend to well, that is kind of serious to like joy riding her his friend's dad's Porsche. Yeah, never mind. No, not Porsche, Ferrari.
SPEAKER_04:Well, yeah, Ferrari, and we'll we'll get to that too, because they're actually, yeah. Okay, so let's just there's a lot to get to, obviously. So I'm going to just jump in with my leading question that I do every time, which is if you could tell our listeners what your first experience of this film was, probably about maybe how old you were, what you remember of that first experience watching it, and just how you felt about the movie.
SPEAKER_02:So I was in middle school. I think I was in seventh grade, and I had a sleepover, and I went to art school. So um the girl that had slept over at my house, she was like gonna do a dance to the oh yeah, songs.
SPEAKER_03:She was like dance to that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, like they were doing like a yeah, it was like a group, group choreograph dance, but um, I didn't know what she was talking about. She kept talking about this song. I was like, what are you trying? Fair spieler, I've never seen it. So she like made sat me down, made me watch it. And um, and I don't really remember like what I thought initially. I think I was kind of like, eh, the first time I saw it. So I think the thing. Yeah, yeah. I remembered there was uh a kid I rode the bus with, this guy Dante, who was like obsessed with it. So I think I came in with like really high expectations. I was expecting this like a cinematic masterpiece, but yeah, I think on the second viewing I was like, oh yeah, this is this is so fun. And uh, so yeah, I I grew to love it.
SPEAKER_04:So before you had seen this, did you already have any kind of like familiarity with John Hughes or like specifically kind of like those teen films of the 80s that he had done?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure. Um, I think I had seen Breakfast Club at that point. Um yeah, and then eventually saw like Pretty in Pink and like all the other classics. Uh I would say like Breakfast Club and Ferris Buel are like my top two of his. Um but oh, and Home Alone, of course. Like I always forget for some reason that he made that movie or that he wrote that movie. Yeah. Which is like it kind of feels in the same family, but different in a way. Um but yeah, and I do remember like going into Blockbuster and seeing the DVD every single time, like that classic cover with him, like his hands behind his head. Yep. Yep. Um, so I had like years of going to Blockbuster, like seeing that cover and being like, what's that about?
SPEAKER_04:So which that's actually like a great question about the story because it is like a really interesting. I mean, it's so it's so popular, but it's not really, it doesn't really follow like a traditional story format. I know there's a clear beginning, middle, and end per se. But like, you know, I or okay, I guess I'm just gonna throw it over to you instead of me going on and on about it. But like, how do you view the story in terms of like who Ferris is as like, say, the protagonist versus Cameron? You know what I'm like where I'm going with that, with kind of like who goes through kind of the change in the film.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that is a great point to make. Cause like, you know, I rewatched it recently and I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, nothing really happens in this movie. But then when I rewatched, I was like, oh, but Cameron goes through this huge change. So it's like kind of Cameron's story, and in my mind, like, can't it's all about Cameron, like he was my favorite, and like, you know, Ferris just kind of never changes, and you know, he there's no consequences for his actions at the end of the movie. Um, so yeah, it to me it is different in that way, in that the protagonist doesn't appear to change. Um, but I think that's also part of the like existential charm of Ferris Peeler is that it's yeah, it's just this like, oh, he's living in the moment, he's very hedonistic, and he has this effect on his friend who's like very um pessimistic and and needs to uh relax a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:So in that way, they need to be calling. I I don't think at his age he'd be calling child protective services, but he's definitely gonna be needing police intervention when his dad gets home.
SPEAKER_04:Like, okay, so look, we're what about 35 years removed from when this film came out. Um, so of course, in that span of time, like so many different and we'll don't worry, we'll get to them, but like there's so many theories about why certain things happened or didn't happen, or why the characters were portrayed the way that they were. Um one thing that I actually thought like was kind of dark, um, but maybe not all too unrealistic is that so Alan Rook, who plays Cameron, I think at some point he was asked, like, what do you think happened to these kids? And he's like, Well, Cameron's dad killed him. I mean, that is awful that we're all like laughing, but it's like he so he comes home, sees how he destroyed not only the car but the like garage, and and throws Cameron out the garage alongside the car. So he yeah, so he dies, and then uh Ferris and Sloane they get married, but then eventually they get divorced. I was like, wow, that's a real dark take.
SPEAKER_00:Um the sequel, Ferris Bueller Part two, witness protection.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly. Especially considering what um what you were just saying like a moment ago about how it's this very light and like living in the moment kind of movie. I was like, that takes a dark turn. But um, yeah, I agree with you. I think that um it's a really interesting juxtaposition between Ferris and Cameron. And I think that I don't know, I I guess so I saw this um very, very young. It's hard for me to like really um put a timestamp on it, but it actually brought a big smile to my face when you were talking about uh having seen this at a slumber party because even though I had already seen it um several times, I remember having like a slumber birthday party when I was a kid, and we all uh this was one of the movies that we watched, and it was probably about like a half dozen girls, and then when they you know had the twist and shout um sequence, we all like got up and were dancing. So that's adorable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was ridiculously wholesome.
SPEAKER_04:One of my favorite, I have so many favorite moments in this movie, but um, but I'm curious, given that you were like you said about middle school age, um, when you saw this, like how and you're okay, so you're about to go into high school. Like, did this movie at all impact how you felt your high school years would be, given that you had some familiarity with other Hughes teen films? Like, uh how did you feel like those characters, did they at all feel relatable to you? Or how how did you feel about them as like teen characters?
SPEAKER_02:It's you know, that that's that's interesting that you bring that up because I remember at another slumber party I had, it must have been like for my birthday or something, we watched Breakfast Club, and I remember a lot of my friends were like, oh, I connected with this, like I had this same experience, I had these same thoughts, and and da-da-da. And like I to that point had not experienced uh like what those characters were going through. Like I had a pretty uh my parents were like very supportive, they're still married, and um, so I, you know, didn't have that experience of being like, you know, some of my friends were children of a divorce, and and you know, I think in John Hughes's movies, like uh, in a lot of ways, like the parents are um not positive figures in these kids' life, and they're they're actually adding to the stress of just being a kid. So I think like what Hughes is going, like what he wants with like most of his films is like to just let these kids be kids and be happy. Um, so yeah, it's um it definitely like was insight into like a world that I had not experienced yet at that point, and thinking like, oh, okay, like uh people had grew up differently than me and had different experiences, and not everybody had a positive experience growing up or positive relationships with their family, um, especially their parents. So I in a way, it just kind of opened my eyes to that and expanded my worldview from this like cushy upbringing that I had. Um, but I mean, I remember thinking, and this is funny, this is actually a question I have for you. Um, like when I was a senior in high school, my best friend and I were like, oh, we have never ditched school before. Like that's that's something we need to do. And so like we were at lunch. I remember this vividly, and we're like, should we just ditch school? Like, should we just leave? And we're like, okay. So we like wrote these notes to like get out of school. And like we both went to the attendance office like at the same time. So of course they knew we were ditching. But like, let us get away. But yeah, uh again, again, I went to art school, so I think they were like, uh, they're not gonna do anything. Like, it's gonna be fine.
SPEAKER_03:What did you do with the rest of your day?
SPEAKER_02:We so it was like technically half day. We didn't like have the full day. We like got in our cars and we're like, oh my god, like the world is on our fingers. Like this whole like, I don't even know. But we're like, then when we were driving, we're like, but what do we actually do? Like, what can we do?
SPEAKER_00:And then you said the question isn't what can we do?
SPEAKER_02:Good time. Really good time. Um, so yeah, I think we like we we tried to like go get our palms read. We that's great.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But then we like backed out because it was like it was like a kind of weird scenario.
SPEAKER_00:Uh could have walked in and said, what are we supposed to do with the rest of the day?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, in hindsight, that would have been a great question. Um, and then I think we went to Chuck E. Cheese.
SPEAKER_04:And I mean, like, talk about wholesome.
SPEAKER_02:Like amazing. Yeah. And then like the funny part is like we were both in the same play at that time. So we had to go back to school for rehearsal. But like, if you had skipped school that day, you weren't allowed to come back to rehearsal.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no.
SPEAKER_02:So we had to like, we we had to, we had to kind of like phrase it in this way, like, oh, we had we both had doctors' appointments at the same exact time when we both came back in the same car, you know, like so. We kind of just like told the director that, and she was like, uh-huh, sure. Like she totally stopped her eyes. And uh, like we were like still able to go to rehearsal. Um, but yeah, that was my very, but then you had to sneak back in.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's like literally like returning to the scene of the crime. But exactly. I I love how adorably wholesome and just like no one, I mean, that is just the cutest story. I mean, Derek, I'm gonna throw this over to you because I'm guessing, Julia, your question was have we ever ditched? Yeah. And I'm I feel like Derek might have.
SPEAKER_00:I yeah, I did.
SPEAKER_04:I didn't figure.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I had friends that uh that may or may have not ditched to go to a massive orange grove that was near my high school so that they could uh smoke pot and then got caught doing that and ended up going to like juvenile hall. So it's not quite as wholesome as Chuck E. Cheese.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:But uh yeah, that wasn't that wasn't me, but that that happened. Sure. It was a friend. Yeah. My record has been expunged.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I I feel like I have probably the lamest uh ditch story, because okay, at my school, this like really negates the whole point of it, but like the school allowed a day for all the seniors to ditch. Yeah, which is like yeah, senior ditch day. Okay, so I didn't know this was like a thing. Oh yeah. Oh, okay, okay. Um, so like so that like nobody sorry, I had no idea. So um, you know, nobody would get in trouble, but like what ended up happening, okay. So like I'm trying to try to recall this. Here's what I remember is that I think that it was actually so Julia, you grew up in Cal Southern California, correct?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_04:And then Derek for the most part. You grew up in Phoenix.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, like Glendale, suburb of Phoenix, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So neither of you ever had a snow day.
SPEAKER_00:No, we no, we had we did not have snow days.
SPEAKER_04:So that's this was the thing in the Chicago area where I grew up. Um, and so here's what I remember is that I was hanging out with friends, and I think we realized that it was probably gonna be a snow day the next day at school. Uh-huh. And so we all were hanging out with the expectation that it was gonna be a snow day. Well, it turned out, no, they said that we were gonna have to go to school anyway. And then there was some rebel. Yeah, exactly. And then there was some like kind of like, okay, well, can we just make this our senior ditch day? And so it was this really, really weird circumstance where okay, I went to an incredibly small school. I only had about 85 people in my graduation class. And so about um, although you say you went to an art school, I'm guessing there was probably small numbers too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we had 200 in my graduating class.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, okay. Derek, what did you have?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I went to just your regular public high school in Glendale, where like there was only one stabbing.
SPEAKER_04:There was a stabbing, but it was only I'm asking about the numbers about that that stabbing did not reduce the numbers.
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't fatal. I mean, it was maybe a thousand or yeah, the big high school.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, yeah, it was a big school. That that is hard for me to yeah, wrap my head around it.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I I yeah, I've tried to purge that memory. So in my mind, it it like whether it's like a thousand or one hundred, didn't want to be around any of them.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00:I was Cameron.
SPEAKER_03:So you're Cameron.
SPEAKER_04:So I mean, for just just to wrap this up, um, we had about half of us. So about 40 of us had gotten the message that this was supposed to be our senior ditch day, but then half of our senior class still went to school that day. So then they had to make an allowance for all those kids that came to school that day, and then they got their so it was just a mess.
SPEAKER_00:If I didn't show up, no one, no one cared. There was nothing, there was no process. I would just not show up, and it would be noted that I didn't attend. And I guess if I didn't attend a certain number of days, somebody would say something. But yeah, there was there was certainly no Ed Rooney making it his personal vendetta to hunt me down.
SPEAKER_04:This episode is really bringing out a lot of uh drama.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, did that guy have no other duties as a principal?
SPEAKER_04:Well, actually, I mean, that's an interesting question. I mean, how when in your setup and and once you finally were in high school, I mean, what was the interaction between the principal and the students? I mean, did you have anything that was like an Ed Rooney? Like how how involved were were the admin was the administration in the students' lives?
SPEAKER_02:Um, we didn't we had like the equivalent, but it was the vice principal uh in our school. Um, I I won't name names. He will he will remain anonymous, but he was that guy where he was like, you know, I don't know if he was a cop at some point, but he definitely wanted to be a cop. So he was like taking his job very seriously. Like he had the walkie and he was like constantly using the walkie. Um and he would always like uh I remember just getting a lot of uh referrals for like wearing spaghetti straps. So he was that guy, which like looking back now, like at the time when you're a kid, you feel so shamed from that process that like you don't want to say anything, or you don't even like have the means or the world experience to be like, oh, this is wrong that you're shaming young girls for what they're wearing, and you're implying that it's like sexualizing or whatever, you know. So that's also weird.
SPEAKER_00:It says way more about that guy than anything else.
SPEAKER_04:I also have name names. Um and look, I I actually feel very fortunate for the high school experience I had. However, I would say that, you know, nothing is a perfect um environment or experience. Uh, and although, you know, I went to I I don't know if I already mentioned this, but like the reason why the numbers were so small in my school is I went to a private school. And um we didn't have uniforms, but we did have a fairly strict dress code. And you just uh triggered for me a memory where um that was, I mean, that was never an issue for me. We this is a whole other episode, but like I was like wearing guys' rugby shirts and high school, like a whole other thing. Um, but there was this one uh individual where the okay, so there was a a quote skirt length that you have to abide by. Yeah. Uh-huh. And there was a student um who I guess her skirt length was questionable, and this individual made her get down on her knees so that they could measure.
SPEAKER_00:That's not cool. Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And so I totally feel you, Julia, and uh totally, totally get where you're coming from. Because at the time, like, look, it's so it what I think is also in bringing it back to the film is um so interesting is how you feel in high school versus how you feel several years removed from high school. And you know, I get it. I actually really empathize with Cameron because you know, he's in a really unhappy place. Um it, I don't know if it seemed like I never got the impression that he hated school for any reason. Um, especially having Ferris as his best friend. I'm I'm guessing there was like no instances of bullying or anything like that, but he obviously had an incredibly unhappy home life.
SPEAKER_00:Um he wasn't he wasn't particularly engaged, and that's I think part of uh what uh made him work for that role. Is that the uh what's it, Ruck? Yeah, Alan Ruck. Alan Ruck said like he was older when he was cast for that role, but he said, like I wasn't particularly like engaged or quote unquote with it when I was in high school. So it was kind of easy just to continue to be like not engaged at all with high school. Right. Yeah. So I don't I I don't think it was like being bullied, it was just like, yeah, this this is all pointless.
SPEAKER_04:But yeah, like most teens of that age, I think you because you can't help it, you only know what your experience of life has been so far, and that experience of life is like 15 to 18 years. Yeah. So so I understand why you feel like it is literally the end of your world if things aren't going well. Yeah. Um, whereas and and I and I also get it, like you hear it all the time, you see it all the time. Where, you know, a teen who's going through a difficult circumstance, you have adults saying, like, just you know, it it'll get better. I mean, you especially hear that from like, you know, the LGBTQ, IA, you know, like you hear that a lot. Like, just get out, like just power through, you'll get to a better place in adulthood.
SPEAKER_00:I got the advice from my dad because he had a miserable time in high school.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's it's kind of this like I remember my parents telling me that a lot, like it's gonna get better. It's like, you know, you this will not last forever, but that feeling that, like, oh, this is how my life is going to be, this is the only way I'm going to experience it. I'm always gonna be miserable. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:One one thing that I wanted to ask you both about is so I another reason why this film um just you know has a big place in my heart is for first of all, when I was a child and I was going to that other school, every year, you know, I lived in the Chicago suburbs and um we would have field trips uh to all the major museums. And I was incredibly fortunate that Chicago has like world-class museums, uh, chief among them the Art Institute of Chicago. And so every year, even as children when we didn't really appreciate it, um, we would go to like that was always the boring one was the Art Institute because how are you to appreciate Picasso and uh It's tough yeah, yeah, like when you're when you're beat.
SPEAKER_00:So you feel like you should, but you just should, but just you're like, why?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like oh and then like you always had to have your hand buddy, you know, like everybody kind of burner up and like make sure you don't lose your hand buddy, and um, so that was like literally every year. And it sounds insane that I'm like complaining about that. But once I was finally um in college, you know, you'd have breaks between classes, and Columbia College was on the south side. And so I would literally walk over to the Art Institute. And at the time they had like free Tuesdays. Um that to me is one of the more interesting parts of the film. And from what I read, so John Hughes also, you know, he grew up in the Chicago area and he um also would just spend time in the Art Institute. And from what I read, that was purely like a it's weird to say self-indulgent because that has like negative connotations, and I actually think it's one of the more beautiful parts of the film um where yeah, they're just like going through. And I was curious as somebody who, you know, just as somebody who has viewed the film, as somebody who has um an art background, like it, I think to some people does feel a little bit out of place in the film. Well, because it all of a sudden it goes to like kind of a very slow, kind of serious, reflective place. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_04:And I was curious how you felt about that sequence, if that ever had an impact on you.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I mean, that sequence actually has one of my favorite parts where Cameron is looking at um, I I forget the name of the painting, but um I got it.
SPEAKER_00:It is where it's like panning from Cameron in the picture and back to Cameron.
SPEAKER_04:It is uh a Sunday afternoon on the island of Le Grande Jate by Surat.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_04:There you go. Thank you. I remember as a kid, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It's yeah, it's massive. Um, but that sequence or that that little cut back and forth is like one of my my favorite parts, and like um just how it keeps getting closer and closer and closer until it like signifies nothing, you know, which is like almost in a way is like a metaphor for like the film itself, where it's like, you know, this like the closer and closer and closer you get, it's like it it doesn't doesn't really mean anything, but you then you have to like pull back out and see it like for what it is. So it does kind of have this like existential who am I moment. So I think it fits like for me, it works for Cameron.
SPEAKER_00:Um it is you can see the dread in his eyes.
SPEAKER_04:You can see like the real internal conflict, and and honestly, like as you're speaking, Julia, like I'm thinking like if this was a film, and we we'll go get to this because we usually do, like, about whether or not this could have been made today. Um, you know, this is a character that like seriously needs therapy. I mean, he is in a pl very dark place, and um he goes catatonic for a brief time, yeah. And you know, it he is he is a kid because he's he is a kid, like I know we all talked about like he was 29 when he did this, which is kind of crazy. Yeah, um, although I feel like um uh stockard channing in Green.
SPEAKER_02:Right, she is yeah, she I think was 30 when she did that. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And um yeah, he he looks he looks closer to being in high school than than she did, but it's yeah, it no one cared.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's nobody cared. I mean he it it worked. Um, but uh yeah, it I I agree with you on all points. I think that it it absolutely works for the character. And if you didn't already understand like what this kid was going through, that that sequence really beautifully illustrates, at least for me, um, what he's going through. And then I think you're right. I think that it has like a deeper meaning for the film itself, which it it's like kind of a double-edged sword, at least the way that I look at it, because like, yeah, they kind of are just having this fun day. Um, ultimately, it doesn't like really mean anything, but at the same time, it kind of goes back to what Fear says about you know, life is short, and if you don't take a moment to look around, you might miss, you know.
SPEAKER_00:So it's I feel like he was talking to me, telling me, don't be like Cameron. Yeah, don't be like, look at this example, don't be like him. He might make it, right? He might get killed by his dad, according to the actual actor that played him.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know if Alan Rook had any insight whatsoever as to what the epilogue was supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00:It's canon at this point.
SPEAKER_04:But um, I mean, and actually, one thing I'll throw out there, and I always kind of like hesitate with some of these like um don't hesitate, urban legend type stories. Like, uh, I don't want to like put that out there. Okay, so here's what I read that actually there was supposed to be this much bigger backstory with the Charlie Sheen character.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Interesting. No, I I knew that there was one, but I don't know what the details are.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, so you guys tell me how you feel about this, and if you feel like it should have remained in the film, or if you feel like it it was fine to have it cut. So apparently in the the earlier drafts of the script, um, Charlie Sheen and his family were supposed to play a bigger role in the film. And essentially, Ferris and his character were friends in childhood. He did come from a very troubled background. Ferris kind of like tried to extricate him from this like uh not great home life and didn't really succeed because he himself was a child. And so that's kind of why the Charlie Sheen character becomes a junkie and that sort of thing. And so the whole idea was that because he so-called failed with the Charlie Sheen character, that's why he was trying so hard with Cameron to kind of bring him out and and get him to um experience life and hopefully like change his mindset.
SPEAKER_00:So that's a totally different movie, yes.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so Julia, like given that, I mean, how do you feel about the idea that they cut that?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I mean it it does feel like it it doesn't like if they had added that in, the movie would have been way too long. Because it is like pretty pretty long for a comedy's sake already. Um so that that would definitely make it more in like the breakfast club world, I think. Um so I'm actually I I'm glad they kept it out because you know, as we've been talking about, like this movie kind of feels like uh each John Hughes movie kind of has its own thing, but like this feels like the happiest of his movies. So it I think it's like it's good that they let it stand out that way and they and they kept that out because otherwise it it would have been a downer for sure.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, so like his interaction with Jeannie or Shauna.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I don't understand that at all. Where she's like, some people call me Shauna. I was like, what?
SPEAKER_02:I've never understood that neither. Yeah, it makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00:But it seems like she doesn't know him, had never met him. Yes, true.
SPEAKER_04:So good point. That's a really good point. I don't know if like what else they had to edit out to make that work, or I read that um the original cut was like about an hour longer, but there were a lot of other scenes, and actually this goes back to something you said earlier, Derek. Um, yeah, about uh like oh, he doesn't really do anything too bad. Yeah, and and I think I had to backpedal on that pretty quickly. Well, one of the things I guess they cut it, and I don't know if it's stuff that they actually shot or just stuff that was cut from the script.
SPEAKER_00:Um the drug use and they no actually homeless person. It got really weird in the uncut version.
SPEAKER_04:You're going off rails. No, but but what one of the at least one of the things that was cut is that Ferris calls his dad at work and asks him about these like bonds that he had. And so he was supposed to go like find the bond, take he like cashed it so that they'd have money for the day.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04:And so that was like one of the things that they cut because they thought that that would portray him as being too manipulative of his parents. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so he was already, so I guess the the phrase is too manipulative because he's pretty manipulative. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um, and it was like things like that that they cut because they didn't want him to come across as being kind of this like Machiavellan type character. They wanted to be more wholesome.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, Hughes already like commented commented on that a little bit with the casting of Broderick being someone who could pull off that role and still have it feel wholesome and not like this like creep or like manipulative kind of kid.
SPEAKER_04:Well, you bring up a really great point, which I'm gonna throw over to you, Julia. I mean, you talked about earlier how you would go into Blockbuster and you would see these DVDs, and like you still remain it's has made such an impression, this image of Matthew Broderick on the cover. How do you feel about the casting? I mean, we've kind of talked about Cameron and Alan Ruck being 29 years old, and we're fine, we're all fine with that, it seems. Um, but like, how do you feel about the main casting? I'm really curious as an actor, how this has made an impact, if it has on you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think well, I think they were the perfect choices because they have such good chemistry together. And I I know that I read that they had just worked on a uh Broadway play together. So they already had that, like, you know, um, like when sometimes when you work on a film, like and you have to be like a best friend or like a spouse or or whatever it is, and have this like really intimate relationship, you don't get that time beforehand to develop the relationship the same way that you would do like in a in a in a play. So they already had that time together. So it you do get a sense like, oh, these people are friends in real life. Um, that comes across on the in in the film. Um, but yeah, I think Matthew Broderick, like, you know, he's definitely very charming. And uh if it had been someone else, like I was reading about like the potential castings, like I think Emilio Esteves at one point was like slated, and like that to me, it would have been like way too serious. Like, you know, it it doesn't it doesn't seem like he would have had the like um quirkiness or like the lightheartedness that Matthew brought. To be honest, and that's like not just throw shade at he's a great actor, but yeah, yeah, but yeah, like he's just a different speed, and like you know, uh and it would have been weird to have Charlie Sheen and Emilio Aceves in the movie together too. That's probably great. Yeah, or in uh men at work. Yeah, they were. Yeah, oh okay. I haven't seen that.
SPEAKER_04:I'll just find they're all okay.
SPEAKER_00:They're they play garbage men in men at work. Yeah, it's a weird movie.
SPEAKER_04:Uh masterpiece. Anyway, sorry. That was very uh snarky.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I love that movie, it's great.
SPEAKER_03:I didn't mean that uh uh genuinely.
SPEAKER_02:I yeah, with the utmost respect.
SPEAKER_04:Um well, actually, you know, and you I was really curious as you were speaking because you make a really great point. Um, as an actor, I I suppose everybody has like their preferences, but is that something that just kind of kicks in on uh instinct or I guess also a combination of talent where you have to like pretty quickly create these really intimate relationships with like virtual strangers when you go into a project?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think sometimes it just comes down to like people have chemistry together or people don't have chemistry together. And that's why they have chemistry reads for that very reason, you know, um, because there is a time constraint, and uh you need to know like if these people can believably be like a romantic couple that's been together for 20 years, like you need to know if they can create that really quickly. Um so I think, like obviously, like would I prefer to have that time to develop and like get closer, of course. But I think what it does come down to is like certain people just have natural chemistry with each other, and they certainly have very good chemistry together, and um, and they complement each other really well as well, where you know, like they're they're very opposite, like physically even. Like Cameron's so much taller than Fredderick, and like, you know, he's lankier. Um, and so yeah, it's like it already creates a good contrast in that that uh sense. Um, but yeah, I mean I I love Cameron, and I also like, I don't know if you guys watch Succession, but he's on it and he plays like a super, super creep, which is like kind of funny to see like Cameron doing that. Um, but it's an amazing show. Like it's really great to see him working now because I think like in a lot of ways, uh for for different reasons, like this movie uh was both of their like standout roles, you know. Like Matthew Broderick, I I don't know if you guys know, but like he kind of had a legal trouble after this film, so that kind of you know put uh a stopper to his career uh in a sense, but and it does have this kind of like dark side to it because it's before that, like this movie is before that happened. So watching in a retrospect, it is kind of eerie to like see it. Um, but for Cameron too, like he's like has this breakout role. It's like very um, you know, he got a lot of praise for it. He the critics all like a hundred percent loved him, and you know, not so much Broderick, like he got good reviews, but not as much as Cameron. And then to see that like he has this kind of like 30-year gap where he's working, but he's not working on these like you know, um huge projects or whatever. So it is nice to see that he's like you know, getting his due because I think he is a really good actor and um deserves that. So that's nice.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I mean, you bring you bring up so many good points. Um I I remember with Alan Rook not really, you know, about 10 years go by and I don't really see him anywhere, and then all of a sudden I watch Speed. Yeah, like Cameron!
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I'm not sure we watched that.
SPEAKER_04:What's that been? Spin Cities, yeah, the other thing that I okay, but Julia, like I I love that you said that about his career because that's something that I I mean it's not it's not like trying to like advocate on behalf of these people who have done quite well for themselves, but like I don't think a lot of people realize, you know, that somebody might have a breakout role. Like they keep working, even if you're not necessarily seeing them in in different projects, and that's why like usually at the head of every episode, you know, I'll kind of go through um the main cast and just talk about some of the other things that they've been in. And now, of course, there are some people where like, you know, we talked about Jack Nicholson and Batman, and it's like Jack Nicholson never, yeah, he never went anywhere. He's fine, you know. I know he's like kind of intentionally retired at this point, but um, you know, so some people are just always in the spotlight.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but I I just have so much respect um for the individuals that they are continuing to be creative and hardworking and you know, they're just hustling, honestly, um, for decades on end. And it's just a shame to me that you just kind of always get these few select uh, you know, quote movie stars that are continuously in the in the public's eye. And it's not because they don't necessarily deserve it, you know, they are talented and they do well and they make these great big features um or really successful television shows. Um, but yeah, like I I just I don't think people realize um sometimes it's they're not they don't go anywhere. Uh they're they're working, they're just maybe not in things that you personally are seeing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. They didn't retire after Ferris Bueller. Right.
SPEAKER_04:He's like, I'm out.
SPEAKER_02:That was the role of my lifetime. Exactly. Reddit.
SPEAKER_04:Um, and to your other point, you know, I um I just want to, in case like our audience didn't uh didn't uh know the details, I will let um people do their own kind of research and see, you know, what what you were talking about with Matthew Bryant. But kind of the short version is that he was involved in a car accident. Um Jennifer Gray happened to be with him because they were, believe it or not, engaged um at the time. But uh it resulted in uh two fatalities um in the car that they hit. Um, and so that is the the legal issues that Julia for everybody out there had been referring to. Um and and you're right, like I think also what's really interesting, part of the reason why I was asking you, specifically as an actor, about how you felt of uh Broderick's performance in this is because you know, we all hear the term like uh typecasting, especially once you get like, you know, Mark Hamill with Luke Skywalker and you cast as a Jedi and everything after that. So so you sometimes get um these roles, which they're incredible, and like I have to admit, I will always think of Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller. Same, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and you don't think of him as the uh guy from Biloxi Blues?
SPEAKER_04:Well, that's just it, is that it's interesting because like let's fast forward, and I you know, I don't want to get too far off Ferris, but like you know, you fast forward to a film like Election.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god, yeah. Ferris Bueller is like kind of a dick in this school.
SPEAKER_04:He's a pretty gross character, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think that there is, you know, I think I even read it that like it was completely intentional, you know. I think both on his part and the part of the filmmakers to to put somebody that we all know and love in that role. Um, but it is interesting to see how because like I remember, I mean, it's a great movie. If you for people out there, it's not an 80s film, but um go out and see it.
SPEAKER_00:It's a dead to me.
SPEAKER_04:It's uh it's a really great film. I mean, remarkable performances by both him and Reese Witherspoon.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Um, but he plays a pretty unlikable character.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, in a lot of ways, he is the Rooney in that movie. Yes, yeah, totally.
SPEAKER_00:Was he the assistant, or in these fictional high schools, there is no assistant because as we've discussed previously, it's really the assistant principal that you have to watch out for.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:He's the authoritarian who's like walking around with the walkie and like staying and doing like questionable things.
SPEAKER_04:Which I meant to bring this up when we were kind of on that. Like another thing has nothing to do with 80s movies at all, but vice principals with Danny McBride, another great show, like hilarious. I think it only ran like two or three seasons, but um, but so it's a real quick watch if you have the means. Um, but it's hilarious, and it is exactly that.
SPEAKER_00:It's kind of accurate. That was that was my experience with assistant principals. Yeah. Vice principals. I don't really remember assistant to the principal.
SPEAKER_04:I have uh nice, nice office reference. Uh, we're we're all over the place. Um I I gosh, I really don't know if I should so I I don't I don't have any recollection of an uh assistant principal or vice principal at my school. I'm guessing there was one, but it was it was actually my principal who uh I didn't have fond memories of. Okay, that's right. Um he made a pretty, in my opinion, egregious mistake. And this is gonna sound really weird saying this, but like, okay, so essentially he came to me, my senior, and told me that I was going to be a valedictorian, which was a big deal for me because in in uh middle school, our junior high, I was I was Salutatorian. Nobody knows what a Salutatorian is. It's the the person with the second highest.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Um so this was a big deal for me because it's like, yes. I mean, to be to be quite like shallow about it, I'm number one, you know, and and so I was like super stoked about it. Well, he made a mistake, and so he had a call, yeah, he had called me out of class to tell me this. Or no, no, no. I I got called to to the office between classes. That's when he first told me about um being valedictorian. I was like, over the moon, go to my next class, knock on the door five minutes later, ask the teacher if he could pull me out. He pulls me out during class and just like really quickly was like, Oh, sorry, uh, so it made a mistake. You're actually Salutatorian, but still great honor saying goodbye. And like, I mean, you could tell he was like embarrassed by his mistake. And I don't really know how that mistake happened. Yeah. Um, but I remember like literally from that day forward, I was like, I hate you.
SPEAKER_03:I was like, you are you are dead to me.
SPEAKER_04:And uh anyway, so I have strong feelings about actual principals.
SPEAKER_00:I certainly didn't have uh no teacher or assistant principal or anyone in any official capacity of my high school ever made the mistake of thinking that I was the valedictorian.
SPEAKER_04:It it uh I mean look, it was a school of 80 kids. It's like it, you know, it's it's look, I didn't get stabbed, I wasn't valedictorian, it was fine.
SPEAKER_00:Anywhere in between those two, you're good.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Anyway, so bringing it back to uh Ferr, I feel like I've said that a lot, but we just have a lot of fun stuff to talk about. Um Ferris himself um as this kid who kind of has this like charmed life. He talks about like, you know, what a bummer it is that he doesn't have a car.
SPEAKER_00:But other than that, it's the worst thing that's happened to this kid in his life is that he doesn't have a car yet.
SPEAKER_04:Is that he doesn't have a car yet?
SPEAKER_00:Because he'll get a car eventually.
SPEAKER_04:He'll eventually get a car, likely.
SPEAKER_00:He's in Chicago, you even need one there, not not as much.
SPEAKER_04:And yeah, yeah. Well, no, no, in the suburbs, you absolutely need a car. You can take the train. Yeah, I mean, I guess I speak from experience. Um Chicago proper, you're cool. But um suburbs, no, you need a car. Um so he has kind of a charmed life. And actually, to one of your earlier points, Julia, in contrast to the other Hughes teen films, he has what seems to be a really great relationship with his parents. They got married in real life, they also got divorced.
SPEAKER_03:They didn't sorry, Julia, you didn't know that.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't know that. That's so funny. Oh my god. I'm sorry to break that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it is a really neat story. And look, we don't know the details of of why that marriage ended.
SPEAKER_00:But um they get remarried to each other? No, I don't think so. I don't think so.
SPEAKER_04:All right, um uh so I hope they're just both happy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, they're very supportive, but they're kind of dumb.
SPEAKER_04:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:Because he's literally acting like an eight-year-old. Yeah, he's acting like if I was his parents, the least of my worries would be his possible illness, and I'd be more worried about like what is wrong with our son, his cognitive strength. Why is he talking about this? They're just kind of going along with it, like, okay, that's fair.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, no, he goes through like immediate arrested development when they walk into his room. But um uh, but they're you know, like one thing that I actually find really endearing, and I love that this is in the film, is when his dad calls them just to check in on him. Yeah, and you know where I'm going with this, and uh, you know, he's like, Oh, I think all this talking's made me lightheaded. And and you know, as we're wrapping up the call, dad's like, Love you, bud. And Ferris is like, I love you too. I I just it it is such a small moment, but to me it's a huge moment because especially in an 80s film, you're showing like open emotion and vulnerability between a father and son.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, good point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think that's beautiful. Like, I it's such a small thing, but I think that that is a lovely thing to show. And it's not to take away from um other depictions of you know the parent teen relationships in in the other Hughes films, but you don't see a lot of that, like even in um Pretty and Pink. Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, I was thinking that, you know, like Harry Dean Stan, he's he he's a really interesting character, but like she's essentially taking care of him. Yeah, you know, he is, I think I want to say, you know, he has his issues, I think, with alcoholism. I mean, obviously it's hard, his wife offed him.
SPEAKER_00:Um he was on that ship with the alien.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my goodness. Yes, you're I it I mean, a great film. It's such a shame that that's not an 80s film.
SPEAKER_02:Um which one?
SPEAKER_04:Alien.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, oh, he's in that? It's been so long since I've seen it. Okay.
SPEAKER_04:If that, man, if that was an 80s film, oof, that was.
SPEAKER_02:Because technically it's 79, right? But it feels like an 80s film. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Right. I know, it's like right on the cusp. Dang. I know, dang it. But um, so yeah, like you don't really have any portrayals of the parents like really taking care of the kid. And except kind of in this. I mean, you have like in some kind of wonderful, the parents are there. Um, they're like almost to like an obsessive degree, uh, you know, wanting to control Keith's future.
SPEAKER_00:Um that's possibly Cameron's dad, except he wants to control him, but not as it's maybe he's disinterested in his future. He just wants to control him while he's at the house.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think Keith's dad is well-intentioned, you know, like he just doesn't want him to have to have a blue-collar future like he he had to, you know, have.
SPEAKER_00:Um but uh remembered when that was the way we used to think about things?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:There's uh there's yeah, there's a lot to unpack between all of the different films.
SPEAKER_00:I don't want you wasting all your money on college.
SPEAKER_04:Well, no, he Keith was saving money for college, but then decides to buy diamond earrings for Amanda Joe. I don't know why he felt like he needed to do that. Anyway, that's a whole we'll we'll do that maybe at some point.
SPEAKER_02:Unpack that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But coming back to Ferris, like, um title of this episode is gonna be Coming Back to Ferris.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, I do you have like I I have like kind of an angle that I'm going for, but I want to hear both of your opinions of like how do you actually feel about Ferris? Is he somebody that you like? Is he somebody that you envy? Is he somebody that you are kind of like annoyed by because how perfect his life is? Like, how do you feel about this character?
SPEAKER_00:I think my feelings on the character of Ferris have changed you know over the over the years. I didn't really particularly like him that much, and I I like legitimately did identify more with Cameron in the movie when I first saw it. I think he's more he's just more relatable because like people could relate to not having like a perfect home life or not feeling like you fit in in high school that well, versus like I don't know how I could possibly relate to this kid that's able to like hack in, possibly probably change his grades as well as his uh number of absences. Kind of everything just works for him, like everybody likes him. Like, so yeah, I'm like, this guy's like kind of fuck this guy.
SPEAKER_04:I don't like you know, is it because sometimes it's you know, well, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna zip it so that I can hear your answer, Julia.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah, what I will say is like before I I definitely like identified with Cameron too, which I think Cameron is just everybody in this movie. Um but before he's in the movie, Ferris is like the most likable, in my opinion. Like before the introduction of Cameron, like, you know, he's like, you know, he's doing all these funny things, is like kind of like mocking his parents with the like, you know, kind of like regression into behaving like a child. Um, so there is kind of like a charming quality in the beginning, but then when Cameron gets introduced, and you kind of see like how he like pictures himself above Cameron, like he definitely has this like idea that he's better than him. That's when he he starts becoming less likable in my eyes. So and then Cameron like becomes the more like you know, every man in the story versus Ferris. So um yeah, I I think like the charm of him getting away with whatever he wants, like definitely fades like pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think it's interesting. I mean, I have kind of a a little bit of a love-hate with him because there's a part of me that like envies him that I mean look, when I think that when I was when I saw this as a as a child and teenager um many times over, there was a lot of envy. And look, I didn't I didn't have like a poor high school experience by any means, but I certainly wasn't Ferris Bueller, you know, and no one was really like and like look, I mean, you brought up something interesting earlier, Julia, when you were talking about um middle school girls, because I I totally heard what you're saying. Again, I had a positive middle school and high school experience, but I will say that kind of like the click clicky behavior was was much more extreme in in middle school or in junior high. And once everybody got to high school, sure, there's the popular group, but everybody kind of just settled into their own friendships, like more than anything.
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Um, and so, but but yes, there was uh an envious part of me that this kid had just this, you know, out basically adoration of the entire school minus Rooney. Um, I mean, even Grace seems to be enamored with him. And right, I love Grah Edie McClure, she's so great. Um so so there's that part of it, and then like I envy him, but then like I hate you know, kind of hated him for that. Like perfect life.
SPEAKER_00:But now, like, now when I watch it now, he's just like he's not even like a real character. He's like this manifestation of what you would want in just having a day where you could do whatever you want. And so I don't really, yeah, I don't feel the same way about him or the movie as I used to. I I think it it's it's a fun movie. I don't have like that same like fuck this guy. It's more like, yeah, this is this is fun. Like that's uh it's fine.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think we would all be in trouble if as like fully fledged adults, we'd we would be like jealous or like, yeah, we be Rooney, we be Rooney. Um actually, you know, one thing that's interesting that I wanted to bring up because this has always been something I'm like, this is gonna make sense, is apparently you tell me if you guys already knew this, that the scene with Rooney at the very end where he gets on the bus, that was taken kind of out of context. They were supposed to use that in a different section of the film much earlier because he was um let me kind of try to properly recall what I read. Basically, uh he thought that like the cops were maybe after him because of him trying to break into like Ferris's house. Okay, and so he needed like kind of a place to hide out, and that's why that that bus scene was supposed to take place then, and that's why he got onto the bus. But for whatever reason, they didn't use it then. But then that's always why it's like, well, why is why is there a bus full of kids at like six o'clock at night? Yeah, like it didn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_02:That is a good point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they said they're gonna be getting home at six, so yeah, yeah, they show up and then after that the bus shows up right shenanigans.
SPEAKER_04:Right. So I guess I mean it like look, it you don't have to think too hard about this movie.
SPEAKER_00:This movie's garbage, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It makes for a really awesome, you know, closing credits.
SPEAKER_00:We get uh oh, I thought I was gonna ask you, you referenced the song and uh I I was gonna ask whether or not you are familiar with that song on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, is that yeah? I was trying to think of the the TV show where they um Day Bao Bao song. Yeah, the yeah, I thought it was New Girl for some reason, but yes, it's totally it's always sunny. You're right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So now whenever I watch the movie and hear the song, I think of Mac and Charlie doing the Day Bow Bao song.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. Thank you for I was like racking my brain on what TV show I saw that on. So thank you for clearing that up.
SPEAKER_04:Which, so it for for anybody who doesn't know, it the song is called Oh Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It is not the Day Bao Bao Song, it is Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it is by Yellow, Y-E-L-L-O. And apparently um it didn't get like a great reception when it first came out. And this, I mean, makes every sense in the world. This movie made it a hit. So um, so yeah, it is a it is a great song. It absolutely, I mean, it has gone on to have a life beyond Ferris Puller, but I owe I will always associate it with Ferris Puller.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah. Of course.
SPEAKER_04:Um so yeah, so we have had an amazing conversation. I could, we could, you know, we joke about this being a five-hour long podcast. It works. Um it might be one day, maybe, maybe one day. Um but to to kind of come to this final question, like, do you think that a film like this could be made today? Have you seen anything that you feel is like, you know, I don't know, rip-off is kind of the most crass term to use, but like are inspired by fair. Like, like, do you feel like anything like this could be made today?
SPEAKER_02:Um, I think um, in a sense, like maybe there there are definitely qualities that like have been reused in other teen comedies. Like, you know, the parade scene is like definitely an inspiration for the 10 things I hate about you scene, which is like amazing. Uh both, I love both of those for sure. Um, but what like as you know, children of the 80s and 90s, like there is this sense that, like, you know, when you were a kid, your parents kind of let you go roam around. And um now I think like it's more common for parents to, you know, like keep a very watchful eye over their kids. So I don't know if that quality would be um captured like in a movie today, because I remember like, you know, both my parents worked, and so like in the summers when we weren't in school, like we were, you know, just walking around, you know, the city. And like, so um, so yeah, I don't know if that like, you know, that wouldn't translate to a modern film by any means. But um, yeah, there are definitely like charming aspects of this film, like, you know, the uh like different characters that they make and like how they kind of outsmart these adults. Like you, you definitely see that um in a lot of films like since then and still today. But it also might be like easier to get caught now because of social media.
SPEAKER_00:This is a movie that a lot of things wouldn't happen if there were just smartphones.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, yeah, yeah, that's something that is is unfortunately true of a lot of films, even with several decades removed. Yeah. Um and I think I think you're both right. Um that I mean, like, look, if you even have a tracker on your kid's cell phone, like you know the second they walk out the door.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I think of it's it's not really, I mean, maybe they were inspired, but I think of movies like Super Bad or Booksmark where there are some similarities. It's not, I don't think they're gonna be able to be able to make something quite like Ferris Bueller, but I think that probably did offer uh some inspiration.
SPEAKER_01:I agree. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Where you get to see kids kind of like in their own element without the adults. The adults are are present, but it's really about these experiences the kids are having at those ages.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I think those are two really good examples of Book Smart and Well, BookSmart, they actually made use of smartphones. Like it was actually like part of and involved in how they were trying to get things done and go places. Like because playing trains and automobiles doesn't happen if there's an Uber.
SPEAKER_04:I am very curious how they're gonna remake that one. Very curious how they're gonna pull that off. Umward with that. Yep. So we'll we shall see.
SPEAKER_00:Planes, trains, and lifts.
SPEAKER_04:I do think that I do think uh that what this film had on its side was the fact that John Hughes already had several hits under his belt. And you know, a proven uh commodity. Um and and I think that like if you were to pitch, yeah, it's just about this. I mean, like to me, look, to me, it's a fun idea. Like, it's about a kid who skips school for the day. But probably right, like in today's world, it's like, okay, but what else? Like, you know, like there there has to be there, there would have to be so much more. And actually, even in the comparisons that you made, Derek, of Super Bad and there's a lot more, yeah, that does happen, actually. So this this is kind of the most wholesome and simplistic of those types of films. And I think that it just really came back to John Hughes being able to get it greenlit. So yeah, that's a good point. You know, lucky for all of us because it's a great film. Yeah. Uh Julia, thank you so much for being part of the state. Like, it has just been such a pleasure to have you on the show. We've had so much fun.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, me too. Thank you so much for having me, for introducing me into the world of podcasts.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, this was the most surprisingly therapeutic podcast that I got a lot. Yeah, that out. Got through a lot of my high school issues.
SPEAKER_03:I think this might be the most revealing podcast that we've had.
SPEAKER_04:It's kind of hard not to, though, with something like this that like is kind of a universal experience high school.
SPEAKER_00:True. Yeah. And it speaks to the to the movie and how how it like affects you and how like it brings up all these memories. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:So, Julia, um, we are six months in to a very bizarre uh bizarre state of of things in the world. Um, and I know that that sometimes can have a real impact, especially on creatives, but um I would love to just hear what you've been up to um this year and and what you might have on the horizon.
SPEAKER_02:Of course, of course. So um I finished my film like early this year in January as and Anna, you were there to help. So thank you again for helping out on set. I I really appreciate it. Um and but of course, like we uh finished right as this hit. So festival season got a little um different, which you know as well, with um she had it coming. So we had to pivot a little bit, but um, we've gotten in a couple of smaller festivals, so we are officially like on a festival run. Congratulations! Thank you, thank you. And what's the name of your film? It's uh, oh yeah, of course. Uh Melon Ruby, and directed by the amazing, incredibly talented Oran Zegman. Um, she definitely look her up. She's got some amazing work already, and she's going to have a very successful career ahead of her. Uh, starring myself and Skylar Shock, uh, which, like, you know, buddy comedy with uh Ferry Spueller and like this uh Melon Ruby in a lot of ways was my way of uh trying to have more female uh buddy movies out there. So this that's actually perfect. We're talking about this film today.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. And you also wrote this film?
SPEAKER_02:I I wrote it and produced it. Uh we had a crowdfunding um campaign with it through C and Spark. So it was, it's definitely my baby. And um I'm so proud to see that it's it's getting legs even during quarantine. Um, but other than that, like as an actor, I've got um some little videos that I'm putting up on my Instagram, you know, where I'm just doing scenes with friends or, you know, scenes where I'm enlisting my boyfriend's help off camera, of course. Um so just as a way of staying creative and also still, you know, showing the world what I can do.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely. And I mean, good on you for doing that. Cause like, like I said, it this this uh state of things has left, I'm assuming, nobody unaffected. But it is especially difficult for creatives where so much of the work comes from collaboration, in-person, like in-person classic. Interacting with people, actually interacting with people. Um and you know, I don't this again can be like a whole other podcast, but we've briefly talked about it with other guests because um almost entirely all of our guests are creatives. And um, you know, outside of being a uh major studio or a big production company, you know, it's very difficult. Like so much filmmaking is done, you know, gorilla style or you know, super low budget, super independent, which means very limited funds. And, you know, if if you're not in a position where you can um uh secure the safety and health of the people involved, you may not be making a film or a web series or a whatever right now. Um so it is so important for creatives to try to find ways to still remain creative and do what you know hopefully brings some joy until we get back to a place of more no normalcy. So but that's fantastic. I am so thrilled to hear about the festivals and um again, Mel and Ruby. Uh, you know, if you have the means, look it up, try to find a way to see the film when and if you can through these festivals. Um and yeah, I'm so that's that is awesome news. Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, and congratulations to you as well on your festival.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, thank you for festival uh acceptance. And we haven't made this uh clear already, Julia is in the film. She is in, she had it coming, and she is an amazing character and actor in it. So um really excited for the world to see you uh when the time comes. So thank you again, Julia. It has been such a pleasure to have you on the show.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you so much. I've had so much fun today.
SPEAKER_04:And so that was our, as always, amazing conversation with our special guest. This time it was Julia Manis. And yeah, it was just great to talk to her. And like like you were saying, um I worked through so many issues in that call. A lot of personal stuff came up in uh for both of us.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I never I never I actually failed to um mention the infamous high school, and I know that there are some listeners here who have also gone to lovely, just lovely Ironwood High School in Glendale, Arizona. And I just want to send a shout out to uh to Ironwood and its administration. Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_04:It's dripping with disdain.
SPEAKER_00:You do you do a great job. Never change. Moving on.
SPEAKER_04:Moving on. No, but it was it was a really fun conversation. And, you know, we we've talked about how, like, I I mean, it's really hard to separate this film in particular out from I think our personal lives because everybody for the for the I look, I know there are outliers to this, but like the high school experience is a universal experience. It is, you know, even with differences among public school versus private school versus going to school on the East Coast or West Coast or Midwest. Um, so yes, all those different differences aside, it is a universal experience. And so it's hard not to bring up your own experience when you're talking about a film like this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's different, it's significantly different now than what we you know grew up with. I totally what we had was probably closer to what you see in some of these 80s movies. Yeah. But um, regardless, it's still it's still something that everyone goes through where it's like where in some ways you're you're growing as a person more than at any other time.
SPEAKER_04:I agree. And I I think that Julia did a really nice job of kind of like being able to tie, you know, her experience back to like how it impacted her feelings on the film and vice versa. So so yeah, it was a great conversation. Alrighty. So as far as would I watch this film again? I mean, for me, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, don't don't uh don't dare me to watch it again, because I will.
SPEAKER_04:Right. I mean, I have a particular love for John Hughes. I in fact studied these films for school. Um, and so this is uh one of several of his films that I just are near and dear to my heart. Um it it actually brought up like a lot of uh great emotional memories for me. And I kind of talked, you know, talked about it a little bit with uh Julia just in terms of like the twist and shout scene where you know I had my my birthday slumber party and um and just seeing you know them downtown and uh definitely there's like a little bit of like homesickness that uh kicks in when I see that. Um so more so than his other, although they're all in Illinois, well, except for some kind of wonderful, um, they're all in Illinois, they're all in this, you know, fictional town of Shermer, Illinois. Um but it this film more the more so than and sorry, I'm tripping up on my words, just because I am getting kind of emotional about it, it it brings back a lot for me. So um this will always be uh a film that I will want to see, and yeah, just love it.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if we mentioned how much just how much work John Hughes put into making this script, but he spent actually less than a week.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, which is actually longer than some of his other scripts. That's the thing. We talk about that in Breakfast Club.
SPEAKER_00:We do.
SPEAKER_04:Um this guy just literally, literally punches out scripts, or he did. Um, I uh with us.
SPEAKER_00:I love this movie and we'll watch it again and again. And the next time we are in Chicago, I will do the last the same thing that I did the last time we were there, which is play that same song that is played during that montage when we're driving into the city. Because now either like one of two songs, either that or Sweet Home Chicago from the Blues Brothers. I always play those when we're driving from uh wherever we're staying into the city. So you do. Uh yeah, and it's awesome. Yeah, I love the movie. I love that montage just because the the looks you get to the city, even though I know you mentioned that it's like kind of the approach they have on that on that montage feels a little bit dated, but that's part of what I what I enjoy.
SPEAKER_04:What you like about it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I like this movie. I um I've gotten over whatever teenage envy I had over the fictional character of Ferris Biewer, which is great and allows me now to just enjoy this.
SPEAKER_04:Well done. Good on you to go through that. Um okay. So, you know, as far as like call to action, I was thinking about this and we we talk about it with Julia with all of our different experiences. You know where I'm going with this.
SPEAKER_00:What would you do on your day off? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So so I think that would be a great call to action. Whether if you never did well, I don't know. Should I should it be like if people did skip school in high school, or like what would you do with a day off today? I mean, in a kind of theoretical version, because there's not a lot that a lot of people can do.
SPEAKER_00:Let's do an either or. Let's not limit.
SPEAKER_04:All right, yeah, let's not limit. So if you want to let us know what either you did in high school on your day off or what you would do now on your day off, you can get in touch with us uh through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. It's the same handle for all three. It is at 80smontage pod, and 80s is 80S, and we would love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_00:We would.
SPEAKER_04:All right.
SPEAKER_00:Please talk to us.
SPEAKER_04:Please, please talk to us. We're so lonely. Um sneak peek. Next episode coming up in two weeks.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what is it? It's my pick, isn't it? Which is why I can't remember.
SPEAKER_04:No, Ferris was your pack. Oh shit.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Although, like, I kind of hijacked it a little bit. Um, so this is my pick uh Romancing the Stone.
SPEAKER_00:Uh This movie is um, it has nothing to do with Raiders of the Lost Art. And it has some of the worst montage music, like the most misplaced music that you will ever hear while two people are trapped in a vehicle going down a runaway river into a waterfall.
SPEAKER_04:And we will totally get into that because the the person behind that score has had an amazing career.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So it's, you know, we all we all start somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:But it's a comedy and it's hilarious just hearing that song like this is this is it is like, in some ways, very classic 80s rom-com.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, very much so. But it's uh a great movie. Danny DeVito. Kathleen Turner.
SPEAKER_04:That's funny that he's the first person. He is the first person I think of.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:It also uh stars two people by the names of Kathleen Turner and Hello Michael Douglas.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, those secondary characters help Danny DeVito's character really move the story.
SPEAKER_04:So all right, so stay tuned for that coming up next. And as always, thank you so much for being with us. We really, really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Stay safe, stay cool.