Tag Archives: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Review

4/5 – Highly recommended

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as it turns out, is not the life story of Jakob Dylan.

Perk #1: Being on the cover of Rolling Stone

Watching The Perks of Being a Wallflower took me back to my own high school days. I wasn’t in with the popular crowd. I wasn’t very athletic and didn’t have the musical ability to cut it in marching band (but even if I did, their cult-like demeanor would have kept me away. That and the hazing). I definitely felt like Charlie. And like Charlie, it was meeting a small group of friends with whom I would end up spending most nights hanging out that opened up my world and made high school much more enjoyable and much more interesting. I only wish that like Charlie, I had befriended these people my first year of high school instead of my third.

Emma’s back!
Emma Watson is back and out of her wizard robes. Her character, Sam, is very different from Hermione, and not just because Sam doesn’t wield a magic wand or ride on the backs of hippogriffs. I think Emma really showed off her acting talent here, playing a heavy role with heart. I hope this means we see Emma Watson in more movies. The only knock I have on her performance is she cannot do an American accent at all. Wait, was she trying to sound like Mia Sara in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? If so, well played Ms. Watson, as Ms. Sara is an American.
I always thought Mia Sara was British or Aussie. 
Nope. Born in Brooklyn.

I really enjoyed The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I think it has the potential to be this generation’s The Breakfast Club. Ironically, the characters look like they could be extras in The Breakfast Club.

I wasn’t sure when The Perks of Being a Wallflower took place when I watched it. I assumed it was the early-to-mid 80s based on everyone’s clothing and hairstyles, but then again, maybe it’s taking place in the present and these are the most hardcore hipsters Pittsburgh has ever seen. I was surprised to find out that it takes place in 1990-91. That isn’t how I remember people dressing in 1990. Then again, I didn’t enter high school for a couple of years after that, so I guess I shouldn’t go by what I remember as middle school fashion from 1990 to be my guide.

All day. Every day.

At this point, it may be hard to find The Perks of Being a Wallflower in a theater near you, but once it’s released on DVD I highly recommend seeing it.

In case you needed a reason to watch The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
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On The Couch #28: Risky Business

This is one of those “What do you mean you never saw ______?” movies that I’m trying to clear through over the course of this blog. I’m not sure why I never saw Risky Business. I guess I came late to the Tom Cruise party. The first movie I remember watching with Tom Cruise in it was Cocktail. If that last line caused a bulb to light in your head, that’s right, besides never seeing Risky Business, I’ve never seen Top Gun either. But oh man, did I watch Cocktail. I was obsessed with that movie when I was 12. I owned it on VHS and watched it over and over again. I recently watched it again. It’s not very good. I think 12 year old me was a little too hung up on the soundtrack’s one-two punch of Kokomo and Don’t Worry, Be Happy to notice how weak this movie really is.

What’s sadder? How much I was obsessed with this movie when I was 12 or the fact that I probably wouldn’t turn it off if it came on TV right now?

Risky Business is like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off from Cameron’s point of view. Despite being the more handsome of the pair, Tom Cruise’s Joel is definitely the Cameron to Curtis (BOOGER!!!!) Armstrong’s Miles. It’s Miles who calls the first hooker. It’s Miles who tells Joel “Sometimes you just have to say what the fuck.” Meanwhile, it’s Joel who has the dad who’s obsessed over his expensive sports car. And its’ Joel who is a whiny stick in the mud in every scene except for when he’s getting action from Rebecca De Mornay’s Lana.

At least the movie gave us that Bob Seger Old Time Rock N’ Roll dance scene, which for years I didn’t know originated with in this movie.

Sorry, Tom. Heidi Klum does it better.
Was this also the first movie to give us the Tom Cruise patented “Is he cocky or crazy face?” (Please see Exhibit A)
Exhibit A.

If I knew Bronson Pinchot was in this movie, I would have seen it years ago. But for some reason, I find it weird whenever he’s not talking in his Balki voice. I don’t care if he was born in New York City and not Mypos, every time I see him, I expect the Balki voice and it’s always jarring when he’s not speaking in it (which is 99% of his non-Perfect Strangers career).

I cannot think of Bronson Pinchot without his America or Burst sign.

A few years ago, I was stuck trying to figure out a Christmas present for a friend. Enter my brother, who recommended Risky Business on DVD, because every girl loves Risky Business. My friend gave me a weird look when she unwrapped Risky Business, so you might want to think twice before you use it as your go-to Christmas gift.

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On The Couch #18: The Lives of Others

If The Lives of Others isn’t in your Netflix queue already, go add it right now. Seriously, right now. I’ll wait.

Okay, welcome back. Wait, what do you mean what do I mean welcome back? You didn’t click away from this page to Netflix and add it to your queue? You were just waiting me out? Wow, I thought we had a trust thing going here. Guess I was wrong. Okay, hopefully I can convince you to add it by the end of this entry. But I’m still a little hurt.

The Lives of Others takes place in 1984 East Berlin and is about Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler, who starts the movie as the textbook definition of asshole East German bureaucrat. He specializes in sniffing out enemies of the state and is willing to bury people for the slightest infractions against East Germany. If this guy was a cop, he’d be the kind that gave out jaywalking tickets on empty streets.

For zie last time, I um not Herr Moby!

Because of his tenacious zealotry to the state, HGW is his boss’s top choice to spy on and build a case against Georg Dreyman, a playwright who is believed to be conspiring to produce propaganda against East Germany. Over the course of listening in on Dreyman’s daily life, HGW’s heart grows three sizes. Combine this with HGW finding out the motives of his bosses have more to do with greed and lust than preserving the state and HGW begins to subtlety turn on them.

All this makes for a very intense and sometimes thrilling drama, but there is one big unintended comedic bit. HGW’s boss, Grubitz, looks exactly like Principal Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He’s got it all: the awkwardly parted red hair, the bushy moustache, the gray suit. During a tense confrontation between Grubitz and HGW, I was hoping that Yello’s Oh Yeah was going to start playing. Sadly, this movie has exactly zero scenes of Grubitz being chased by a Doberman.

Vee are listening to youuuu…

The Lives of Others takes place in 1984 East Berlin, but draws parallels to the United States. How different are the Stasi round-ups from the internment of the Japanese in World War 2? A viewer could also see this movie as a warning about how slippery the slope is between the Patriot Act and the East Germany of the 1980s.

While writing this post, I came across a listing on IMDB saying that there is an American remake of The Lives of Others slated for 2011 release. The details were scant, but I did see that it will have the same writer, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, which is a good sign. This new version will take place in America and be about an FBI agent. It will be interesting to see when it will take place, post-9/11? The 1980s? The 1990s when McVeigh and Koresh were in the headlines?

My recommendation is to not wait for the remake and add The Lives of Others to the top of your Netflix queue today. And don’t worry about your shenanigans earlier at the top of the page; we’re cool.