freezing half to death
Weather.com says it's 52° there. Freezing? What, the O-man doesn't snuggle?
(I haven't seen the film, so I'm here just to mock.)
There was a light breeze, and I was clad in a t-shirt! Plus, you know, microclimates.
t-shirt? And cummerbund, one supposes.
Microclimates aside, it's a full 12° warmer here, and we have the windows open tonight. Fucking west coasters.
Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived in Chicago.
6: You didn't go out in tshirts in the evening, I bet.
Your opinion on Mr. Hand is a litmus test for where you are in life. If you think he's a real square who's cramping Spicoli's style, you're one of the youth. Your sympathy with Hand indicates that you are transitioning (in the more ordinary sense of the term) into adulthood.
"sympathetic" might not have been the best word. What's to sympathize with? I have a new model for teacherly conduct.
But surely at Leland Jr.'s university the students are all well-behaved and eager to learn? Such extreme measures as depicted in the film should not be necessary, methinks.
11: That's what I hear; I haven't been up there myself. I should ask my sister. It's supposed to snow again there tomorrow. Down here we've just had a lot of wind and (yesterday) some rain.
12: I meant for my future career as a high school teacher.
Snowing here in Salt Lake as well. For christ's sakes, it's mid April. Enough already.
2 things:
A nice, architect-ey font is called Mr. Hand and is, in fact, named after Mr. Hand.
My best friend in HS was rather the underachieving smartass. By senior year he was in B-level English (2nd-lowest, 3rd-highest). The teacher - who was actually more the sassy-but-not-flaming type - once pulled the full "I don't know" monologue on him in class.
I would argue that Fast Times is one of the greatest HS movies ever made; conceivably the greatest. "Surf Nazis, fuck off" indeed....
PS - Been in the upper 60s/low 70s here in Pittsburgh all week. Bees swarming the plum tree. Ahhh.....
The students would have been perfectly justified in beating the crap out of Mr. Hand. Down with the man!
Fast Times At Ridgemont High is a great movie, maybe the best high school movie ever.
You people are just dazzled by the admittedly dazzling Phoebe Cates, because Heathers is the best high school movie.
Phoebe Cates hasn't made a movie in 25 years and is a pleasant-looking soccer mom. But still masturbation-worthy, even though at 45 she's older than most of you.
Snowing here in Salt Lake as well. For christ's sakes, it's mid April. Enough already.
We are in the middle of a winter storm warning. We already got about 1.5" of snow last night and are supposed to get 4-8" more by tonight.
We've had alternating snow and thaw for 2 weeks. About 6" last night. There will probably be a bit of a bird die-off.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a great movie. The third best high school movie after Ferris Buehler's Day Off and Heathers.
Fast Time is a great movie, but actually kind of depressing.
Winona Ryder is making a comeback. "Heathers" would probably be one of my favorite movies if I ever saw it. Ahead of its time on the school violence thing.
19: Whoa. What happened to Mary Tyler Moore?
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a great movie. The third best high school movie after Ferris Buehler's Day Off and Heathers.
Since this is "confess your embarassing lapses of taste week" at unfogged, I will go on the record as preferring The Breakfast Club to all three of those.
Winona Ryder is making a comeback
We all know that for you she never went away, John.
Winona Ryder is making a comeback
Winona's comeback works against me, unfortunately. She needed about a decade of steady downward slide before reaching my level. My fantasy was meeting her at a court ordered recovery group of some kind, the way some guy met Elizabeth Taylor.
22 gets it exactly right. Pretty in Pink almost makes the list but for the ending.
Whoa. What happened to Mary Tyler Moore?
You clearly haven't been keeping up at awfulplasticsurgery.com.
Also, 52 degrees is quite chilly to be sitting around outside.
31: When SCMTim roused himself we will get the complete case for the Ringwald oeuvre.
34: for some reason I skipped right over "case" and mentally filled in "performance", and imagined SCMT singing keening, heart-rending versions of every song to appear in a John Hughes-Molly Ringwald production.
sympathetic and admirable ? well, sure. he was, after all, our favorite Martian.
When SCMTim aroused himself
Fixed.
33: That's why that call it "chillin'", Blume.
Mary Tyler Moore is now perfectly set to be cast in a new biopic on the life of Bozo the Clown. Or, if the new Batman pic is a hit this summer, maybe she could step in for Heath Ledger as the Joker in a later sequel.
"Heathers" is the best high school movie of all time, by a fair bit. Hughes-Ringwald works ordered as follows: "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink," "Breakfast Club." Ringwald, a curious star, can't be defended outside of those three movies. I've never seen "Fast Times," but all evidence is that it's canonical. "Ferris Bueller" is fun but much overrated.
imagined SCMT singing keening, heart-rending versions of every song to appear in a John Hughes-Molly Ringwald production.
Drymala is still working out the arrangement. Artists. What can you do?
Heathers was okay. Slightly above average, but no more.
I also think there's nothing wrong with pleated pants.
And puppies? Not so cute.
44: The Unfoggetariat purports to be adamantly opposed to school violence, but cover it with the least veneer of fictionality, and its desire to blow everyone else away reveals itself naked and unashamed.
Fast Times is a great movie. The 4th best HS movie after Ferris Buehler, Heathers and Dazed and Confused
Saw another one just this week. Nearing Grace Not too bad, had David Morse as a aging hippie widower in mid-life crisis, Jordana Brewster as rich confused WASP sexpot, and David Gregory was ok as the lead. One of the messages was Goodbye-Columbus-y, that the not-gorgeous but brilliant Jewish girl (who loved you all along, you dummy) was more right for you than the unattainable and troublesome Daisy Buchanan.
Starter for Ten had the same fucking class and girl-next-door theme, British variety. Not as good, but had James McAvoy as the lead.
Why can't the nerd ever get the supermodel?
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File this one under "Knecht is a hopeless loser".
I got home late yesterday evening: my train was delayed, I had to stop and run some errands, etc. By the time I got home, I was starving and just wanted to eat dinner and get some stuff done that needed to get done before I went to bed.
As I approached the house, I could hear Fleur and her girlfriends partying in the neighbor's yard, celebrating the birthday of another neighbor. As I stood in the kitchen, I could hear them whooping and calling my name. They could see me through the kitchen window, but I couldn't see them in the dark. I waved at them and went on making my dinner.
They kept calling my name, and throwing pinecones at the window to get my attention, apparently trying to entice me to come out and join them. I scowled and theatrically pulled the blind down. There was a pause, and I heard them laughing uproariously.
Later on, Fleur came in, thoroughly intoxicated, and said she was surprised I had been so grumpy, and telling me that her girlfriends were amazed at my restraint. It turns out that they had been trying to get my attention because, although I couldn't see them, they were all showing me their tits! Hence their astonishment when I drew the blinds rather than enjoy the view.
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Seriously, though, if you're looking for a high school movie starring Christian Slater, Pump Up The Volume is by far the better movie.
Bob, you watch too goddamn many movies. Your economics and politics are fine, but lay off the film for Christ's sake.
It's not the getting but the keeping. She's self-centered and turns out to be boring even when affectionate.
Beauty corrupts as surely as inherited wealth, unfortunately.
Movie Bleg: Has anyone seen either The Other Boleyn Girl or Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day? I was planning to go to see Be Kind, Rewind tomorrow night for a date, but it just left the theater. The other choice at this theater is Juno. I don't want to see There Will Be Blood.
I don't want to drag this guy to some chick flick.
I could go to the huge theater downtown, but it doesn't have the same aesthetic charm or the real popcorn. It's also more expensive. Any recommendations for what to see, in general?
Dazed and Confused ain't no high school movie.
Seriously, though,
I refuse to believe you mean that.
If the lady gets beheaded it's a guy flick. Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots. They should look winsome and slightly sad on the way to the chopping block, but they shouldn't freak out excessively.
"Ferris Bueller" is fun but much overrated.
I have never understood the appeal of that film.
53: if you're willing to trek out to Somerville I can report that Persepolis is good stuff.
Paranoid Park at the Coolidge, sounds awesomely creepy, which may not be what you're looking for.
Life after being a stereotype in a John Hughes film. A recent interview with Gedde Watanabe (the Dongster).
And no love for Rock 'n' Roll High School?
I have never understood the appeal of that film.
An excellent marketing campaign. And Mia Sara.
You may despise his current politics and believe he has declined in artistry but at least Martin Amis provided an interesting & funny variant on the classic theme of #48.
54:I strongly differ, to the extent I think you are insane. A good third of the plots in DaC involve HS freshpersons, for Christ's sake.
51:One a night, every night. Night before last was Verhoven's recent Dutch resistance movie.
And OMFG, I got to watch Contempt for the first time this week. Not letterboxed, though.
One a night, every night.
One or two every year or two for me.
See, when overstuffed the movie-watching part of your brain becomes diseased, like the liver of a goose being raised for pate. Tasty for zombies, but bad for you.
Okay, maybe more than one. Phoebe Cates' best movie, Paradise has been in cable rotation, and I have watched it 17 times this month, for the cute chimp and the desert scenery.
Just kidding, but I will ban myself anyway.
Actually I'm going to revise my choices and say that Brick may be the best high school film ever made.
I have never understood the appeal of that film.
Heathen!
Cates seemed to have ended up being typecast as desert scenery. Probably why she quit.
53: I think both The Other Boleyn Girl and Miss Pettigrew could be classified as chick flicks, but I've heard The Other Boleyn Girl described as the Harlequin Romance version of British history, while if Miss Pettigrew is anything like the book it could be fun.
And OMFG, I got to watch Contempt for the first time this week. Not letterboxed, though.
I don't know that I have ever been so bored as during long parts of that movie. Why Antonioni is supposed to be the boring one I have never understood.
Entertainment Weekly's 50 Top High School Movies. (Because on an important topic like this, it is worth getting the opinion of the best and brightest.)
*me at 61. is Last Picture Show a "high school" movie?
Ringwald, a curious star, can't be defended outside of those three movies.
You're forgetting her greatest role, as the voice of Anne Frank in Titey.
I also think there's nothing wrong with pleated pants.
Now you're just trolling.
Anyone know anything about The Counterfeiters or Under the Moon (also playing at the Coolidge)? I think that Paranoid Park is a little too creepy.
Coverly Wapshot
So women work now, by and large, or are not quite so stuck if they don't, but otherwise, Cheever's suburbs and wistfulness for a rooted past still seem relevant, even though he wrote the books 50 years ago. The short stories are really great, and Chronicle is too.
The third best high school movie after Ferris Buehler's Day Off and Heathers.
I have actually never seen Heathers in its entirety, but I will happily accept the consensus that it's tops. Ferris is wonderful, but probably too much fun, not enough pathos to compete with Fast Times.
Fast Time is a great movie, but actually kind of depressing.
Exactly. Fast Times has the form - and reality - of a high school romp, but the soul of a serious remembrance of just how fucked up and shitty HS is*. We used to watch it in a friend's basement while in HS, boys sitting around, quoting the best lines - and yet there's serious emotional content as well. That's a neat trick to pull off.
* I'm on the record as being anti-"HS is hell" attitudes, but that doesn't mean that it can be a shitty time of life for a lot of people.
is Last Picture Show a "high school" movie?
I say yes.
Also, the comparative length of the books Last Picture Show and its sequel Texasville tell you all you need to know about the decline of stuff.
I have actually never seen Heathers in its entirety
The end is rubbish.
73: I'll have you know I'm wearing pleated pants this very moment.
And I look damn good in 'em.
And I look damn good in 'em.
How do you look out of them?
Phoebe Cates hasn't made a movie in 25 years
Not true. Not only did she "retire" only about fifteen years ago, but she was in "The Anniversary Party" (with her real-life husband and kids, no less) in 2001. It's an ok movie, if you want to see a movie about self-absorbed actors by self-absorbed actors (not snark, I enjoyed it). And she does still look great. Although now, what with the rise of the web, sometimes it's possible to get Phoebe Cates and Catarina Fake confused.
I'll have you know I'm wearing pleated pants
At least tell us they're not reverse pleats.
I see that I have confused Dazed and Confused with Kicking and Screaming.
84: No, that's how I look into them.
It's an ok movie
Don't listen to Ogged. The Anniversary Party is awesome, even if it starts to drag a bit by the end.
I endorse Brick, but I'm not sure it should count as a high school movie.
The end is rubbish.
Yeah, but I'm not sure how you could have ended it well.
Tweety (or anyone). Is the Joshua Tree in Davis hopelessly yuppy? How is Red Bones?
At least tell us they're not reverse pleats.
They are.
Last night I couldn't find anything I haven't seen or wanted to see, so I watched a NGEO show on the engineering of the Burg Dubai
The last great US skyscrapers were built in the 70s. Now we are building them for others. And fighting wars for others. Withdrawal from Iraq is not an option, folks, our Gulf & Chinese masters have us in debt peonage.
83: Ogged, The internet doesn't lie. Playing yourself in nostalgia get-togethers doesn't count.
The Anniversary Party is awesome
"Awesome?" Really? I liked it, but it doesn't even aspire to awesome, does it? I mean, there are titties, but they're not even Cates'.
Oh, wait, I was reading it backwards. Never mind.
The internet doesn't lie
You realize that 1994 was only 14 years ago, right? I know that in geologic time 10 years isn't even measurable, but...
Film isn't one of my areas of expertise, as I have explained. All the other thingies I remember go forward and not backward.
Bostoniangirl: Counterfeiters is a fairly run-of-the-mill Holocaust movie. Contempt (new print) is showing at the Brattle if you're adventurous. Tell your date it has Brigitte Bardot naked.
I think Fast Times is only three or four on the list of best high school films, but the number one most misunderstood film of all time.
All the other thingies I remember go forward and not backward.
Except for blogs, with which you are unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
Anyone can say a movie's misunderstood. What takes talent: misunderstanding it.
95: Yeah, awesome overstates the case, but I thought it was better than OK. Alan Cummings does not make a convincing straight lead, though.
ogged is correct in 83. Often Alan Cumming gets on my nerves, especially for losing an 's' somewhere, but I liked him in TAP. And Phoebe is indeed great in the movie, shows smarts & wisdom & humour that Hollywood can't handle. I do watch too many movies, and don't read enough books.
Cates is still married to Kline, too. This is important to me. I once said my particular Midwestern value-instillers had as their top priority that your grandchildren don't get divorced. Now that's a challenge many can't even comprehend in all its implications, and perhaps even disapprove.
My grandparents were largely successful at that goal.
Knecht is Coverly Wapshot.
I was thinking more of something from Brecht. Specifically, the lyrics:
Und die einen sind im Dunkeln
Und die anderen sind im Licht
Doch man sieht nur die im Lichte
Die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht
103:See? Alan needs to fix his name, pronto.
I hated Ferris Buehler's Day Off. I found the main character repellent. I loved Contempt, though, so maybe the boringness wasn't high enough.
91: Joshua Tree looked kind of annoying and stupid when we walked past it last night, but I've never been in there. Redbones is fantastic, but crowded. The Porter Exchange has lots of good restaurants if you like Japanese; we went to a sushi (&c.) place called Bluefin that was delicious, especially since Blume treated me.
I endorse Brick, but I'm not sure it should count as a high school movie.
I'm willing to argue in favor of it. Though its events are rather more melodramatic than most high school experiences the characterization and character development revolve around the inherently unstable natures of alliances, status, involvements and attractions of that age group so central to the experience of most people at that point in their lives; the borrowing of noir serves to magnify these elements rather than obscure them. It is a hyperbolic depiction in the same way Heathers is.
100.2:I understood all that about Fast Times. I didn't intellectually quite understand why Leigh ends up with whom she does, and why she won't screw him. However, this is a woman-thing I have repeatedly observed in real life, and I kinda emotionally understand or accept it.
53: I saw Miss Pettigrew last week. It's not really a chick flick, but neither is it particularly great. Our biggest complaint was probably that the accents are almost uniformly wobbly. Frances McDormand is excellent, as usual.
What? No love for Teachers with Nick Nolte as the cynical-yet-hip social studies teacher/school psychologist, Judd Hirsh as the cynical-yet-resigned Vice Principle, Laura Dern as the cynical-yet-cute pregnant girl, and Crispin Glover as her cynical-yet-dead fellow student?
All American high school movies are sentimental pablum, lacking the gritty hard-edged realism of Grange Hill.
In the scrapped (never shot, I think) ending of Heathers, the entire school gets blown up; the final scene is a prom in heaven, the only place (as JD had proclaimed) that different cliques could get along. Comity ensues.
Zammo! No, Zammo, don't do it!
None of you can understand, you weren't there.
What happened to "Heathers" when school shootings became common? Did it disappear like "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) after the Kennedy assassination?
Sorry, BG. I am about two years behind on movies and tend to rely on Netflix. I'd go to the place with the real popcorn, though.
Thanks all for the movie suggestions/ responses. Anyone seen In Bruges or 21?
No love for Class of 1984?
It starts of as a gritty, urban Lean On Me -esque tale, starring a Heroic Inner City Teacher (and lovable student played by Michael J. Fox). Suprise! It turns out that the Incorrigible Kid is actually evil, and his gang meets a gory fate in the shop classroom. One guy is memorably impaled on a table saw.
Teachers v. Class of 1984 in a face off for whatever love remains!
We also saw In Bruges as a matter of fact. It maybe takes a little too long to get where it's going, but it's really, really well acted. I had to promise my actress girlfriend I'd go see it again with her. It might help to be familiar with Martin McDonagh, since the movie is very dialog heavy, with his little injections of black comedy mixed in with the general fucked-up-ness of the people involved. There's no thumbnail description of the movie (fish-out-of-water/buddy/hitman thriller/comedy) that does it justice.
Wait, Contempt as in Le mépris and Godard Contempt? I lovelovelove that movie. Hmm. Maybe because they're making a movie of the Odyssey.
At least tell us they're not reverse pleats.
They are.
For the love of God, why? Do your hips not normally stick out enough?
91: Joshua tree isn't hopelessly yuppie, but it's not a great bar. Redbones is just a touch overrated, but pretty good. If you walk up to Powderhouse Circle (up College ave from Davis, there's a quite good Mexican place called Tu y Yo. And if you do go to Porter Exchange, I'd recommend the little noodle shop for Tempura Udon over Bluefin...
Speaking of hopelessly yuppie. My sister was in Sligo's pub in Davis. A well dressed kid comes up to the bar.
Kid: I'd like a beer.
Old guy at bar: hey Hahvard, why don't you go to the Burren
Kid: leaves
Contempt was okay. Of course I didn't understand it, but it bewildered me in an interesting way.
Bardot has never done much for me. Too blonde. Much smarter than she is given credit for, though.
Talking about lefty art-movies, tried to watch Ken Loach's Wind That Shakes the Barley a while back. Had every reason for me to like it, for instance, Cillian Murphy, Ireland, leftish revolutionary politics, and I loved Ken Loach's Spanish Civil War movie. But Loach had his actors improvise their dialogue, and Murphy just seemed tentative and confused and outa synch with the other actors. I turned it off, and I rarely do that.
Yeah, BG, if Contempt is among the choices, there is no other choice. Fritz Lang, Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, the Odyssey, infidelity, artistic integrity vs. crass commercialization—what more could you ask for? Could make for some deliciously awkward post-film conversation, too.
I saw this on the Internet years before I ever saw Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It put things in an interesting light.
Many people whose taste I respect like Brick, but I found it entirely unwatchable.
126: my apologies, apparently ttaM was there for Zammo's terrible descent into drug addiction
and yet he did nothing
127: Like most animal-rightsers and liberals, Bardot is a sex-crazed fascist.
Oh, and on the subject in the original post: there's a Jerome K. Jerome quotation of which I'm particularly fond: "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do." I like to think that Spicoli recognizes he couldn't be himself without Mr. Hand there to cast him into relief.
No love for Class of 1984?
If that counts as a high school movie, then surely we have to include Slaughter High in the hall of fame.
This thread reminded me of the time when a naive young Turkish acquaintance asked me, in all earnestness, whether The Principal was a realistic depiction of a typical American high school.
Drum goes McManus on food prices.
You Ferris Bueller haters are what's wrong with liberals.
129:I can't believe you left out Piccoli, who is the center in every way of the fucking movie.
I read 136, and then accidentally started in on the comments. Always a laugh!
138: Because, bob, for someone who hasn't seen it, Piccoli might not register.
135: I hope you told him that it was, but that if he wanted true realism he should watch The Substitute.
135: I love these moments of thread convergence.
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Jesus. My uncle had a mild heart attack. He is recovering. They put in a stent.
The fuck? People related to me do not get heart attacks. He's in excellent shape. (He had the heart attack in his yoga class. I did not know my gun-nut, crazy redneck uncle took yoga and am finding this most intriguing.) He just returned from a long hiking trip with his kid for which he had been training.
I am objectively anti-heart attacks. Stupid muscle better toe the fucking line.
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Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that, Cala. I hope he mends quick.
136:Arrrgggghhhh
Here is James Hamilton on March 26. I posted the chart on this blog around that date. First numbers are Jan 1-March 17;2nd set are March 17-26. Hamilton discusses the change.
aluminum +21.9 -3.6
barley +7.4 0.0
cocoa +25.9 -14.2
coffee +14.7 -12.0
copper +21.7 -2.7
corn +14.1 -5.0
cotton +7.3 -6.3
gold +21.7 -10.7
lead +11.3 -7.8
oats +14.4 -9.3
silver +36.4 -15.8
tin +24.1 -3.7
wheat +32.7 -13.2
zinc +3.7 -8.1
commodity average +18.4 -8.0
$ per euro +7.0 -2.2
April fed funds -1.91 +0.22
Here is JH's opening:
Last week we received some new data linking commodity prices to the decisions of the U.S. Federal Reserve.I have long argued that the broad increase in commodity prices over the last five years has primarily been driven by strong global demand. But I am equally persuaded that the phenomenal increase ([1], [2]) in the price of virtually every storable commodity in January and February cannot be due to those same forces. This was a period when the economic news was getting bleaker by the day, eventually persuading many of us that a recession has likely started. To argue that January and February's news instead signaled booming commodity demand strains credulity.
There is a spike, and it is related to Fed policy. Bernanke is saving Bear Stearns and Morgan Chase at the expense of 3rd-world starvation. This is worse than Iraq.
This thread gave me a "Rock 'n' Roll High School" earworm. I'm assigning Oudemia the job of linking things up by explaining the end of RnRHS as a Pierrot le Fou homage. Go to it!
There is a spike, and it is related to Fed policy.
Okay, how?
"Prom Night at Hater High," for me, I'm afraid.
146: Wait . . . what? Um, ok. If you watch Le Petit Soldat and write some kind of worksheety thing for me to give my students.
That's awful Cala. My wishes for a speedy recovery.
I'm sorry, Cala. Yay stent! I hope he's okay.
That's kind of cool, the gun nut uncle taking yoga, by the way.
141: No. Our actual conversation went approximately like this.
TURKISH GIRL: So, is it true that most American high school students are addicted to drugs?
KNECHT: [Scoffs.] No, of course not. Some of us--errrm--some students use drugs occasionally, but mostly it's just for fun. What ever gave you that idea?
TG: I saw a film about an American high school. It was called "The Rector". [KR looks blankly.] It starred Jeem Bayluuhshi as the Rector of the school...
KR: [Laughs condescendingly.] Oh no, that's just Hollywood entertainment. The typical high school is nothing like that.
TG: [Reflects for a moment.] So would you say that the typical school more resembles The Club of the Dead Poets?
Oh, I see the thread has taken a somber turn. Best wishes to your uncle for a speedy recovery, Cala.
Thanks. We're all kind of bewildered. I come from a line of unusually robust people, who tend to have no chronic health problems and die of aneurysms in their 80s. (That's on one side. On the other, everyone in my grandparents' generation is still ticking along just fine. They might just go straight to being zombies.)
So no one really knows what's going on (though it is sort of funny that everyone's first thought was 'it can't be a heart attack. make sure the doctors know to rule out an a thoracic aneurysm'), or what to expect.
Unreasonably low interest rates fuel speculation in commodities with borrowed money. Maybe right.
151: I know, seriously! He and I don't really get on all that well, polite but not chummy like he is with my sister, but it's really funny that we're the only two that practice yoga.
147:Tweety, read the article and the comments. There a lot of comments compared to what Hamilton usually gets.
But Here is one from Drum's thread:
The price lurch is certainly attributable to the ethanol boom, but IMO only partially so. Fertilizers which require fossil fuels to mfg are also partially to blame (would be neat to see a graph of common bulk fertilizer prices). I believe *most* of it however is commodities speculation. It is the Hot Moneyâ„¢ phenomenon that Stiglitz talked about in "Globalization and its Discontents".Capital is WAY too concentrated in too few hands, and the velocity of its movement is at light speed now. If one investment looks *slightly* sour, with a few clicks later it can be moved into something else that will make a tiny percentage extra (or computers that will automatically trade it based on cues). Right now there is a stampede away from currencies into commodities. Methinks the huge sea of petrodollars in the Middle East may be a big player in much of this...
Posted by: Doc at the Radar Station on April 11, 2008 at 11:12 AM | PERMALINK
It would take another step or two to connect it to Fed policy, but I have given you one step. Yes, this is controversial, but Hamilton is a pretty cautious neo-liberal.
Likewise best wishes, Cala. FWIW, a friend of mine, a guy in his mid-40s in excellent shape, had a mild heart attack after a run about 10 years ago; he also had a stent put in, and hasn't had a problem since.
I'd need both steps to buy it. Money is shifting into petroleum and commodities, yes, but food is mostly inelastic, petroleum is inelastic and increasingly scarce, and food production in this country is tied to petroleum production. It's bound to be a winner regardless of what the Fed does.
Can all you Ferris Bueller lovers explain the appeal of a smug, overpriveleged asshole always getting his way? Is it just simple wish fulfillment? Fine, wish fulfillment is fun, but how does that make it a great movie?
Fast Times is so much better, for precisely the reasons JRoth lays out in 76.
I suspect there may be a strong correlation between loving FBDO and thinking Garfield is one of the best comic strips.
159 cont'd: although, sure, an anti-inflationist FED policy is bound to create bubbles, and our economy is such that commodities might be the last sector with enough growth potential to be a bubble. Point taken, I guess.
160.1: you can't hate Michael J. Fox, the soundtrack is great, Mia Sara.
Oh and best wishes for your uncle Cala.
Oh, Sifu. Michael J. Fox is indeed the epitome of likable. But he was not in Ferris Bueller.
Mia Sara is really lovely in it. The hommage à Chicago is mostly perfect.
Whoah, that was weird.
I thought "the guy who made the main character in High Fidelity, but not him, the other guy!" and in the process complete forgot there were three likable everyday teenagers filling my life in the 80s.
Yeah, you know, the other one. With the freaky wife.
I suspect there may be a strong correlation between loving FBDO and thinking Garfield is one of the best comic strips.
I'm sorry, M/tch, but I can't hear you when you're hiding under that bridge.
[I've read about 1/3 of the comments]
You're all wrong. Real Genius is by far the best HS movie.
It's not an awful movie, but "Best HS Movie EVAARRRR!!!1!!"? Really?
Can all you Ferris Bueller lovers explain the appeal of a smug, overpriveleged asshole always getting his way?
Unsurprisingly, also Dan Quayle's favorite movie.
167: no. What about his terrible disease?
You're all wrong. Real Genius is by far the best HS movie.
How is a movie set in college a high school movie?
174: you're thinking of Weird Science, as somebody must.
Oh wow, I nearly forgot all about Real Genius! Val Kilmer trumps Matthew Broderick any day of the week!
(Hope your uncle is and continues to be OK, Cala.)
Oh, nope. I'm thinking of Weird Science.
Sweet Jesus somebody take a stapler and put me out of my misery; I've lost my marbles entirely.
160.1: The appeal of the movie is that it is untroubled with guilt, and it is pretty all-embracing in is acceptance of the world. Which is how being overprivileged *should* be (and can we please, with our fancy cookware and stand mixers, not get all high-horsed about other people's overprivilegedness?), rather than being bitter and whiny. The movie anticipates the Ferris haters with the character of Ferris's sister. It *is* a lovely day, Ferris *does* have a pretty cushy life, and he's wise enough to enjoy it. As we all should be, but too often we get all wrapped up in feeling relatively deprived and end up sounding like spoiled brats.
Anyhow, how is Ferris Bueller more overprivileged and getting-his-own-way than Spicoli??
All the best to your uncle, Cala. As heart attacks go, an early mild one is definitely the one you want; gives you a chance to fix things.
My problem with Brick was that it went beyond being an homage to Miller's Crossing and was practically a remake. Every major plot point has a corresponding element from Miller's Crossing
From the list in 71 I would note that Flirting is quite good. I would also put Rushmore and Stand and Deliver in my list of personal favorites, but presumably everyone has seen them already.
159: 155 has it.
There is long range and short term, and most people have been talking about the longer term consequences on commodity prices of developing world demand and rising oil prices. But this is a spike, and as Hamilton says, it defies credulity to attribute a 33% increase above trend in three months to the longer term factors.
Another point about Peak Oil not mentioned enough is the trillions of dollars/euros that will be moving to the ME. See #93 on Dubai. This cannot be overestimated.
We are not leaving Iraq.
Michael J. Fox is indeed the epitome of likable.
Whaaaaaa???
Also, Garfield sucked.
Can I hate Matthew Broderick?
Good question. I think he redeemed himself with Election and You Can Count on Me.
how is Ferris Bueller more overprivileged and getting-his-own-way than Spicoli?
Mr. Hand eats Spicoli's pizza.
From the list in 71 I would note that Flirting is quite good.
Gawd, yes. Thandie Newton's best (or at least most crushable) work.
168: Eh, your brother is probably bigger and tastier anyway, McManly.
How is a movie set in college a high school movie?
Because the main character is HS age? Because the emotional dynamics are as much HS as college? Because it just feels like a HS movie?
Or, I may have made a mistake.
185: Right. Poor, poor Spicoli.
I like Matthew Broderick, myself.
Maybe because they're making a movie of the Odyssey.
Elucidate, please?
You still around, oud?
Ferris Beuller's Day Off = Nouvelle Vague for rich suburban kids.
The appeal of the movie is that it is untroubled with guilt, and it is pretty all-embracing in is acceptance of the world.
Yeah, that. It's about someone who is young and happy and knows that it's possible that state will eventually come to an end so he determines to enjoy it while it lasts. That's straight-up fantasy fulfillment. If Dan Quayle likes it and so do I it doesn't make me Dan Quayle; I recognize that it is a movie not a lifestyle.
Yet Garfield minus Garfied is dark, schizophrenic, and brilliant.
162:an anti-inflationist FED policy is bound to create bubbles
You meant an inflationist Fed policy, I assume.
And sorry, Cala.
And I'll recommend Pretty Persuasion just to be controversial. Hilarious, if you are darkly transgressive. Like McAvoy and Gordon-Levitt, Evan Rachel Wood is a young'un to keep an eye on. I had hopes for Camilla Belle and Jena Malone and Johnathan Schaech, but have been disappointed.
Time to be a toilet for the dogs.
For those of us who had normal teenage experiences, skipping a day of school was neither a challenge nor a noteworthy achievement, and therefore a thin scaffolding on which to hang an entire feature film. When I skipped school, I at least made a point of getting high and having sex with my girlfriend. Which, all in all, seems like more fun than lip-syncing on a float.
Real Genius is by far the best HS movie.
Except that it is a college movie.
And FBDO is successful because of the wish fulfillment. Nobody is rich, with nice parents, beautiful girlfriend and is friends with all the different cliques in school (think of Edie McClurg's laundry list of those that think Ferris is a "righteous dude" and able to expose the Vice Principal as the fool he is.
Breakfast Club or the "Little Chill" as a friend called it at the time struck me as l'esprit d'escalier, while the kids in Fast Times spoke like real kids.
190: In Contempt, Jack Palance's character is producing a film of the Odyssey directed by Fritz Lang (playing himself), and hires Michel Piccoli's character to sex up the script.
Michael J. Fox's redemption came in Where the Rivers Flow North, in which he plays a real motherfucker.
Oooh! What about Valley Girl? I love that girl and her crazy gums.
183: What kind of monster questions Michael J. Fox's likability?!
Michael J. Fox is indeed the epitome of likable
Michael J. Fox has no Elvis in him!
Also, I hope your uncle hangs in there, Cala.
202: Someone with a pro-Parkinson's agenda.
Spicoli is not the hero of FTaRH, although he does probably get quoted the most. Anyway I just find it a more satisfying movie than FBDO because it's complex and nuanced and multifaceted.
In contrast FBDO is incredibly heavyhanded, telling the viewer exactly who to like, who to not like, when to feel touched, etc. There's just no depth there. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with fantasy-fulfillment in a movie particularly, I just don't get the adulation it receives.
Soze I goes out to see if I can wear shorts on the dogwalk...warm enough, yah...and check the mail, and I find the Lady has purchased ten more...
...antenna balls.
Says so right on the package. Even if the Unfoggedetariat doesn't know what I'm talking about, surely it can find a productive use for the term.
205: You don't have stand mixer, do you?
198: Actually, my wife went to HS with Patton Oswalt, and has always described him as a real-life Ferris Bueller. OK, maybe not rich/cute/hot GF. But totally the guy that was on friendly terms with everyone, could pull of shit no one else could, was larger-than-life. FBDO came out while she was in HS, and FB made sense to her in the context of Oswalt, not the other way around.
I think B's defense of the movie is pretty much right on.
Also, apo, cutting class varies in difficulty. My Seven Sisters-bound sister almost didn't graduate because she'd cut so much class; my HS became nigh-draconian about it, with an Allowable Absence quota that shrank from 36/yr to 10/yr while I was there. Not that it makes the premise so much more believable (it's a fluffy movie), but there is a kernel of realism there.
I just don't get the adulation it receives.
You should definitely get at least as much adulation as that movie, M/tch.
197: Yeah, and for most of us, skipping school meant doing jack shit and being bored (including the "having sex with our boyfriends" part). E.g., Cameron. Whereas going into the city and having a good time, now that would be something worth skipping school for.
190: I'm back now, Jroth. But I see that JMcQ has handled things. Oh, what a friend I have in Jesus.
179 sounds more like a defense of Ferris Bueller than of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
The appeal of the movie is that it is untroubled with guilt, and it is pretty all-embracing in is acceptance of the world. Which is how being overprivileged *should* be (and can we please, with our fancy cookware and stand mixers, not get all high-horsed about other people's overprivilegedness?), rather than being bitter and whiny.
This is way off base, B. We can't complain about the monetarily overpriveleged because we ourselves are more monetarily priveleged than others? How's that work for, oh, say race privelege or gender privelege? Do most blacks and women need to stop whining too because they don't live in a Congo war zone?
Anyway, it's Ferris' social privelege, and his smugness and unquestioning feelings of entitlement, that grate. If I recall correctly it's his nebbish friend who's the rich (and of course therefore unhappy) one.
You don't have stand mixer, do you?
Stand mixers are objectively better than trousers with reverse pleats.
And I'm pretty sure I'm on record somewhere on Unfogged as being generally anti-stand mixer.
If I recall correctly it's his nebbish friend who's the rich (and of course therefore unhappy) one.
Cameron may be marginally wealthier, but he is unhappy because he is unloved. Ferris' parents seem to be doing OK, and have not bought him a car not because they can't afford it, but because they don't want to spoil him, like the good parents that they are.
Mr. Hand is the kind of teacher that everyone respects eventually, just some much later in life.
217: Youse is the one accusing people of whining, lady.
171
It's not an awful movie, but "Best HS Movie EVAARRRR!!!1!!"? Really?
Recall what it's being compared to.
I have no real excuse for loving Better off Dead, except that I was intensely high & surrounded by friends who'd seen it over & over when I first saw it--also I was a freshman in college, come to think of it, so maybe I do have an excuse.
As much as I like John Cusack, though, I was surprised to find Say Anything unbearable. Possibly because I was over 30 when I finally saw it.
Part of what's nice about FBDO is that it *does* recognize that, in fact, Cameron *is* unhappy. And that his unhappiness matters. And that FB's real privilege is in having a gift for being happy.
It's not so much wish fulfillment as it is a sunny movie that reminds American teenagers (who do, by and large, have a lot of things to enjoy, a lot of anxiety about "success" and "what are we going to do after h.s.?") and American adults (who encourage that anxiety and provide the things to enjoy) to lighten the fuck up. Which isn't a bad thing to say.
(To make the point that it isn't necessarily a class thing--I mean, in the movie, of course it is, and I admit that as an adult, watching the movie, that kind of bothers me; but otoh, the movie is representing "middle classness" in much the same (false) way that most other movies and tv shows do; it isn't unique in that--here's another example of the same sort of thing, only very different.)
222: I'm guessing you just weren't as, um, moved by Ione Skye as my teenage self was.
But yeah, kind of a dumb movie.
Better off Dead plays a critical and therefore entirely unexamined role in my childhood memories. It was genius, it is genius, it shall remain genius. Please do not disabuse me of these notions, or the frail lattice that is my past may well collapse in upon itself.
What if the best high school "movie" is actually the first three seasons of Buffy or the first two of Veronica Mars?
B is objectively pro-Ferris. Pro-Ferris and proud.
An Ice Cube video, B? So gente!
179 and 224 are very good and cheering on an otherwise dreary afternoon.
Everybody do the twist!
230 to 228, but fine, to 229 as well. I love that song; it's got the same kind of sunny driving-with-the-top-down feel to it as FBDO, and you can kiss my the tanline on my California ass if you disagree.
[Better off Dead] was genius, it is genius, it shall remain genius.
I'm fond of that one too, but really, it belongs more in the tier with Can't Buy Me Love than with FBDO or Heathers.
Ah, here's my Stand Mixer Manifesto.
And regarding FBDO/Today Was a Good Day, maybe this a manifestation of that West Coast "nothing wrong with flaunting it" aesthetic that I'm kind of pretty damn allergic too.
Nobody's mentioned Gregory's Girl. Which, where I grew up, is the definitive high school movie.
Bloody uncanny [given that I grew up about 10 miles from where it was filmed, and it came out the year I started high school].
Oh, I'd forgotten how that video ended. Now if only Ferris Bueller's had ended that way, I would have enjoyed it more.
233: No disabusing! My memories, the few that I have, are precious to me.
Jeez, I loved Gregory's Girl - need to rent that again.
Gregory's Girl.
Huh, never heard of it.
My kids love FBDO, and but my memory of the pleasant little film was faulty about the amount of cussing. Not exactly what Dad wants the second grader to be repeating.
235: I loved Gregory's Girl! And Local Hero, too.
234.1: What's the relationship between working dough by hand and masturbation? Which is training for the other, I mean. Or do they interfere in some way, so that a high degree of proficiency in one incapacitates you for the other?
231: See?
237: The video ends after the song does, note.
Now, since it is a sunny day, I am going to grab my ipod touch and get on my bike and pedal down to get a pastry at the bakery and a pedicure at the nail place, dammit. And I'll make no apologies for enjoying both.
Toodles.
Don't stick your penis in a stand mixer, Emerson, is all I'm sayin.
245: Seriously? You're going to have a woman of color literally sit at your feet?
Also, re: Gregory's Girl, I played [badly] for our school volleyball team and we played that school -- which meant being in the same changing rooms, etc. I also, ten years later, had a single [disastrous] date with the niece of the lead actress from the movie...
Now, since it is a sunny day,
This is a plausible reason for action in California?
Don't stick your penis in a stand mixer, Emerson, is all I'm sayin.
You could try it with one of these, but do so at your own risk.
You're going to have a woman of color literally sit at your feet?
Don't forget that the poor soul will be inhaling toxic fumes in the workplace all day, every day.
It's not so much wish fulfillment as it is a sunny movie that reminds American teenagers (who do, by and large, have a lot of things to enjoy, a lot of anxiety about "success" and "what are we going to do after h.s.?") and American adults (who encourage that anxiety and provide the things to enjoy) to lighten the fuck up. Which isn't a bad thing to say.
I don't really get this. I don't see how watching Ferris get away with everything no strings attached would lead viewers to think "gee, my life's pretty good" or "I should lighten up about things". Just the opposite, in fact. It's not like he's forging his own path or stepping out of the ratrace, he's goofing off and yet still succeeds at the high school game.
A movie that gives me a similar feeling just flashed into my mind. I only saw it a few years ago, and I know a number of people who really like it, but the original Thomas Crown Affair left me thinking Steve McQueen's character was a dick, not some badass cool hero I should like or admire.
Again, I get the wish fulfillment, but both Ferris and Thomas struck me as assholes.
Is this actually M/lls or Kraab commenting as M/lls?
I conclude from the relative interest levels in FBDO and Mean Girls that, for all their talk, the Unfoggetariat doesn't really care about the plight of young women.
Sir Kraab is, sadly, pro-stand mixer. Although hers is some small, ancient, (probably 1960s) Sunbeam Mixmaster, not a slick new pink KitchenAid or anything.
So I think her gente cred is still intact.
And I am indeed writing this from SK's computer.
And I have to erase the Remembered Info "Sir Kraab" out of the Name box every time. Not that I mind, of course. It just makes my comments that much more artisinal and handcrafted.
247: I am. I tip 25%, though. And I'm not a child.
251: I am seriously bothered by this sort of thing. However, the place I have in mind seems remarkably well-ventilated, and the workers wear masks when they do acrylic nails. That said, I am absolutely 100% in favor of legislating better working conditions in nail shops.
I don't see how watching Ferris get away with everything no strings attached would lead viewers to think "gee, my life's pretty good" or "I should lighten up about things". Just the opposite, in fact. It's not like he's forging his own path or stepping out of the ratrace, he's goofing off and yet still succeeds at the high school game.
Because the fact of the matter is that most of us get away with quite a lot in our lives, and succeeding at the h.s. game is not that fucking hard. Ferris just admits it to himself, in very much the way we mean when we say things like "if I knew then what I know now."
Now I really am out of here. Later, desk jockeys.
Looking at ISPs, ogged?
No wonder he likes Bush! secretly checking people out.
I understand that people do it, but it is distasteful to me.
Steve McQueen's character was a dick, not some badass cool hero I should like or admire. Again, I get the wish fulfillment, but both Ferris and Thomas struck me as assholes.
I feel the same way about James Bond. And Axel Foley.
What's the relationship between working dough by hand and masturbation?
More importantly, is there truly a moral virtue in eschewing the use of externally powered devices to assist with either task? Or is efficiency and ease its own reward?
re: 261
Bond's asshole-ishness depends often on who is playing him. With the best Bond also the most assholeish [in a self-aware sort of way].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoiBF7OjkI
Getting a pedicure seems like a really strange thing to me. I'm seriously out of touch.
My gut feelings on FBDO (and Fast Times) are very much in alignment with M/tch, but to respond to 252 I think the idea is that the viewer's life is pretty good and it's only internal constraints (fear, reservedness, neurosis) that prevent him or her from living the carefree dream.
Getting a pedicure seems like a really strange thing to me.
Pedicures are a good present for the pregnant.
It's not like he's forging his own path or stepping out of the ratrace, he's goofing off and yet still succeeds at the high school game.
If it's any consolation, I've always regarded Election as the natural sequel to FBDO (much as Sleeping with the Enemy has always seemed like the natural sequel to Pretty Woman).
As trolling goes, this is funny.
I suspect there may be a strong correlation between loving FBDO and thinking Garfield is one of the best comic strips.
I can only interpret this
and can we please, with our fancy cookware and stand mixers, not get all high-horsed about other people's overprivilegedness?
More importantly, is there truly a moral virtue in eschewing the use of externally powered devices to assist with either task? Or is efficiency and ease its own reward?
Alameida's reply to M/tch's Standmixer Manifesto could also serve as an answer to your query, Di, as long as you disregard or imaginatively interpret certain passages pertaining to "very sticky dough".
and succeeding at the h.s. game is not that fucking hard
Really? So all the kids who have trouble at it are just whining too? Huh.
Maybe this is a root for the topdog/underdog type of split?
Fuck, can someone redact the signature in 271? I'm not even drunk.
I spent a lot of time watching Dazed and Confused which should have been spent living it (though I spent some time doing that to), don't really see what the commenter comparing Brick to Miller's Crossing is on about, and when I was in Chicago last weekend was trying to think of places they visit in FBDO in order to come up with ideas for site-seeing. Anyway, FBDO is fine, quotable, and memorable, and when it's in one of it's frequent TV rotations I'll watch a little bit, but I'm not sure how good people are trying to argue it is: it's fun, but very from insightful, and I don't really see how B's case is supported by the movie. Ferris's modus operandi is always and everywhere to push how much he can get away with, because he's very very luck he gets away with a lot and doesn't have to deal with the consequences of those things he doesn't get away with (e.g., destroying a classic Ferrari).
"very sticky dough"
Actually, the original passage refers to "very wet dough", which might make the imaginative leap a little easier.
More importantly, is there truly a moral virtue in eschewing the use of externally powered devices to assist with either task? Or is efficiency and ease its own reward?
I think it's really just a matter of preference or personal aesthetic. I don't look down on the lazy-assed slackers who use standmixers one little bit, the poor deluded dears.
either task
Artisanal uniqueness or mass production, hard to sustain both.
Anyone else have a sudden craving for cake...?
Of course, the real lesson of FBDO is that if your family is privileged enough, you can be a depressed hypochondriac and still grow up to captain a starship.
1.) People, I am not going to see Contempt on a second date.
2.) Sorry about your uncle, Cala.
270: Oh, my. I hadn't read much of the thread. Complaints about complaints about overprivilegedness, upthread. It strikes me as something that shouldn't be treated glibly.
Heavens yes, good hopes for your uncle's recovery, Cala.
People, I am not going to see Contempt on a second date.
Well, it wouldn't be the ideal first choice for a date movie, but I don't know if Belle de Jour is playing anywhere in Boston.
Risky Business is a great high school movie.
287: Is not.
I mean, I felt sorry for Cruise's character in that his parents were so dreadful, but I found him repellantly smug too. Also, if I remember correctly, the movie had pretensions to being serious or having a message. Didn't work.
There should totally be a crazyblind2nddate website.
273
Really? So all the kids who have trouble at it are just whining too? Huh.
Maybe this is a root for the topdog/underdog type of split?
If I were less tired and more alert, I'd try to figure out how to express an inchoate sense that just hard versus not-hard is a bad way to judge high school. It's sort of like, it doesn't take skills, it takes discipline... no, that doesn't make much sense, but high school isn't that hard compared to what's coming next in life... usually, for most people.
However, I do think it's safe to say that high school isn't that hard for most people from environments like Ferris', and many whiny, put-upon people like Ferris in real life need reminding of that.
I don't know why I thought 288 was accurate.
I must have been thinking of Blume.
269: I've always regarded Election as the natural sequel to FBDO (much as Sleeping with the Enemy has always seemed like the natural sequel to Pretty Woman).
I like that line of thought.
Which reminds me, Election is the best ever high school movie.
However, I do think it's safe to say that high school isn't that hard for most people from environments like Ferris', and many whiny, put-upon people like Ferris in real life need reminding of that.
I don't agree with the first part of that sentence, but anyway, I also don't think that FBDO effectively reminds the privileged to stop whining, or even tries to do so.
Which reminds me, Election is the best ever high school movie.
We should put that to a vote.
295: I don't think the idea is to tell the overprivileged to stop whining. It's about telling all of us, who are very stressed out about, well, everything, to take a break from worrying once in awhile and just have a little fun. I mean, it's not the most deep and meaningful message ever. It's just fun.
Anyone else getting the sense that maybe M/tch just isn't a big fan of high school movies?
I was sort of disappointed by Election, which I don't remember very well. Also, if I'm remembering correctly, it struck me as kind of odd that in both Election and whatever that movie was called where the kids end up in some black and white world, Reese Witherspoon's characters nearly disappear at the end.
I liked FBDO when I was something like 11. I kind of loathe it now.
not a slick new pink KitchenAid or anything.
This sounds dirty.
whatever that movie was called where the kids end up in some black and white world
Pleasantville.
Well, it wouldn't be the ideal first choice for a date movie, but I don't know if Belle de Jour is playing anywhere in Boston.
Repulsion. Possibly Irreversible.
Nobody's mentioned Some Kind of Wonderful, which I like better than Pretty in Pink or 16 Candles. Or Allison Anders' Gas Food Lodging, which is more about teenage ennui than high school per se.
Actually, 300 is not quite right. I'm mostly indifferent towards it, but find that I loathe it if I spend any time thinking about it, which I don't do unless reminded that it exists.
297: Oh, I get that, it just reminds me of, for example, someone who is very social and extroverted telling a shy person that they should just talk to more people, what's the big deal, or of a really talented dancer telling other people that they should just get out there and dance, it's easy. That's really not very helpful advice and doesn't address the real issues.
222: Reason #5,731 to love you. Say Anything is terrible. When I watched it in high school I remember abruptly shouting at the TV, "Look at the fucking road!" as an extended, meaningful conversation took place between a passenger and a driver who looked only at the passenger. I could never enjoy it after that. It's an engineering/realism thing; they should have had a dozen accidents in that scene.
Better Off Dead is tremendously fun. We can discuss our love for it over the stand-mixer and forget about these fools.
197: My hometown had nothing to do except get pregnant and/or huff gas and/or murder or attempt to murder one's parents. Asheville, NC, was The Big City. It was nice having a bit of fluff to watch about being somewhere interesting.
Last Year at Marienbad would be a good second blind date movie. If you didn't care much about a third date.
I was sort of disappointed by Election, which I don't remember very well.
Oh god, I can't express my Election-Love deeply enough. (That also sounds dirty, if kind of racist and Asian.)(But I really, really love that movie.)
Anyone else getting the sense that maybe M/tch just isn't a big fan of high school movies?
Oh, I love Fast Times, and Heathers, and Rushmore, and many other movies set in high school. American Pie too. It's just that f@*&er Bueller I hate.
Well and Tom Cruise too.
||
I just booked some train tickets with Deutsche Bahn and, damn, it's really true about them Germans being efficient.
Now if only I didn't have to go.
|>
305: Well, fair enough. But, of course, conservative groups get all up in arms when you tell the shy, uptight kids that a few drinks every now and then will help loosen them up.
second blind date
The first date must have been really weird for this to be possible.
Election is a good movie, and does redeem Broderick from FBDO.
Well and Tom Cruise too.
I feel great confidence in shouting COMITY here.
It's just that f@*&er Bueller I hate.
M/tch watches FBDO and screams "BUELLER!!!" at the TV.
But, of course, conservative groups get all up in arms when you tell the shy, uptight kids that a few drinks every now and then will help loosen them up.
But only because they know it's true.
M/tch has a strong sympathy for any character played by Jeffrey Jones. Allegiance of the alliteratively appointed, and all.
The hope of getting into a college good enough to be at least a little like the one in Real Genius kept me from running away from home.
Ferris Bueller now seems to me a tale of the youth of the sort of person who matures into the perfect host: makes everyone feel welcome and comfortable, introduces people to those who might interest them, invents reasons for everyone to leave work early and come to his house for a long weekend.
308 and 309 remind me of the line in Bright Lights, Big City about the Asian coworker: "He speaks English perfectly, with no confusion between 'L' and 'R', except when pronouncing the phrase 'President-Elect'."
316: I think you mean "KOMITY!".
For the record, I don't like high school movies and generally don't watch them at all.
Speaking of which, the "Japanese exchange student" (played by a Japanese-American actor, but with the Koreanesque character name "Long Duk Dong") in Sixteen Candles is pretty embarrassing in retrospect.
but with the Koreanesque character name "Long Duk Dong") in Sixteen Candles is pretty embarrassing in retrospect.
No worse than being felt up by your grandmother.
the movie had pretensions to being serious or having a message.
Wasn't the message that only pimps go to Princeton? Probably written by a Yale man.
Probably written by a Yale man.
Sexist.
don't really see what the commenter comparing Brick to Miller's Crossing is on about
At the broadest level both are about outsiders who join forces with a criminal leader in order to work from the inside to bring them down, while the thuggish henchmen distrusts their presence, and threatens to kill them before their plot comes to fruition.
Even though Tom Reagan in Miller's Crossing isn't an outside at the beginning of them film, he becomes one during the film, and the two characters have a very similar style of interaction with authority figures -- both sarcastic and somewhat mocking, but explicitly not wanting to accumulate social status themselves.
Beyond that the locations of Miller's Crossing and the tunnel in Brick and the events that happen there (the search for a body . . .) are similar.
I could go on -- for example the parallels between the assistant principle in Brick and the Mayor in Miller's crossing seem obvious.
Nick, given that the plot of Miller's Crossing is basically The Glass Key minus the machine politics and with a double-helping of gender trouble, wouldn't it be more likely that MC and Brick were drawing on common sources? But Miller's Crossing is fantastic, and Brick is not.
the two characters have a very similar style of interaction with authority figures -- both sarcastic and somewhat mocking, but explicitly not wanting to accumulate social status themselves
This simply marks them, for me, as self-aware entries into the noir genre. Both works are cribbing from Raymond Chandler who was cribbing from Hammett, and so on and so forth across countless books and movies. The Maltese Falcon, after all, involves a heavy with a suspicious bodyguard, a femme fatale and a false alliance in only slightly different arrangements on the page/screen. I love Miller's Crossing for a lot of reasons but not because it was the first to feature any of those elements.
wouldn't it be more likely that MC and Brick were drawing on common sources?
Entirely possible. For me the scene in the tunnel in Brick was the point at which I thought "This is exactly like the scene in Miller's Crossing" and then started noticing other congruities, but those other similarities may be just common source material.
OTOH, IIRC, in the director's commentary, the directory of Brick mentions being influenced by MC.
That Sam Spade, what a smug asshole!
332: Actually, he is! And yet I like him. I'm easily swayed by charm.
332: And yet, with a certain code of honor.
I feel great confidence in shouting COMITY here.
I'd think I deserve some credit for volunteering in a previous thread to shoot at Tom Cruise.
I'd like to associate myself with 330. Both are part of the same tradition and will of course have similarities on some level of abstraction, I just think that level is too abstract to have either film be particularly illuminating as to the other.
Brick was the best film of 2006, though I have some affection for the Scorsese film that won Best Picture too. Miller's Crossing wasn't the best film of 1990, mostly because of the Scorsese film which failed to win Best Picture. Though there plenty of movies in both years which I've both heard are very good and haven't seen.
332: Spade, Bueller, you're just a starfucker is what you are, McManly.
The "Japanese exchange student"...with the Koreanesque character name "Long Duk Dong" in Sixteen Candles is pretty embarrassing in retrospect.
Has there ever been a high school movie in which the exchange student was anything other than a stock character (e.g. Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles, "Inge from Sweden" in Porky's, Nadia in American Pie)?
Monique in Better Off Dead defies the pattern to some degree, in that she helps drive the plot.
I don't think of it as starfucking, M/tch, I just think of it as being the beneficiary of their privilege and sense of entitlement. I'm basically a stand-mixer with orifices.
I'm basically a stand-mixer with orifices.
Emerson will be pleased.
338: By which I mean, "form a line". We'll all get to take shots as he runs past.
And I am indeed writing this from SK's computer.
Funny, but what I meant was that you were being humorless.
Zing!
Actually, he is! And yet I like him. I'm easily swayed by charm.
McManly is Joel Cairo?
I've never understood why people rate "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" so highly. Enjoyable, sure, but all fluff.
Brick was terrific and underrated. It's hard to make a movie that takes teenagers with the grim seriousness that they take themselves.
"Hoop Dreams" was also a great movie that could be classified as a high school movie. As well as one of the top two or three sports movies ever.
Can I hate Matthew Broderick?
Good question. I think he redeemed himself with Election and You Can Count on Me.
Don't forget "Glory"!
Both are part of the same tradition and will of course have similarities on some level of abstraction
I am claiming that they also have similarities at the level of specific scenes/interactions but that it has been too long since I have seen Brick to go into detail right now.
Someone else back me up on this. Am I the only one who felt like there were scenes that felt like direct echoes of specific scenes in Miller's Crossing
I never saw "Miller's Crossing" and very much enjoyed "Brick", so certainly the first is not necessary to the second.
For high school movies, Superbad is almost as pitch-perfect as Fast Times.
311:I'm with Becks for a change.
Say Anything makes me cry at at least three different points, if not more. The ending in the plane is making me tear up right now. Seriously. "Npw that's a man" I thought the 1st time I saw it.
Like the Cusack character, I grew up surrounded by smart woman, but it seems to have failed in my case.
I could go on -- for example the parallels between the assistant principle in Brick and the Mayor in Miller's crossing seem obvious
Dude—the ass't principle in Brick is playing the role of the police chief rebuking an unruly cop/detective who, though he might get results, doesn't go by the book.
"Film Noir meets 90s High School flick"
Top comment at IMDB about Brick shows a tragic ignorance of film noir.
Hmm, maybe I can steer the thread back to Godard.
Superbad is almost as pitch-perfect as Fast Times.
Superbad actually was pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised.
I also don't think that FBDO effectively reminds the privileged to stop whining, or even tries to do so.
Um, "Life goes by pretty quickly; if you don't stop once in awhile, you'll miss it."* ? I suppose it's not literally telling the overprivileged to stop whining, but it's pretty close (seeing as how the original explanation was that the overprivileged whine about how hard their lives are; the message is, Your life isn't hard, you're just missing the fun parts).
Anyway, this is clearly just a hangup of M/tch's, shared by almost no one. There's no changing his mind on it.
Say Anything sucked. I was squarely in the target demo, and found it agonizingly dumb. Cusack is fine, some of the writing is OK, but it's trying sooo hard. In contrast to FBDO, which is mostly about having fun, but does have a viewpoint. SA is all viewpoint, and self-congratulation.
* From memory; the original is a bit pithier
Actually the best HS movie is the collected episodes of Daria.
Gedde Watanabe, the Sixteen Candles exchange student grew up in Ogden, Utah and does not have a word of Japanese. He was a painter on Sesame Street (not sure how many times).
I understand suspension of disbelief and all that, but the seemingly 20+ hours of daylight in FBDO is yet another reason to hate it.
On the Brick/Miller's Crossing connection, wikipedia agrees with snarkout that MC was based on The Glass Key but google shows that I am clearly not alone in making a connection between the movies
I haven't seen the film recently, I turn to "people on the internet support me."
When I read in multiple interviews that writer-director Rian Johnson found his inspiration for the film Brick in the Coens' Miller's Crossing -- which with Brazil and Amadeus holds the top spot in my all-time (non-fanboy) film list -- my interest was piqued. And, to be sure, Dode, Tug, and the Pin of Brick bear more than a passing resemblance to Bernie Bernbaum, the Dane, and Johnny Caspar of Crossing. (In fact, some aspects of Brick, such as the mass of flunkies waiting in the hall and Brendan's glasses (a.k.a. Tom's hat), seem like direct lifts from the Coens' film.)
Of course, the influence of "Miller's Crossing" is sometimes a bit too blatant with some ideas and shots almost verbatim from the crime drama.
354:Cameron Crowe wrote Fast Times.
Crowe also not only got Nancy Wilson, but managed to keep her. The self-congratulation is well-deserved, and the viewpoint very useful.
This nerd got the hot, smart rock star. Say Anything is an instruction manual from a success.
Ferris ... doesn't have to deal with the consequences of those things he doesn't get away with (e.g., destroying a classic Ferrari).
Not only was the destruction of the Ferrari not his fault, but he offered to take the rap - he comes close to insisting on it.
Otherwise, Bitch covers Ferris Buehler perfectly in 137 and 179.
Actually the best HS movie is the collected episodes of Daria.
So true.
Actually the best HS movie is the collected episodes of Daria.
Except that Daria never got her kit off on screen, like Phoebe Cates did.
Pedicures are a good present for the pregnant.
Yeah; pregnancy was when I started getting my legs waxed and feet done on occasion. I've given up the waxing, but still have the feet done once in a while. It's awesome.
Wait a minute, is B pregnant?
No, but I did say a while back that I'd like to have another kid and am not currently trying to avoid pregnancy. So THANKS A LOT for bringing it up, asshole.
Ferris Bueller now seems to me a tale of the youth of the sort of person who matures into the perfect host: makes everyone feel welcome and comfortable, introduces people to those who might interest them, invents reasons for everyone to leave work early and come to his house for a long weekend.
Yes! And hating him is akin to hating Clarissa Dalloway. Which the guy she didn't marry kind of does, but it's clear in the novel that that's because he's a jackass who fails to appreciate the importance of hosting and the domestic arts. So there.
Why you tip well at the pedicurist.
OMG! fedward!
Which reminds me, Election is the best ever high school movie.
Damn straight, MAE. Followed by Rushmore, Heathers (hate the ending, hate the Jack Nicholson impression, love the rest), Dazed and Confused and Better Off Dead (which is painfully dated in places, but "I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!" is one of the most immortal lines in American cinema).
I haven't seen Mean Girls, so I can't rank it, though it's in my Netflix queue.
Proposed: it is impossible to appreciate anything as "The Best High School Movie" if you saw it after the age of 18, maybe 19.
Election is a fantastic movie and the best of the Paynes. Mean Girls is a great comedy and we should mourn the loss of loung Yohan (to idiocy, not death). Dazed and Confused is a wonderful movie that made me really hungry for an egg sandwich with tomato sauce, though I didn't see it stoned. Rushmore is delightful, although it contains all the seeds of Wed Anderson's destruction.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High stands with Heathers a rung above the rest of them, the former for of its frankness and lack of judgment about sex and abortion, the latter for its black comedy.
But really, for those of us who graduated high school in the late eighties-early nineties, I think it comes down to Say Anything vs. the Hughes canon. I say fuck a bunch of smug, enwhitled Ferris (you make a good case, B, but I can't come over) and be a man, not a guy.
(Say Anything is also in my pantheon of great Fear of Falling movies about the American middle class, with its Crowe-consanguinous Jerry Maguire, and Spanking the Monkey. But that is for a different day.)
Uncle Buck was pretty good, though.
(seeing as how the original explanation was that the overprivileged whine about how hard their lives are; the message is, Your life isn't hard, you're just missing the fun parts)
That wasn't my original explanation, but maybe you're referring to someone else? I just don't think it's a good movie. It should have been titled Mary Sue's Day Off.
Anyway, this is clearly just a hangup of M/tch's, shared by almost no one.
Well if I'm so hung up on it, then why am I still commenting on this thread? Huh? Huh??
Oh, right.
Nevermind.
the ass't principle
Ben, Ben, Ben.