Friday Firesmith – Did Ferris REALLY need a day off?

by

I never watched “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.” Everyone was talking about it and I’ve never thought it was a good idea to go see a movie just because it was popular. I thought “Napoleon Dynamite” was one of the worst movies I had ever seen. Most of the billions of “Star Wars” spinoffs are so predictable you wonder if they just stopped trying.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine named Jack bought a bunch of tee shirts for our social action group. We were downtown and a woman was trying to get his attention.

She started yelling, “Jack!”

So I started yelling, “Rose!”

Then it caught on and a woman and myself went back and forth with it until everyone who understood what we were doing was laughing uncontrollably.

You’d have to have seen the movie “Titanic” to get the joke. Most of us laughing were older folk, by the way.

My tendency to fall in love with obscure movies caused me to rewatch, “The Hours” until I could recite the dialog in my sleep. The train station scene between Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard is one of the best scenes in the history of film making. Nicole Kidman won an Oscar for the movie. I rarely meet anyone who liked it.

Because I’ve listened to far too many audio books, not to mention the ones I’ve read, on serial killers, horror in any shape, fashion or form, has no effect on me at all. I thought the book by Stephen King, “It” needed SH in front of it. The ending, after wading through the dreck that must have been a billion pages, pissed me off. The miniseries sucked. I didn’t bother with the recent movie.

I know people who loved the book.

This week’s audience participation is this: Name a movie everyone loved but you never saw. Name a movie you saw and hated, but everyone loved.

Or a book. Or both.

Take Care,

Mike

36 thoughts on “Friday Firesmith – Did Ferris REALLY need a day off?”

  1. I always manage to get to the end of a book even if I don’t like it much except one, “Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umperto Eco. It was very popular when it came out but I didn’t manage to finish it. I gave it away. As for movies, I didn’t like “Poor Things”and I bet the book was better but I hated the movie so much I’m not going to read it. I also did not like “Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning.” I pretty much enjoyed the previous ones; some more than others but this was (for me) so bad I left after around 45 minutes. Finally, I really liked the 1994 movie “Leon: The Professional” with a very young Natalie Portman and Jean Reno and nobody I knew/know saw it or enjoyed it. I would happily see it again. I refused to see “Oppenheimer.”

    • Alena,
      I understand not wanting to see, “Oppenheimer.” I watched it at the theater then alone at home. I’ve read a few books on both the man and the bomb, and I think at the end of the day we had too many people who just wanted to see what would happen if we set the bomb off.

      I haven’t watch any of the “Mission Impossible” movies and not likely to, but the rest you mentioned I think I will take a swing at them. Thanks.

    • Jerry, if she’s ever single tell her to give me a call. I couldn’t get past twenty minutes with Bernie’s but loved “Harold and Maude.”

  3. I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies. At this point, it’s a point of pride. I have been and will firmly remain in the Star Trek universe — though I’m also not a fan of the OG version of that. TNG is my favorite, and I do like the newer movies with Chris Pine as Kirk.

    On the recommendation of every female I knew at the time, I suffered through ALL THREE freaking 50 Shades books. I don’t know why I tortured myself to get through all of them. They were awful – the writing, the story line, the “romance” (used as loosely as the quotes can be used with that word) — all of it. I did not watch the movies.

    Obscure movie that I love: The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Very engaging way of telling a story that has been done many times.

    And one that everyone hates that I love: The Replacements with Keanu Reeves. I just think it’s hilarious. It’s my “sick day” movie that I always watch. Also, Knight’s Tale with Heath Ledger and Alan Tudyk. Very underrated.

    • TNG was also my favorite and the only one I watched consistently. Even though movies are shorter than books, I have no patience with bad writing so I won’t suffer through a book that was written poorly.

      Emily Blunt is great at all she does.

      I have not seen a Knight’s Tale but now I must.
      Thanks!

    • There is no problem liking Star Wars and Star Trek as the former happened a long time ago and the latter is in the future.

      I am not, though, trying to talk you into seeing any Star Wars flicks. You do you.

      • Tim, I saw the first Star Wars when the doors opened. It was the best movie ever with the most stunning special effects that anyone could have imagined.

        It’s just hasn’t had the same vibe since then.

    • Two of my favorite movies are The Replacements and A Knights Tale. Great soundtrack on A Knights Tale also BTW.
      You must have great taste.

    • Beverley, The second Godfather kept me from watching any of the rest, however many there might be.

      Titanic was fun.

  5. not a movie but I was overseas in southeast asia for a good chunk of the 1980s and then later; sometime around ~2005ish a coworker really freaked out that I had no clue who “mister t” was…

  7. Although I’m a Kiwi, I’ve never watched all the Lord of the Rings. So many people rave about it and watch it on repeat. I watched half of the first one and never understood the attraction.

    I love Ferris Ferris Beuller’s Day Off though. When I was a kid I thought he was cool. As an adult I recognize how manipulative he is.

    • NK, LOTR was a story that grabbed me in high school. I read it when I was in the 9th grade and everybody was a little taken aback at the size of the books. All that? One story? The sheer magnitude. In 1979, my senior year, someone made an animated movie that wasn’t quite horrible and suddenly everyone want to read the book.
      When the big screen movies arrived I felt a sense of validation, again.

      Eowyn, was done perfectly, and I never realized how important that was.

      • Both of my brothers loved the LOTR and other science fantasy books, and all my friends were into DnD which I never got into. It didn’t click until I was 53 and realised I have aphantasia.

  8. I read “it” as well and I was totally pissed with the ending. I’ve been reading Science Fiction for years and have no trouble tossing a book 35 pages in. No time for a bad book ( I learned that from it).
    I hated Avatar, same shit different day. Never seen Raging Bull or the Godfathers.
    A movie no one knows but I love is “Gregorys Girl” it is an ’80s import but it can be found streaming. Mike I dont think you’ll like it.
    Harold and Maude was great when I was a freshman in college.

      • It just a sweet coming of age movie set in Ireland. Clare Grogan (sp?) singer for Altered Images is in it. I dont like slick movies. Thats probably why I liked Napoleon so much.

  9. I’ve never seen Gone With the Wind.
    And I hated that last Mission Impossible movie starring Tom Cruise’s highly improbable hair.

    • Mini,
      GWTW is a story about a vain woman who doesn’t seem to care about anyone wrecking lives wherever she goes. She joins forces with a gunrunner and eventually marries him once he escapes death row.

  10. Like Minimauve, I have not seen “Gone With the Wind”–but really like Carol Burnett’s version, “Went With the Breeze.” “Nice dress.” “Thanks. I saw it in the window and I had to have it.” Still funny.

    I also did not like “Napoleon Dynamite.”

    I really like “The Princess Bride” and most others I have talked to liked it, too. I think the book was better but the movie’s ending was much better than the book’s. Since the same guy wrote the book and the screenplay, I am okay with that.

    I liked “The Net” and “Joe Dirt” but not sure anyone else like them.

    I don’t know of any Stephen King book that was better on film. I do not like some of his books and share your thoughts on “It.”

    I think “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” spurned the after-credit scenes, but it was not the first one to do that. I think the first was “Airplane!” that came out earlier than Ferris.

    I like the original “Nasferatu” but not how many have seen it.

    One movie I like that many probably have not heard of is “Santa’s Slay.” I am about to find it watch it again this year. I also remember liking “Corvette Summer.”

    • Tim, I liked both “Nasferatu” and “The Net”. Never saw “Corvette Summer.”

      “Joe Dirt” is one of those movies that makes me flinch because I know people just like that who don’t realize they are just like that.

  11. I haven’t seen most of Tom Cruise’s movies. Or Kevin Costner’s movies. It’s my opinion that neither of those gentlemen have range. I did enjoy Dances with Wolves, however after that, Mr. Costner seemed to play the same guy in every thing. I stopped bothering with his movies.

    I did enjoy, as previously mentioned, The Replacements, A Knight’s Tale, also Dogma, and 47 Ronin, the one with Keanu Reeves. I know it got skewered by the critics, but I really enjoyed it. I know Keanu gets criticized for his acting, but I feel he has more range than Kevin Costner. I said what I said.
    I liked Equilibrium with Christian Bale as well. It came out the same time as the Matrix, so didn’t do as well. The Matrix was good, but the sequels were not as good.

    • Chick,
      Tom Cruise did a movie with Emily Blount named, “Edge of Tomorrow.” I thought it was a great movie and they the time travel thing well. “Dogma” is underrated.

      • RockLil, Dogma is one of the all time underrated movies of all time.

        Whoever cast that movie had to pull in some favors, I think.

Comments are closed.