June 11, 2021
As we make our way towards Summer, we are winding down on another school year – far from normal, this one was most unusual. Special shout out to the teachers, students, and parents who weathered an extremely challenging year. Here’s hoping that everyone can enjoy a well-earned Summer vacation and look forward to the most normal school year possible in the Fall. Speaking of school, this weekend marks the 35th anniversary (how did THAT happen?) of one of the best high-school comedies of all-time – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the films in this genre, and share my top five, with a few honorable mentions. Some of these may be obvious and some not so much, but I hope you find some good ones to watch, or in the case of a few classics, revisit. While I have no desire to go back in time to experience my high-school days again, I’ll gladly keep rewatching these classics. Let’s jump in.
Honorable Mentions
The high-school comedies have been in our culture for as long as I can remember – for me, it goes back to American Graffiti, the 1973 George Lucas coming-of-age story of teenagers cruising the strip on the last day of Summer in 1962, getting into mischief, and debating their futures. While not a “laugh-out loud” comedy, this one is more of a charmer, and an interesting time capsule when you hear the music and see some very famous actors before they were stars – Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, and in a “blink and you’ll miss it moment”, Suzanne Somers. American Graffiti captured a moment in time – the innocence of high-school students contemplating their future, and the innocence of the country, which would radically change following President Kennedy’s assassination a year later. The film’s success would give Lucas the clout to pursue his passion project a few years later (you may have heard of it – Star Wars?), would launch the careers of the stars of the film, and inspire Happy Days, one of the defining sitcoms of the 1970s.
As we moved into the 1980s, the genre took off with films that had a big impact on me, especially being part of the MTV generation. John Hughes was the master of the high-school comedy, even mixing in touching sentiment and romance with the comedic moments. He had a knack for capturing all aspects of the high-school experience, regardless of the archetype of his characters. And though some of the films have aged pretty poorly in some respects (Sixteen Candles, for one), others have held up very well. Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink and particularly, The Breakfast Club have messages and themes that still resonate after thirty-plus years. I remember seeing The Breakfast Club multiple times in the theater and being blown away by how a simple film of five kids in a library on a Saturday serving their detention could have such an impact. Of course, having an all-star cast of the best of the Brat Pack, and an incredible screenplay certainly helped, not to mention a fantastic 1980s-era soundtrack. Hughes certainly left his mark on this genre, and we’ll get to one of his best later in this list.
#5 Simple Goals – Superbad (2007) / Booksmart (2019) (tie)
OK, this probably isn’t really a tie – I just wanted an excuse to write about both of these films. I discovered Booksmart by accident in 2019 and wrote about it as my most pleasant surprise in my 2019 year in review. It reminded me a lot of Superbad (this wasn’t an original thought – a lot of comparisons were made between the two films) because of the “all in one day” aspect of the story, along with the lead characters – two nerds with a simple goal: have the time of their life and prove to everyone in their high school that they are cool. I recently revisited Superbad, and parts of it are absolutely hysterical, particularly the scenes with McLovin and the two cops, played by Bill Hader and Seth Rogen. But one of my problems with the movie for me was Jonah Hill’s character. Look, I can take some gross-out humor – I’m not that much of a prude. American Pie, despite its raunchiness, still has some very funny moments. But Hill’s obnoxiousness and disgusting comments in Superbad are just a little too much for me. Michael Cera is pretty good, and Emma Stone is great in her feature film debut. Speaking of Stone, she starred in a fantastic high-school comedy a few years later, Easy A, which showed us that she had the potential to carry a movie on her own. So, while I like Superbad, I found Booksmart so much more charming. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever are excellent as best friends who realize on the last day of school that their sacrifice of fun for great grades to get into college wasn’t really necessary when they learn that all the cool kids also got into top colleges. They decide to make up for their four years of missed fun in one night and go on a legendary adventure in search of the party where all the kids are hanging out. The film has its sweet moments and some incredible needle drops (and yes, a few gross jokes), but the lead actresses make this an all-timer for me. The tagline on the poster says it all: “Getting Straight A’s. Giving Zero F’s.” Booksmart for the win.
#4 Life Moves Pretty Fast – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
OK, let’s get the obvious out of the way – of course Ferris, Cameron and Sloane couldn’t possibly do everything that they experienced in one day. Without Doc Brown’s DeLorean, there’s just not enough time. It’s a movie – it’s ok to suspend some disbelief. Just enjoy the ride. And what a ride it is. From the opening sequence, where Ferris schemes his way out of school to hang out with his best friend and girlfriend, we know we are in for a special treat. One thing that makes a high-school comedy great is the memorable one-liners, and Ferris has plenty – “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t look around once in a while, you could miss it.” “It’s a little childish and stupid, but so is high school.” “You killed the car.” “He’ll keep calling. He’ll keep calling. OK, I’ll go. I’ll go. I’ll go.” And of course, the legendary, “Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?” You know how a movie still resonates after 30 years? When the CEO of a Fortune 50 company could ask a question in a room full of executives and respond to silence by saying “Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?” Yup, I was there for that – maybe a few times.
Matthew Broderick is throwing some major league fastballs in this one, and what makes the comedy so effective is not only the screenplay, but the decision by writer-director John Hughes to have Ferris break the fourth wall many times by talking directly to us. With his deadpan humor, the one-liners are perfect. Alan Ruck perfectly embodies the best friend and Mia Sara is charming as Ferris’s true love and the three of them together represent true friends out to make the most of one day. After seeing the movie so many times, I still laugh at just about everything (except maybe the Rooney scenes – they get a little old), and of course, I could recite (virtually) the entire script by heart. We all wanted to either be Ferris or hang out with him for a day of skipping school. Did this movie inspire two friends and me to ditch school and go to Boston to see how much we could do in one day? Hmmm, I’m sorry, those files are classified. Let’s move along.
#3 The Lesson as Always – Never Go Into Politics – Election (1999)
Thirteen years after portraying the smarmy Bueller, we get Broderick returning to high-school, this time as Mr. McAllister, a teacher caught up in an election scandal for class president. While Broderick may have been better known in 1999, the shining star of this dark comedy was Reese Witherspoon, playing the all-time overachiever, Tracy Flick. The only thing Tracy cares about (well, besides being the best at everything at Carver High School) is winning the election for class president. Sick of seeing Tracy getting whatever she wants, McAllister recruits dopey star quarterback Paul (played by Chris Klein) to run against her. And then all hell breaks loose. What I love about Election is the unconventional humor, the integration of the adults into the storyline (including several questionable life choices by the educators), and the brilliant use of multiple narrators to tell the story. Witherspoon is outstanding in Election, the movie that accelerated her into the conversation as one of the most promising actors of our time. Within two years, she made Legally Blonde and a few years after that, she won an Oscar. It’s clear that the seeds of greatness are on full display in Election. If you can find humor in the absurdities of people who are not that bright, are not afraid to laugh at other people’s misfortune (especially one moment involving a bee sting) and don’t need a neat and happy ending, Election is a great choice.
#2 No Shirts, No Shoes, No Dice – Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Raise your hand if you predicted in 1982 that the actor who said, “All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine” would go on to win two Academy Awards. Anyone? Yeah, I didn’t think so. It’s still astonishing to me anytime that I watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High that we are watching Sean Penn as stoner / surfer Jeff Spicoli, yet here we are after almost forty years. But that might not even be the craziest fact about this movie. If you read my post about Almost Famous, you know that writer / director Cameron Crowe wrote that movie about his experience as a rock journalist for Rolling Stone at the ripe age of 16. In his early 20s, after becoming bored with the magazine, he went undercover in a California high school to write a book, which became – you guessed it – Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Crowe optioned his book into a movie, which was directed by Amy Heckerling, and to this day remains one of my favorite films of all time.
What to say about Fast Times? From the opening notes of The Go Go’s We Got the Beat as we meander through the mall to meet our sprawling cast of characters through the laughs, the tears, and the legendary one liners, this one has it all. Penn has some of the best lines, especially interacting with history teacher Mr. Hand (played by legendary actor Ray Walston who makes the most of every one of his scenes.) It never gets old when Spicoli orders pizza into the classroom, shows up to the fast-food joint with no shirt on (alongside Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz well before they were famous), or has to suffer through one last lesson from Mr. Hand to pass his class. In addition to Penn, the cast features some great performances from Jennifer Jason Leigh and Judge Reinhold as siblings dealing with relationships going in very different directions, Phoebe Cates as the girl with all the love advice for her best friend, and Robert Romanus and Brian Backer as Mike and Mark, two best friends with very different views of how to win a girl’s affection. The kids at Ridgemont High don’t want a lot in life – just to have fun, hang with their friends, (maybe) have a little too much to smoke and drink, and try to hang on to the best years of their life. A natural segue into our #1 movie.
#1 The Ultimate Hang – Dazed and Confused (1993)
Alright, alright, alright. We have arrived at our #1 high-school comedy, Richard Linklater’s look at the last school day of a Texas high school in 1976. What American Graffiti did for cruising the strip, Dazed and Confused did for scoring weed and heading to the water tower for a keg party. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As we open the story at Lee High School, the kids are celebrating the end of the school year, with the incoming seniors giving the incoming freshman a little hazing to start their Summer. Our main character, Randall “Pink” Floyd has to decide if he’s going to sign the pledge from his football coach not to participate in any illegal substances, all while hanging out with his friends who regularly participate in…..well, some of those substances. Throughout the day and into the night, the friends make their way around town, hang out at the local establishments, listen to some of the best 1970s music, debate the important things in life (like if the 80s will be cooler than the 70s – yikes!), score some beer and just hang out. What’s memorable for me with Dazed and Confused is the simplicity of the story – there’s nothing groundbreaking here. Friends hanging out is what makes it so authentic. The soundtrack is iconic, featuring some of the best bands of the era – Kiss, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath, and ZZ Top, to name a few. But we have to talk about the cast.
The ensemble cast features over a dozen characters played by actors who would go on to great success, including Ben Affleck as the sadistic senior out to smack every freshman with a paddle, have nice careers, like Adam Goldberg, Parker Posey, and Joey Lauren Adams, or in one case, turn a few ad-libbed lines into a rocket ship career. We should probably share the backstory here. Linklater hired Don Phillips as the casting director based on his success finding the cast for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. While on location in Austin, Texas, Phillips was at the hotel bar when he was approached by an aspiring actor who learned that he found Sean Penn for Fast Times. He introduced himself and asked about the movie he was making. Phillips was so impressed with him that he cast him as David Wooderson, the guy who’s been out of high school a few years, but just can’t let go of the glory years. That actor was Matthew McConaughey and his early scenes were so impressive, that Linklater and Phillips created more of a storyline for him and he became a bigger character in the story. Not only did this role deliver his signature line in life, “Alright, alright, alright”, he gave his buddy Pink some advice near the end of the film in response to the pledge he was asked to sign. “You gotta do what Randall ‘Pink’ Floyd wants to do, man. Let me tell you this: The older you do get, the more rules they’re gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin’, man, L-I-V-I-N.” And then he cackled that famous McConaughey laugh. There’s not much more I can say about Dazed and Confused after those iconic words from Wooderson. If you’ve never seen it, I’ll recommend it with the advice on the movie poster – “See it with a bud.”
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed a look back at some of my favorite high-school comedies. Next week, I’ll be back for a look at some of my favorite movie dads, just in time for Father’s Day. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.