Five for Friday, Vol. 2: High School Edition
This week, Pop Culture Junkie JP picks his five favorite movies about high school. It's a list that could've easily been handed entirely over to that Lord of 80s High School Movies, John Hughes. He gave us a lot of classics that explored the world of cliques and homecoming games...of pep rallies and proms...all about "the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies [and] dickheads" but then moved on to kiddie movies, giving us Home Alone, Beethoven. So here are the flicks voted Most Likely To Succeed on My DVD Player.
1. The Breakfast Club - The Hughes Man hit a home run in this story of a Saturday spent in detention by a handful of students representing all the classic high school archtypes, assigned by a vindictive assistant principal to write an essay on who they think they are. In the day's time they discover that beneath the fronts and stereotypes projected on them by others, that these five students aren't so different after all. "Dear Mr. Vernon: ... You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club."
2. Fast Times At Ridgemont High - Cameron Crowe's "awesome...totally awesome" view of high school, circa early 1980s. The scene with Phoebe Cates climbing out of the pool, undoing her bikini top was an image burned into my adolescent brain. And then there's the Philosophy on "Attitude" by ticket scalper Mike DeMone: "The attitude dictates that you don't care whether she comes, stays, lays, or prays. I mean whatever happens, your toes are still tappin'. Now when you got that, then you have the attitude."
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off - John Hughes' Strikes Back with a the movie's namesake cutting
school for a memorable day in Chicago. "I quote John Lennon, 'I don't believe in The Beatles, I just believe in me.' Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus but I'd still have to bum rides off of people."
4. Sixteen Candles - Hughes' first HS masterpiece with Samantha's (Molly Ringwald) parents forgetting her 16th birthday. And Farmer Ted's classic question: "Can I borrow your underpants for 10 minutes?" Anyone who doesn't get choked up at the end when the Thompson Twins' song swells and Sam finds that her dream guy was waiting for her after her sister's wedding never knew what it was like to have an unrequited crush in high school.
5. Election - Scathingly sharp and hilarious satire as an annoying overachiever (Reese Witherspoon nails it) runs for student body president. In an obvious homage to the Master, the hapless high school teacher is played by Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick. And Chris Klein's deadpan doofus jock is priceless: "Dear God, than you for all your blessings. You've given me so many things, like good health, nice parents, a nice truck, and what I'm told is a large penis, and I'm very grateful ..."
Honorable mentions:
Pretty In Pink - More Hughes. Duckie: "What a volcanic ensemble you're wearing. You know, hot...dangerous."
Dazed and Confused - Made gold by Wooderson's "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."
American Pie - Porky's The Next Generation...but smarter and with hotter chicks. "This one time...at band camp..."
1. The Breakfast Club - The Hughes Man hit a home run in this story of a Saturday spent in detention by a handful of students representing all the classic high school archtypes, assigned by a vindictive assistant principal to write an essay on who they think they are. In the day's time they discover that beneath the fronts and stereotypes projected on them by others, that these five students aren't so different after all. "Dear Mr. Vernon: ... You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Breakfast Club."2. Fast Times At Ridgemont High - Cameron Crowe's "awesome...totally awesome" view of high school, circa early 1980s. The scene with Phoebe Cates climbing out of the pool, undoing her bikini top was an image burned into my adolescent brain. And then there's the Philosophy on "Attitude" by ticket scalper Mike DeMone: "The attitude dictates that you don't care whether she comes, stays, lays, or prays. I mean whatever happens, your toes are still tappin'. Now when you got that, then you have the attitude."
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off - John Hughes' Strikes Back with a the movie's namesake cutting
school for a memorable day in Chicago. "I quote John Lennon, 'I don't believe in The Beatles, I just believe in me.' Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus but I'd still have to bum rides off of people."4. Sixteen Candles - Hughes' first HS masterpiece with Samantha's (Molly Ringwald) parents forgetting her 16th birthday. And Farmer Ted's classic question: "Can I borrow your underpants for 10 minutes?" Anyone who doesn't get choked up at the end when the Thompson Twins' song swells and Sam finds that her dream guy was waiting for her after her sister's wedding never knew what it was like to have an unrequited crush in high school.
5. Election - Scathingly sharp and hilarious satire as an annoying overachiever (Reese Witherspoon nails it) runs for student body president. In an obvious homage to the Master, the hapless high school teacher is played by Matthew "Ferris Bueller" Broderick. And Chris Klein's deadpan doofus jock is priceless: "Dear God, than you for all your blessings. You've given me so many things, like good health, nice parents, a nice truck, and what I'm told is a large penis, and I'm very grateful ..."
Honorable mentions:
Pretty In Pink - More Hughes. Duckie: "What a volcanic ensemble you're wearing. You know, hot...dangerous."
Dazed and Confused - Made gold by Wooderson's "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."
American Pie - Porky's The Next Generation...but smarter and with hotter chicks. "This one time...at band camp..."
posted by JP at 8:34 PM
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You know, Sarah and I were discussing high school movies not long ago (she's also an unabashed Hughes fan, her favorite vacillating between "Pretty in Pink" and "Sixteen Candles" depending on her mood), and came to a shocking and somewhat depressing discovery: the older we get, our reaction to "Ferris Beuller's Day Off" changes. Sarah summed it up by saying, "You know, when this came out, I just loved it and wanted to do everything Ferris was doing. But now I watch it, and I just think he's a little brat. He should be in school!"
I guess you know you're over the hill when Beuller becomes a troublemaker rather than a hero.
Where would you rank "Napoleon Dynamite" as a high school movie? And where the hell is "Weird Science"?
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