Rare FERRIS BUELLER Audio Commentary Available Online

For all John Hughes' acclaim and fame as a filmmaker, he only recorded one audio commentary track for his iconic films and it was for FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. It was done for the 1999 release of the film on DVD but it's only the version released that year that includes Hughes commentary track...all subsequent versions of the DVD had the track removed, as he was apparently unhappy with the way it turned out. 

A story on IndieWire alerted me to the fact that the commentary is now available as an audio download which you can listen to alongside a DVD and it is hard to see why he didn't like it. I heard the first 15 minutes and it's really amazing the amount of detail he goes into each scene and how specifically he understood all these roles, not just Ferris. He gives some truly succinct descriptions of the characters and the actors he chose to play those roles and why everyone fit the bill.  There are some great trivial details too, like the fact that in the opening scene all four actors in the Bueller family, the mother/father and the son/daughter, were all actually dating and in love. Ferris' movie parents, in fact, got married after the film was completed!

This is one of my favorite films so, as a director, hearing the commentary is truly amazing. It's so clear Hughes knew exactly what he was doing with this film and, more surprisingly how comfortable he was with actors adding a lot of improv and material themselves. Hughes admits his favorite line in the moive ("not a lesson" after Ferris plays the clarinet) was made up by Matthew Broderick himself. 

What If Ferris Bueller Had To Grow Up

I got this from a friend of mine who knows my love of all things FERRIS.  It's a cute fake trailer for a new version of FERRIS BUELLER in which Ferris has become an adult and must take some responsibility for his actions.  I think the funniest bit is with the ATM, spoofing the scene in the art museum from the original.  The Ferris is okay but the guy they got for Cameron is a total ringer for the original.  He's mastered that same Cameron-blank-face-thing.  And there is a crazy cameo towards the end playing the sausage king of Chicago.  Too bad they clearly shot this in NYC!

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Don't You Forget About Him--Oscars/Vanity Fair

The Oscar's tribute to John Hughes was, aside from Bigelow's double win, the most memorable moment of this year's show.  As the Brat Packers lined up on stage in their best adult prom wear, they gave some wonderfully moving and funny testimonials to the King of High School Comedy.  It's remarkable that Hughes high-school trio of films have survived not only more than 20 years but have become classics as well...all without one single Oscar nomination.


This month's "Vanity Fair" has an in-depth exploration of Hughes and his small but memorable body of work.  Mixing interviews with his own children as well as the stars of his films, there are some interesting revelations.  Most fascinating to me was that "The Breakfast Club" was supposed to be the first of the triology films but then Hughes dashed off a quickie comedy "Sixteen Candles", which got rushed into production before TBC.  There's also some good stories about his intense and mercurial relationships with his teen muses, notably how he didn't speak to Molly Ringwald after their 80's collaborations.  There's also the revelation that, until he died, Hughes was constantly writing and drawing in notebooks, the pages of which are shown in detail in the magazine.  


It's the best distillation of Hughes and his work that I've read in a while.  And a lovely complement to Sunday's well-earned Oscar tribute.  

Me and The Prom on YouTube

Simon & Schuster has posted to YouTube an interview I did for their podcast about my first novel, "A Really Nice Prom Mess". Though I did this a couple years ago when the paperback was being released, I talked extensively about the biggest influence on my writing which was not another author.....it was John Hughes. Anyway, take a listen and if you're intrigued, you can pick up the book for under $10 on Amazon. Whatta bah-gain, right? :)

Don't You Forget About Him

There have been many appreciations and tributes to filmmaker John Hughes over the last few days since his death in NYC Friday. The NY Times (where I found this great pic--doesn't he look like James Spader?) ran a lengthy love letter to Hughes courtesy of reviewer A.O. Scott which was quite effective in hitting all the Hughes bases. What's most interesting is that it's easily the kindest thing the paper has ever written about him, as the TIMES reviews for his films when they were originally released were decidedly mixed. In the recent appreciation, Scott actually uses the "A" word, as in "auteur", to describe Hughes' body of directorial work. There was even a comparison to the work of Lubitsch and Sturges which is not surprising and IMHO long overdue.

As my film school friends know, I've been a champion of Hughes work for many years. I was a huge fan when the films first came out. But then, as I became a director myself, I began to see the artist lurking behind the commercial filmmaker and admired the way he was able to make smart comedies with a very broad appeal. In fact, my NYU thesis film "Pool Days" which became part of the BOYS LIFE shorts package, was my own version of a John Hughes movie with a gay kid at the center of the action instead of a nerd. Currently, the film I'm working on now, a high school comedy called PROM QUEENS, is practically a homage to the Hughes world with a personal twist. But the main thing I've learned from his work as a filmmaker is a lesson that I hope will guide me on this project; keep it funny but make it real. I believe the reason his films resonate is that, despite all the slapstick and silliness, there are real characters with real emotions at the heart of his stories. And this is not something you see coming out of the Hollywood teen mill these days, with the possible exception of the pilot episode for GLEE.

Finally, the most curious aspect of Hughes directing career was its abrupt end. The TIMES piece doesn't discuss this at all but, oddly enough, a group of filmmakers had been tying to solve this mystery for the last year. They were making a documentary trying to track down the elusive Hughes, interviewing actors like Justin Henry (Sams' annoying brother in SIXTEEN CANDLES) and Mia Sara (Sloane, darling, in FERRIS BUELLER) when his death gave their doc a new, unexpected ending. Their blog, dontyouforgetaboutme, has been updated with some tributes and new video over the weekend. The interview clips are very fun to watch. Mia Sara looks amazing!

Also worth checking out is a blog by a woman who was a teenage pen pal with the reclusive director at the height of his powers in the mid-80's. Fascinating stuff....and all in John Hughes' very own penmanship! She offers her theory to the mystery of Hughes decampment from H'wood; she claims he blamed the biz on the early death of friend and star John Candy and, concurrently, didn't want to raise his kids in La La Land. Interesting theory. However, the story I'd usually heard was that Hughes was notorious for demanding control of all aspects of not just creating his films, but marketing them as well. (As a filmmaker, I understand this urge all too well!) Apparently as he became more successful, Hughes continued stamping on bigger and bigger studio toes until no one in Tinseltown wanted to play footsie anymore, as Walter Winchell might say. It certainly didn't help that his last directorial effort, the oddity CURLY SUE, was a commercial and critical flop.

Regardless of all that, John Hughes leaves us with three...maybe four classic films (if you count WEIRD SCIENCE, which I do) that have stood the test of time. They are just as watchable today as when they were made more than two decades ago. Like Michael Jackson, he defined an era but transcended it as well and will forever live on in the cinema firmament, a bright and clever star that faded out too soon.