The good news, I suppose, is that he’s not actually playing Ferris Bueller. Still, there’s no question that the two-and-a-half minute Matthew Broderick-fronted, Todd Phillips-directed Honda CR-V Super Bowl ad that we told you about last week is positively loaded with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off references and iconography — more than two dozen of them, according to Honda’s “brand manager” (ugh), Tom Peyton. The ad went online Monday, with the predictable response pattern: snarkyrage on Twitter, hand-wringing online, and then the required contrarian “In Defense of…” piece. It’s shaping up to be the big game’s most controversial ad (at least until Sunday, when we get the full-frontal assault of “women are nags” spots, but I digress).
So why do we care so much? It’s no longer a surprise to see pop culture icons shilling for big business; hell, I’m old enough to remember the giant controversy that followed the licensing of a Beatles song for Nike ad. (That uproar seems positively quaint these days, when a commercial deal is a giant coup for musicians of all stripes.) The commotion over Broderick’s Honda ad speaks not to “selling out” in general. It’s about the selling out of this character — and not just because he didn’t condone any “–isms” (including, presumably, capitalism). It’s about our connection with Ferris Bueller, who wasn’t just a protagonist. By taking us into his confidence and guiding us through his world, Bueller made us his co-conspirator.
Everybody loves a good holiday movie. When we wrote last week about the beginning of the season, and our favorite annual Christmas movies (Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life), our readers threw in their favorites: A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Bad Santa, Muppets Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, etc. But, lest we forget, every film of the season ain’t White Christmas; there are plenty of rotten holiday movies. (And, in fact, one of them is coming out tomorrow: steer clear of New Year’s Eve as though your life depends on it.) As many great Christmas movies as there are, it’s also a very tricky style to get right, requiring the proper mix of holiday cheer, sentiment, laughs, and warmth. It is pretty easy to screw that elixir up, and end up with something sickly sweet and utterly unwatchable. After the jump, we’ll gather up a few lumps of coal from our previous Christmas stockings. Read More »
Any time you have the gumption to pose a list of the ten definitive anything, you’re going to get some pushback. But because Flavorwire has the greatest readers in the world (/blatant sucking up), our post last week of The Most Definitive Music Cues in Film History prompted very little venom, and several excellent additions (including a few that had been on our first, wildly overambitious draft). The concept, once again, is that certain films use pop music cues so well that the movie and the song get inextricably bound together in your head; when you think of the movie, you hear the song, and when you hear the song, your see the film in your mind’s eye. We’ve picked our ten faves from the addendums offered by you, the reader, after the jump; feel free to add more of your favorites in the comments. Read More »
What would Say Anything… look like in 2011? It hadn’t occurred to us that the 1989 film needed to be remade, but at a recent Television Critics Association event, Cameron Crowe admitted that he was considering a sequel. “I’ve thought about it from time to time and talked about it with John Cusack once and just said this is the only story that I kind of think there might be another chapter to that at some point,” he said. That got us thinking about where Lloyd Dobler and our other favorite ’80s teen movie characters would be now. Our best guesses are after the jump.
We love our commenters, who are smart and sweet and supportive, always. (Almost.) So big ups to “Jax” for making this writer’s life a little easier by writing, in response to the inclusion of American Grafitti and Dazed and Confused on our “10 Great Summer Nostalgia” movies list: “Speaking of 24-hour movies, has Flavorwire done post on best 24-hour movies? Or movies set within specific time limits?” We hadn’t, Jax. But we have now.
Come to find out, there’s actually a wealth of really terrific movies set over one long day or one long night (or both). Even when setting some ground rules just for the process of thinning the herd (for example: nothing with flashbacks outside of that time frame — which eliminated Reservoir Dogs, Halloween and 25th Hour, amongst others), we still left out some awfully good stuff: A Single Man, The Breakfast Club, The Paper, Training Day, Adventures in Babysitting (don’t judge), Collateral, Friday, Rope, Duel, the Die Hard movies, etc. We’re not saying these films are necessarily better than those; these are just the ten that struck our fancy today. Check ‘em out after the jump.
Even movie characters have to get ready in the morning. Though our daily grooming routine is one of the most mundane activities we can think of, somehow other people’s adventures (and misadventures) in beautifying themselves are still kind of fascinating. Case in point: we recently came across this hilarious list of film’s 25 Greatest Male Grooming Moments over at Details, and we loved it so much that we decided the ladies needed some love too. While there aren’t as many blatantly ridiculous moments as in the guys’ list (apparently, movie beauty is not for the faint of heart), there are some great ones in the mix. Click through to see our list of great ladies’ grooming moments in film, and let us know which of your favorites we’ve missed in the comments!
Ah, the 1980s. They’ve got a pretty rotten musical reputation, and as far as film music goes, at least, it’s largely well deserved. This was the decade that soundtrack albums became big business – the decade when ultra-commercial songs from the likes of Footloose, St Elmo’s Fire, Top Gun, and Dirty Dancing were a constant fixture on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, and Kenny Loggins made a tidy living. But still, there was room for some genuinely innovative and interesting scores and soundtracks to be made – as we discover in the latest installment of Flavorpill’s soundtrack series.
Many films, TV shows, and books are set in real places, from Edith Wharton’s New York to Drew Carey’s Cleveland. Others take place in generic cities (Metropolis) or fake places you’d never want to visit (Sin City). But, reading Juliet Lapidos’s thoughtful analysis of Leslie Knope’s politics on Parks and Recreation at Slate, it occurred to us that there are a whole lot of fictional towns we’d love to visit — including Pawnee. Our top ten are after the jump.
People in movies have all the luck. They always tend to sleep in perfect, gorgeous bedrooms that expertly match their character. Not to mention, their rooms are perpetually in a state of perfect tidiness (or perfect disarray, as the case may be) and only include important artifacts – much unlike our own, which are filled with those pesky and non-picturesque accessories necessary to life, like checkbooks and gym clothes. On a lazy, pre-Easter Saturday like this one, we thought we’d tantalize all of those reading from their own personal bedchambers with our list of our 15 favorite movie bedrooms, from the glamorous to the bookish to the bizarre. You just might get inspired to redecorate. Or to rent Clueless. Either way.
Man, they don’t make movie trailers like they used to. If the original trailer for The Breakfast Club is any indication, back in the ’80s even high school clique dramedies got the Star Wars intro treatment, with starry skies and a deep, commanding voice echoing through your television screen. This clip is also charming, self-effacing and effective all at once — especially compared to today’s super sleek, oversaturated trailer clones. Click through to watch the original 1985 trailer for John Hughes’ perennial classic, The Breakfast Club. Trust us, it’s even better than you remember.
