Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Every Teen Should Watch This

Before watching this movie, I saw the Super Bowl commercial featuring Matthew Broderick skipping out from his travel agent. I personally didn't get the joke, but my parents did and suggested that I watch the movie from their childhood.

It was pretty cool. One of my favorite movies.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off tells the story of Ferris Bueller, played by Matthew Broderick, a young boy in his senior year of high school who decides to fake his sickness in order to skip school with his buddies Cameron Frye, played by Alan Ruck, and Sloane Peterson, played by Mia Sara. Together they have fun in the city of Chicago, free from responsibility and school.

I felt like each character was there for a reason as opposed to a lot of the other teen movies that I see. Ferris Bueller, the protagonist, becomes this inspiring and witty teen who convinces people that life should be lived to its fullest because life goes by fast, as he says in his quote, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

The thing about this is that you don't really know the characters until Ferris explains them to you. Of course, we can already get a feel for who the characters are based on how they act in their various situations. However, Ferris gives a clear cut image of who that person is and explains their situation in very direct and vivid detail.

Whether it is Cameron, who suffers from a dysfunction life in his family, or Sloane, who feels sad that Ferris will be gone off to college while she has to stay behind the gates of school, Ferris does a great job establishing pathos within us for each and every character.

We root on Ferris as he goes through the city with his best friend and his girlfriend. We see that the entire city encourages the well-being of Ferris, often times leaving flowers for Ferris on the Bueller's doorstep and even leaving phone calls.

I guess the big take away from this movie would be this idea of living in the moment. No matter how cheesy it is, I feel that this movie does a good job of sticking to the moment rather than worrying about the consequences all the time.

I give this movie a 5/5.

Kick-Ass 2 - Ahh! Violence = Wow.

Before watching this movie, of course I watched the first Kick-Ass. That was pretty nuts.

Just as much intensity. I think both are pretty fun movies.

Kick-Ass 2 tells the story of David Lizewski/Kick-Ass, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a teenage boy who gets caught up in the crazy life of superheroes alongside Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl, played by Chloe Grace Moretz. While David wants to look for a sort of alliance among superheroes, Mindy wishes to live an ordinary life as a high school teen.

The opening scene features Mindy back at it with David, shooting him down, testing a bulletproof vest in the same fashion that Big Daddy, played by Nicholas Cage in the first film, did with Mindy. Of course, this is when we all get excited that the duo is back in the superhero business, with multiple training techniques and such.

The one thing I didn't like is how they dropped the whole story-line with David and his girlfriend, but hey I did like how they picked up other possible love interests for David to tackle on. Miranda Swedlow/Night-Bitch, played by Lindy Booth, was an interesting love interest.

Of course, the one thing that I didn't like was that David's friends had to be involved with the whole hero frenzy, but I guess I kind of accepted that as well.

I liked all the new superheroes like Doctor Gravity, played by Donald Faison, and Colonel Stars and Stripes, played by Jim Carrey. I was expecting more of a leadership conflict between Colonel Stars and Stripes and Kick-Ass, but I felt like the story-line was alright enough.

The good thing that this movie had that the first movie didn't was more of an emotional tie to characters. I felt like the characters in the first film were really solid in a lot of parts while this movie made you feel like the characters were real in a sense: more human.

The action was great. The actors are awesome. It was just as explosive as the first Kick-Ass was. The humor was on point. I was expecting it to be worse, but it turned out pretty good.

I give this movie a 4/5.

The New Guy - Cliched High School Movie

I learned about this movie through Netflix since I watched the movie 21 & Over. The New Guy was suggested as another movie to watch, and I though sure, why not?

Eh. It was okay.

The New Guy tells the story of Dizzy Harrison, played by DJ Qualls, a loser in high school alongside his friends. When Dizzy gets wrapped up in prison, he meets Luther, played by Eddie Griffin, a convict who's discovered that moving to a new place gets people the chance to start over. Luther decides to train Dizzy Harrison to become the "new guy": Gil Harris. 

For a teen, I can imagine the comedy that would arouse from such a movie. The movie is pretty funny considering some parts. I'd imagine the same kind of comedy with something roaming around YouTube; I see a bit more of the YouTube actors acting in this sort of sketch. It's funny, but it just doesn't seem funny enough to apply to a wider audience. 

Dizzy undergoes this transformation from loser to the best guy in an interesting way. There are issues that pop up here and there about how he would integrate his old geeky friends into the system he's created, how things would work out for Dizzy once his past catches up with him. I think that the movie did a great job keeping us entertained and lively.

In the opening scene, Luther is seen sitting down and talking to the audience about his transformation of Dizzy and the story behind it. I liked the idea of Luther telling us what happened so that we can get inspiration to be ourselves and what not. 

I feel that the plot made it too good for Dizzy Harrison and let him off the hook many times in a row. I feel like the movie could have been more realistic in that sense. Bouncing off of realistic senses, I feel that how the girls acted with Dizzy Harrison seemed a bit too much of a stretch. Even though Dizzy becomes this mysterious new guy that no one knows about, I feel like the women should have gotten something else out of Dizzy based on the way he acted and his looks. 

Also, I can name many a movie where the character faces things like Dizzy does in this movie. This is your typical movie where the teen hero rises from nothing and has a happy ending. Honestly, this is not a movie that I think people absolutely NEED to watch. 

Overall, the movie was okay though. 

I give this movie a 3/5.