I have never been the world's biggest fan of this movie, but I have friends who worship it. I didn't hate Bueller, it just never lit me up like a Christmas tree at the mere mention of it. I've come around on it, mostly because most teen comedies have nothing to do with fun anymore. Most of them aren't even comedies.
Similar to the other two catalog releases from Paramount last week, Ferris Bueller's Day Off has jumped to Blu-ray, carrying over the supplements of the Bueller...Bueller Edition that hit DVD in 2006. The movie itself looks and sounds better than it ever has, which should be the bare minimum expected. What has impressed me most with the catalog titles is that they haven't overdone the DNR or edge enhancement as far as I can tell. There's an appropriate amount of grain in the picture such that it isn't too clean.
The featurettes total a couple minutes over an hour. Getting the Class Together: The Cast of Ferris Bueller's Day Off [SD 27:45] is the longest title I think I've ever seen on a featurette. Nice little piece that breezes by. The Making of Ferris Bueller's Day Off [SD 15:30] is ok as well, but I'd like to have had it incorporated with the aforementioned piece in addition to Who is Ferris Bueller [SD 9:10] and The World According to Ben Stein [SD 10:50] with Vintage Ferris Bueller: The Lost Tapes [SD 10:14] as a button in a Play All-style feature doc. Maybe I'm just lazy.
'Who is' explores the character, though I don't know how deep he really is. The 'Ben Stein' bit is probably my favorite of the bunch, setting aside his association with that ridiculous Expelled documentary and continued affection for Nixon (Stein wrote the oft-misquoted resignation speech). The 'Vintage' bit is mostly Alan Ruck & Matthew Broderick screwing around during on-set promo work for the film and ranks second favorite of the bunch.
I don't expect there to be a more definitive version of this title, and I don't think we need one. The SD extras didn't auto-switch to 4:3 (the ratio they were made to fit) on my monitor, and even though it could be my player, I doubt it. Ironic that so many of us fought so long for Anamorphic widescreen transfers on DVD only to now see the age of reverse pan & scan begin. We have old ported extras that are auto-stretched to fit our pretty flatscreens. I'll push three buttons to have the pleasure of the picture and sound upgrade on display.
click on the box art to order from Amazon.
a portion of the purchase goes toward supporting this column.