TV on DVD: Two and a Half Men -- The Complete Sixth Season

Season 6 is Now Available to Own

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After being thoroughly impressed by the extraordinarily inventive scandalous wit utilized by the writers in the previous DVD set of America's number one smash TV comedy, I must say that I was initially dismayed by the lack of creativity evidenced at the start of the sixth season.

While fortunately it bounces back, unfortunately it doesn't manage to do so consistently until the middle of the set's second disc or approximately one half of the season's run with twelve's "Thank God For Scoliosis," which was a double-back on a previous episode as Alan (Jon Cryer) begins dating his receptionist whom Charlie (Charlie Sheen) of course had previously used and abused.

Yet despite this sign of more surefire comedic awkwardness to come as the men engage in multiple episode arcs with (gasp!) the same women and Charlie becomes engaged to the beautiful and kind Chelsea (Jennifer Taylor Bini), before "Scoliosis," there had only been one must-see via the ridiculously funny "It's Always Nazi Week" which was ironically the sixth episode of the sixth season that wouldn't be topped for six more episodes.

Helping to propel one of the season's biggest mysteries and comedic goldmines, in "Nazi Week," Alan and his ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle) briefly hook-up after she has a falling out with nerdy replacement husband Herb, played by the terrific Ryan Stiles from America's underrated take on UK's sketch comedy series Whose Line is It Anyway?

Needless to say, their old pet peeves along with fundamental down-to-their-core incompatibility soon take over which ends the couple's brief insecure mad dash for comfortable familiarity. However, when Judith is revealed to be pregnant six weeks later, their reunion is far from over as far as Alan's concerned. Yet since Judith and Herb had reconciled, Judith keeps her moment of insanity with Alan from Herb but it does little to keep Alan from trying to be a part of what very well could be his soon-to-be-born child's life.

While the familiarity of making whoopee isn't exchanged for the other kind of booties as in the land of Men, boom-boom always comes before babies, at the same time for fans who'd been growing weary of the same paradigm we'd seen previously, the show grows stronger with several plot-lines firmly in place.

Thus it endures after its odd start wherein the main problem seemed to be in the writing as it replaced the brilliance of its sexually charged hidden innuendo by fixating far too heavily on scatological humor wherein jokes about number two, the gasses emitted by Jake and the need of his father to use a special stool for stools became the most go-to source of humor.

Obviously "potty humor" as it was always called in my neck of the woods has never been foreign fodder for these Men but it was one of the many weapons housed in the show's successful arsenal of jokes and writers, comedy junkies, series enthusiasts, and the show's extremely hard working ensemble deserved much better than the series stooping that lazily low for laughs. I'm not sure if it's because they were spreading themselves too thin with the series mastermind Chuck Lorre's co-development and launch of the sweet and hilarious Big Bang Theory which will now play with the Men on Monday night's lineup in the most coveted time-slot on CBS.

Still, whatever the case may have been, once it makes its way past a few speed bumps, there are some priceless episodes to enjoy as Alan struggles internally about Judith's pregnancy but begins a romance that results in an acid trip with the girl's mother, Charlie grows serious about settling down, and Jake dates the girl next door whose ex-NFL star father is played by Michael Clarke Duncan. While guest stars including Alicia Witt, Sheen's brother Emilio Estevez and Duncan are introduced early on, it's Duncan who is given the best material when he returns for arguably one of the season's wittiest episodes following what we'd feared would be a one-time cameo.

Aside from the aforementioned titles, the other can't miss episodes include: "David Copperfield Slipped Me a Roofie" which saddles Alan with the worst fortieth birthday party in history (to our delight), "She'll Still Be Dead At Halftime" in which the trio has to get rid of a drunken, lingerie-clad, passed out blonde in Charlie's bed before his fiance returns, a Friends meets Sex and the City style dysfunctional bromance pity party in "The Two Finger Rule," and Alan's blind date with Melanie Lynskey's cutesy stalker Rose in "Above Exalted Cyclops."

Likewise, aside from a surprising turn at the end of the season that demands a DVR program for its comeback this month, by switching up the main duo's roles, we have new sources for laughs as Alan is the player of the season compared to Charlie and the Two rebounds from more of the same to new craziness as Charlie is put to the test taking care of Chelsea and Alan "text-blocks" Charlie when he becomes the quintessential gay best friend of Chelsea.

Sadly missing series favorite Lynskey in the interviews contained in the set's intriguing and hilarious featurette "The Women of Two and a Half Men" in which I realized the way that Conchata Ferrell's Berta has replaced Holland Taylor's mother Evelyn for Charlie, there's also an especially interesting portrait of Angus T. Jones and the way he's essentially come-of-age on television in the refreshingly earnest "Growing Up Harper" that presents us with not only the opposite of Jake but the opposite of a child actor stereotype.

Additionally containing the obligatory gag-reel that illustrates the way the actors cope with the tongue-twisting lines live in front of a studio audience and giggle fits (often even before the joke is uttered) which again makes you appreciate just how much more Cryer has to do in any given episode, the four-disc set from Warner Brothers thankfully includes a DVD episode-guide insert that lets you jump right to your favorites.

Uneven yet still more consistently funny than the crash-and-burn of NBC's The Office which has overstayed its welcome, by briefly showing us an alternate side of the Men as they slightly morph into one another and pick up atypical habits throughout season six, stale becomes fresh in a quality comeback for the perennial favorite network comedy.


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TV on DVD: Two and a Half Men -- The Complete Fifth Season

Season 5 is Now Available on DVD

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Far more sex-obsessed than Carrie Bradshaw and her three New York pals on HBO's Sex and the City and rivaling FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as the most politically incorrect show airing on a non-premium channel-- essentially creators Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn's Two and a Half Men is a network television version of a Kevin Smith movie.



However, while Smith left absolutely nothing to the imagination-- the impeccable writing on this smash success Emmy award-winning series manages to aim simultaneously for the highest of the highbrow and the lowest of lowbrow in humor by throwing out enough obvious below the belt references to the masses that they can get away with on CBS (aka the Hallmark Hall of Fame network who brought us Jag and Murder She Wrote). And admirably they do this while at the same time wickedly layering their dialogue with the most innuendo possible to make the humor far richer.

Definitely a show that isn't for everyone as just two minutes of the program can send people running in the other direction. However-- and just like the aforementioned shows in tandem with other personal favorites like the witty discomfort of Ricky Gervais in Extras and BBC's The Office and Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm-- as far as this reviewer is concerned, I simply marveled first in shock about the jokes being leveled at the audience in Everybody Loves Raymond's old 9pm Eastern/8pm Central Monday night time slot. Shock that was until I picked my jaw up off the floor and became dazzled as a writer by the writers' amazingly acerbic style.

While most sitcoms go for a sarcastic line followed by an obvious joke, Two and a Half Men pulls a fast one on audiences every single time by riffing, picking up threads from jokes thrown out carelessly two minutes earlier and manage to keep topping the previous joke even though the moment's long passed and a different conversation is well underway.



Although I'd seen a majority of the first season and a few episodes here and there when work or college didn't get in the way (and sadly this was before the era of widespread and affordable access to DVR and/or TiVo), I managed to get hooked right into the familiar premise in this Warner Brothers release of the complete fifth season.



Due to the writer's strike-- Two and a Half Men's season five was truncated from its usual length to a mere nineteen episodes as opposed to the traditional twenty-four or twenty-six that typically run annually for a comedic series. And while some shows struggled to find their footing once again when the writers returned, Two and Half Men never made a false step by adding some multi-episode story arcs.



In fact these additions were extremely helpful in augmenting the running gag of the part time wealthy musician and full time womanizer Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) who spends most of his time drinking at all hours of the day and parading in and out of his gorgeous Malibu beach side home women half his age whose IQs are probably right in alignment with their bra size.



Essentially taking an Odd Couple approach-- the show's set-up is simple as in the earliest season, Charlie took in his younger brother Alan (Jon Cryer) and Alan's son Jake (Angus T. Jones) following his divorce from the still controlling and now remarried Judith (Marin Hinkle). Yet although the arrangement was supposed to be temporary, the threesome remain sharing the same roof to amusing effect as-- whereas Charlie's life is all fleeting hedonistic spontaneous pleasure where women and good fortune never fail to fall into his lap-- the uptight, neat freak chiropractor Alan never manages to have one tenth of his brother's success.



Thrown into the mix are Alan's exceedingly dim son Jake (Angus T. Jones) who seems to have ruined his brain with cereal the way that his uncle Charlie has done with booze and Berta (Conchata Ferrell) as the guys' loud, always inappropriate but comically dynamite housekeeper.

And, offering a true glimpse into just how Alan and Charlie's development went so wrong-- the series' frequent scene stealer Holland Taylor routinely swings by as their old manipulative cougar mother who works in real estate by trading in dirty gossip and helping arrange divorces to boost business (once by amusingly pimping out a clueless Charlie). Taylor's bravery is commendable as she launches headfirst into the unlikable role of a woman who is in every sense an older female version of Charlie except in lieu of toxic bachelorhood, she'd been married nearly a half a dozen times.



One of the comedic bright spots who pops up only occasionally in the fifth season is Melanie Lynskey's delightful contradiction of a sweet smiling devil with an angelic face in her embodiment of Rose-- a former stalker and girlfriend of Charlie who despite moving to England (allegedly) still sneaks back into Charlie's life from time to time. This is used to great effect in one of the season's kookiest episodes that finds Charlie and Rose reenacting Rob Reiner's Misery except with yarn knitted scarves and strong European tranquilizers instead of brutal violence.

Featuring some nice twists that find Charlie first trying to take a cue from Alan and date a woman his age (i.e. a brainy judge played by Ming-Na), which only lasts a few episodes-- soon he becomes an overnight children's singing sensation Mr. Waffles who uses his new found popularity as a far less talented version of Raffi to ignore his hatred of children and troll for single moms a la Hugh Grant in About a Boy.

While admittedly it is a tad repetitive as overall, most of the humor derives from the brothers' polar opposite sex lives as Alan suffers through a relationship with a neurotic, self-loathing weeper (Janeane Garofalo) whereas the promiscuous sex-addict in denial Charlie begins a twisted flirtation and intermittent affair with Jenny McCarthy just before her father (James Brolin) marries their mother.



Still fortunately, it's to the credit of the writers once again of switching things up with nice curve balls to lead you around the bases to a home plate you were never guessing would be there in managing to lessen the potential "ick" factor with a sinister twist for McCarthy and Brolin's extended cameo work.



Aside from wishing there would be more opportunities to work in Jane Lynch as Sheen (and Cryer's) terrific psychoanalyst and noting that the show always benefits from the additions of Rose and their mother (particularly in one episode when Charlie is shocked to discover he enjoys hanging out with her), one major drain on the show's humorous energy comes via the dialogue scripted for the overwhelmingly dim-witted Jake. In fact, as the season continued, I realized I began to pity poor Angus T. Jones so much that you feel the "half" portion of the men would be left out of a few more episodes.



While the series has always been synonymous with Charlie Sheen and his payday is long said to be the highest of any network television actor, when I began watching the fifth season in quick succession while preparing this review, I began to realize just how talented and underrated Jon Cryer is in the role of Alan.

Cryer, who will always be known to me as Pretty in Pink's Duckie, brings so much to the table since without Alan as his foil-- the Charlie show or God forbid, the Charlie and Jake show-- would've only survived a single season as opposed to the recent announcement that Men has been renewed by CBS for an additional three full seasons.

Although on television in its regular run, the show just ended its sixth successful season as one of the most watched and highest rated popular sitcoms on network television (and in my eyes, one that far surpasses the channel's previous contenders The King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond)-- given some of the risks the writers took throughout this great slim-packaged fifth season set (which also contains the hundredth episode milestone mark) in trying to actively inspire change in the main characters, I'm hopeful that they'll have enough ideas to play with this more in the future.

Similarly, by showing their ambition for the men continue to grow (as much like Jake, it's only logical), I'm optimistic that-- instead of succumbing to the sad fate of so many long-running shows by remaining the same Odd Couple like types they were introduced as in the opening season-- they'll keep us laughing for a long, long time.

Blu-ray Review: Major League (1989) -- Wild Thing Edition

Now Available on Blu-ray

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Like a werewolf who only changes on the nights of a full moon, in the American remake of the formerly soccer-centric Colin Firth vehicle Fever Pitch (based on the book by Nick Hornby), Jimmy Fallon's character is a dependable math teacher for most of the calendar year, but goes into crazed fan mode every spring when his beloved Red Sox head down for spring training.

Setting the U.S. film during the year that the Red Sox finally stopped breaking Boston hearts and the curse of the Bambino by winning the World Series added a slice of authenticity to the fresh romantic comedy. However, while it was a trial to be a fan of the Sox, writer/director David S. Ward had it far worse in the 1980s as a dedicated devotee of his own struggling Cleveland Indians.



So instead of using Yankees toilet paper or going overboard a la Fallon's character, Ward decided that the only place he could make his dream of seeing his cherished team make its way to the championships was by sublimating that pain into comedic art in one of the most successful sports sub-genres of the 1980s with the All-American baseball movie.



However, while Ward's inspiration for the surprise '89 hit Major League came from a sincere place in his heart, he wasn't about to abandon all logic and reality so he dreamed up a dynamite hook wherein his baseball movie takes a stronger cue from Mel Brooks' The Producers rather than Ron Shelton's Bull Durham in delivering us an entire ragtag group of Bad News Bears style hooligans that would never have been let onto the fictitious Field of Dreams.

A cult favorite that's picked up considerable momentum since it's release, although the film earned roughly four times its budget at the box office and spawned two sequels, amazingly it's a title that I couldn't quite recall. While parts of the work seemed familiar such as the unmistakable Charlie Sheen zig-zag hair cut, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to check it out in Blu-ray form twenty years after its release from Paramount Home Entertainment. Likewise, I agreed that-- similar to the sentiments expressed by the cast included in the interviews on the Wild Thing Edition-- it has held up considerably well these past twenty years so much so in fact that some of the aspects of the film have seeped into America's pastime such as the introduction of pitchers or star players who take the field with their own theme music usually in the form of a rock anthem or instantly recognizable track.



And in Major League, the man who does this to great effect near the conclusion of the picture is Charlie Sheen's naturally gifted yet loose cannon pitcher Rick Vaughn. Regularly hurling balls at speeds well over ninety miles an hour-- the formerly incarcerated “wild thing” of a pitcher who finally finds control in his aim by way of the right pair of eyeglasses, has since become a character you remember more as the “Wild Thing” referenced in his introduction walk-to-the-mound music than for his actual name. And of course, being that the film was made just after Sheen's success in Platoon and Wall Street as he began a rise to super-stardom-- knowing what we now know about the wild side of Sheen-- it's only fitting that he played the man so many years ago.

Intriguingly in the film, he's cast opposite his Platoon co-star Tom Berenger in a refreshing change of pace that gave the men who genuinely enjoyed one another's company to play friends instead of rivals at war. Rounding out the roster, Ward proved a knack for identifying talent early in casting some actors in either their earliest roles or completely against type as he gave the beautiful, successful model Rene Russo her first acting job as Berenger's ex he's still hung up on, L.A. Law's Corbin Bernsen getting a chance to play funny as a baseball diva much more interested in the business than the game, superstitious voodoo practicing player Cerrano (24's Dennis Haysbert), and a hilarious turn by the over-eager Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes) who shows up for spring training even though he wasn't invited.

The masterful casting of a diverse group adds considerable charm to the hilarious premise which finds the widowed showgirl wife of the former owner of the Cleveland Indians (Margaret Whitton) who-- sick of the cold weather of Cleveland-- decides to exploit a clause in the contract that would allow her to move the entire team if the attendance plummets and they finish dead last. Setting her sights on relocating to sunny Miami, Whitton's manipulative Rachel Phelps puts her plan for guaranteed failure into action by recruiting a tire salesman to manage the team (James Gammon) and creating a list of players she assumes will be the worst lineup imaginable such as the imprisoned Vaughn, former talented catcher Berenger who's way past his prime, and more assorted oddballs that come out of the woodwork in this offbeat work.



Although Ward's knowledge and passion for the game is commendable and indeed, if you explore the copious bonus features on the Blu-ray, you'll appreciate the way he modeled some characters on either real players or composites of several and put all the actors into an intensive baseball camp-- part of the reason it managed to hit way out of the park of merely another underdog sports movie is because it's never merely a baseball film. Instead, in essence, it's one of those great band of outsiders comedies about the strangest of human beings coming together. And in this regard and by trying to always emphasize character driven humor and an ensemble seemingly improvised spirit at times-- Ward managed to ensure he'd provide something for everybody in a movie.



While certainly, Major League can be slapped with the same charge as most sports films that it's predictable since you know precisely that the Cleveland Indians will soon begin to win more than they lose ratcheting up the conflict and increasing what's at stake for everyone but the way he gets from Point A to Point B is what makes the movie incredibly fun and still surprisingly effective to this day.



Although there's a strong homage to “types” of players and actual personalities throughout the film that would make the film play far better to those in the know including athletes currently working in the majors and minors of Cleveland baseball (as we witness in another extra), Ward's creativity helps make some of the very real issues surrounding ball players like rivalry, superstition, and girls on the road feel a bit more fresh.



And admittedly initially, I was consumed with a comparison to The Producers despite the fact that structurally and thematically they're very different, I was intrigued to learn upon further research that-- way before the fixing of the 1919 World series-- there was one recorded attempt in 1899 by Frank Robinson, the owner of the (then) Cleveland Spiders to compile the worst roster he could create in revenge against the fans of the city for failing to turn up for games.

While the fans of Cleveland were finally given hope first fictitiously by Ward and then in reality during some success in the '90s, the Blu-ray edition of the disc makes for an impressive transfer of the film to high definition wherein the sound takes center stage (it is the Wild Thing Edition after all) in place of some of the softness of the colors but it's cleaned up nicely with added clarity, a warm and inviting depth perception that considerably augments the scenes on the field.

Despite this, fans who already own this particular edition or another of the film on DVD may want to evaluate whether or not the upgrade is worth the price tag depending on how many features they desire-- the extras are well worth investigating, so for those who are new to Major League, you may want to go ahead and just jump right into this format to witness it in the best possible presentation (which flatters any set-up with English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD or the original mono soundtrack) and start catching the spring fever since it's baseball season after all.

Blu-ray Review: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) -- Bueller...Bueller...Edition

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As Matthew Broderick's Ferris Bueller said in 1986-- he asked for a car and he got a computer. And for those of us who've been following his adventurous Day Off from the very beginning as it moved from format to format going from film to VHS to DVD-- finally like Ferris who became a wizard with said computer-- the technology geek in us can rejoice since he's made his way to Blu-ray.

While--like Ferris who still longed for a set of wheels (before, of course, fast-talking his neurotic friend Cameron into “borrowing” his father's Ferrari above)-- those of us who already owned the DVD in Paramount's previous Bueller...Bueller...Edition will be a bit disappointed that none of the extras have been upgraded to high definition. Likewise, it doesn't boast any new material that we didn't already have in the Bueller disc but aside from this, a main minus for me is that neither this edition nor its twin brother on DVD offered the reclusive John Hughes commentary track that had been available in its earlier DVD release.

Instead of listening to the man who defined not only the pop culture of my youth but arguably our entire generation, we're stuck with old footage of Hughes circa 1986-- often wearing sunglasses and seldom very revealing-- as we find ourselves once again wistfully wondering just what exactly happened to the man who still writes but hasn't been seen or photographed in public for ages. In short, he's basically the cinematic equivalent of J.D. Salinger... except Ferris Bueller was nothing like Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield.

Essentially the embodiment of joy-- Ferris epitomizes that invulnerable feeling of being seventeen and believing that anything is within his grasp. And moreover, the great thing about his Day Off after he tricks his caring but clueless parents (Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward and who actually married after filming) into "letting him stay home" from school is he has this magical way of achieving whatever lofty goal he imagines.

A motivational speaker without the tacky gimmicks, Ferris is always successful-- whether it's securing that Ferrari, lip-syncing in a German-American annual Chicago parade to showstopping numbers including “Twist and Shout,” catching a ball at Wrigley Field, or perhaps most impressively and with the aid of Cameron-- coming up with a “believable” dead grandmother hoax to ensure that his lovely, elegant girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara) could be excused from school as well.

While it would have been easy to play Ferris as self-satisfied, cocky, or smug as the casting directors note-- likewise pointing out that other than Matthew Broderick one of the only other actors who sprang to mind as someone capable of walking this line from the start was John Cusack-- Broderick manages to make him instantly lovable.

No doubt bolstered by his Broadway background where he'd been starring in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues opposite Alan Ruck who would be cast as Cameron (making their friendship on film ring with authenticity), his triumphant Golden Globe nominated turn is elevated via his stage-like ability to break down the fourth wall.

Showing his great range and natural charisma-- Broderick manages to sell the hardest scenes in the work that go against traditional film set-ups of "ignoring the camera" by staring directly at it via several direct-to-audience monologues that invite us in to share the joke, be part of his ruse, and therefore make us feel that we have as much at stake as he does.

Therefore, instead of just thinking he's a privileged jerk, we're invested and feel equally daring as he risks being caught by the ridiculously persistent Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones). Taking Ferris' absence personally and only falling for the trap of releasing Sloane in an elaborate hoax of epic proportions involving numerous answering machines and Alan Ruck's killer impression of her father (helping instill in Cameron the confidence that Ferris tries to the entire time), Rooney takes the day off from work as well.

Although, whereas Ferris manages to live a near lifetime in a day of bliss, high-culture and fun, Rooney gets triple-kicked in the face, his car towed, stoops to more embarrassment and illegal activity and always-- predictably like Wile E. Coyote with Road Runner-- comes desperately close to catching the bold youth only for him to slip through his fingers each and every time.

Of course, he isn't alone in his anger-- Ferris' enraged twin sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey)-- tired of being the mistreated black-sheep of the family and always coming in second place to her Ferris worshiping parents finally ditches the school grounds herself, hoping to confirm the fact that he's faking firsthand and rat him out a.s.a.p. for the manipulative liar that he is.

And typical for the work of writer/director John Hughes-- while the adults and especially the authority figures are often times cartoonish and overly broad-- he always cuts right into the psyche of the American teenager or more specifically, usually those who are lower to middle class and especially outsiders as popular kids who are rich are typically the villains, save for the sole case of Ferris.

While as a child, it was easy to label Jeanie as a kill-joy or a jerk-- as an adult, it becomes far more apparent just how unequal the balance between the siblings was in that fictitious Illinois household. And indeed, while some would argue she got the better half of the bargain with the car verses the computer-- in a way, her parents gave her a vehicle to get the hell out of their sight whereas for the baby boy they coddle and still converse with in baby talk-- they gave him something guaranteed to keep him more indoors for all the good that does.

It's ironic plot devices and seemingly throwaway inconsequential lines such as this that completely flew over my head as a child. And this time around, really analyzing it more than two decades later I could still truly feel her pain and greatly admired the way that Hughes allows her a few great moments of glory to cut down what could've easily been Jeanie's bitchy exterior that instead adds to her three-dimensionality.

This is equally evident first and foremost in the delicious scene opposite Charlie Sheen at the police department when she flirts with the impossibly young star she'd brought to the attention of Hughes--having worked opposite him in his debut in Red Dawn. And secondly, inevitably it's a nice payoff when she becomes the one to save the day for Ferris in a generous act that displays that her brother wasn't the only one who received the great ability to think quickly on their feet in their shared gene pool.

While the conclusion in the rivalry between the siblings seems a bit too easily concluded (admittedly one of the filmmakers' Achilles heels is extraordinarily complicated situations that are quickly banished with fast fixes such as in his other masterworks like Planes, Trains and Automobiles and The Breakfast Club), but the one character who still troubles me to this day is Alan Ruck's Cameron.

While Ferris only pretends to be ill to enable him the freedom to go experience life-- Cameron's actual home life is so miserable with an overbearing father that he actually prefers to be ill. Although Ferris is convinced it's all psychosomatic and just in his uptight friend's head-- after Cameron suffers an extreme panic attack, becomes catatonic, and then makes a suicidal gesture in a sequence that feels like it goes on a little too long for comfort in changing the tone of the film to one of melancholy-- we're left deeply saddened by the contrast between the easygoing lifestyle of Ferris for whom everything seems to happen in a happy-go-lucky fashion (despite all the planning involved), when we glimpse him side-by-side with Cameron.

And despite his Breakfast Club style speech that he will stand up to his father-- we're not entirely convinced that he's going to be okay or this will be the ultimate fix for his major problems that dangle just below the surface from the beginning of the work once the final credits roll.

And indeed, Hughes has never one to shy away from taboo topics from suicide to domestic abuse to homelessness to bullying to class warfare even in what on the surface appear to be lighthearted comedies like Curly Sue or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Furthermore, although Hughes' oeuvre has been ridiculed and/or shortchanged by critics, scholars, and film fans as just simply consisting of teen comedies-- when you view a few of his works back to back-- you begin to realize there's some worthwhile messages being laced throughout the seemingly silly universes where adults and snobs are always outsmarted by precocious kids.

A strong sense of blue-collar pride pervades his films from scripts like Mr. Mom to Pretty in Pink as well as his uncanny ability to tap right into what it means to be a child of the baby-boomers by analyzing how much things have both changed and stayed the same (to the benefit of both teens and parents alike).

In my opinion, John Hughes is that rare breed of deeply underrated filmmaker whose work manages to transcend demographics as I honestly feel I spent the better part of my youth watching the works of John Hughes and always marvel when I catch one today and see the way that positivity, true heart, warmth, and the desire to be true to yourself, be just, be fair, and be considerate of others weaves its way throughout each and every one.

While today there are countless studies illustrating the detrimental effects that entertainment can have on the young from desensitizing them or leading to violence-- I feel incredibly fortunate that I came of age in an era where the entertainment as offered up by Mr. Hughes helped shape who I am in the most positive of ways, opening up an ongoing dialogue both with my parents and my peers, and above all leading me into studying film with a keen humanistic eye.

As, once we're faced with the humanity of the films of Hughes-- we realize just how much it's missing today in popular culture, therefore it's no wonder that when a few films manage to break through the mold of dumbed down expectations-- whether it's Almost Famous, Juno, Mean Girls or Clueless-- we latch onto them immediately.

Likewise, despite the fact that while as an adolescent, I simply soaked up the euphoric sense offered by Ferris and repeated every line by heart, I'm now slightly preoccupied with analyzing the psychology involved and how it fits in with the rest of the films of Hughes.

Additionally, I'm amazed by the way that a film which on the surface seems to be entirely all about joy manages to balance that out with some authentic pain (even if a few shortcuts are taken in their resolution to ensure it stays on track plot-wise) and felt it was a definite treat indeed to see the film in the highest definition possible.

With enhanced depth perception and sharper clarity to further showcase-- as Broderick notes in just one of many excellent special features-- what a great job was done in the way the film was edited together, the picture is improved considerably. While the Chicago scenes were always quite impressive to begin with, now you're struck by the better contrast between the softer, muted colors of the school sets as observed in the sequence with the hysterical Ben Stein and the bright Kristy Swanson whose character Simone now nearly pops off the screen like another girl's bubble gum.

And staying true to the source material by ensuring that we can now hear every single effect from the video game noise that indicates a failure by Rooney etc., the sound as a whole is especially heightened. Providing a fine balance between the music on the soundtrack with that of the dialogue which has been a problem on some of the Blu-ray transfers of older work-- you're also able to go as retro as you'd like in your selection on the audio menu from mono to 2.0 to 5.1 Dolby True HD.

Although I'd normally say avoid the extras until after you've caught the film to avoid spoilers-- for die hard fans, they make a worthwhile place to begin the Blu-ray as you're let in on some great discussions of ad-libs, improvised lines, and changes that only enrich the viewing experience of a film we've come to love on each and every format since its theatrical release in '86.

2021 Update: Paramount has rereleased the film to celebrate its 35th anniversary as a collectible Steelbook (alongside new editions of Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink in the same format). While the new edition of Ferris contains all of the same special features included in this one, it does now boast a free digital copy of the film as well.