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EW Review: Charming 'Ferris Bueller'Also: Ribald 'Wedding Crashers,' pimpin' 'Hustle'By Jeff Labrecque ![]() YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(Entertainment Weekly) -- It's the rare film that charms both Kurt Cobain and Dan Quayle, but like Ferris Bueller himself -- who was popular with sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, and d---heads alike -- director John Hughes' "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" appealed to just about everyone. "I don't know if there's ever been a happier movie," says Ben Stein, who plays Bueller's droning teacher. "It's a movie that you cannot watch without feeling really, really great." Twenty years later, Ferris is still a righteous dude. Matthew Broderick, who lately is better known as the anti-Ferris -- "The Producers' " Leo Bloom -- instilled a potentially obnoxious character with the perfect mix of sweetness and chutzpah. At the time, Broderick, fresh from performing in "Biloxi Blues" on Broadway, was concerned about repeating himself. "It was another character who talked to the audience," the actor says on the Sausage King-worthy retrospective "Getting the Class Together." "I thought, Oh, wow, is this going to be what I do now?" Broderick eventually branched out, of course, while Stein built a career on "Bueller? ... Bueller? ... Bueller?" In the earnestly philosophical "World According to Ben Stein," one of five bonus docs, the Yale Law grad and former White House staffer compares Ferris to Jesus Christ and gushes, "Ferris is who I want to be when I grow up." And in "The Making of Ferris Bueller's Day Off," he refers to Hughes as an "extraordinary genius." Sadly, said genius is AWOL here. The teen-movie maestro, who hasn't been behind the camera in 15 years, appears only in dated (check the mullet) footage, and his commentary from the 1999 DVD is missing too. Hughes? ... Hughes? ... Hughes? EW Grade: A- 'Wedding Crashers'Reviewed by Ty Burr The one fair criticism leveled at the deliriously ribald "Wedding Crashers" is that it just didn't know when to quit -- that overlong montage to the Isley Brothers' "Shout," a protracted third act -- so an "uncorked" edition that passes the two-hour mark might be too much of a good thing. The seven new scenes have a pretty high batting average, though, and the best (Vince Vaughn running into a former conquest at a wedding; Vaughn having an unwelcome assignation with Grandma; Vaughn discussing self-pleasure with the right reverend Henry Gibson) add to "Wedding Crashers' " ramshackle good vibe. Note that all of those moments involve Vince Vaughn rather than Owen Wilson; note that this is not a coincidence. EXTRAS The regular R-rated theatrical cut is here, as well as four deleted scenes with commentary, a soundtrack listing that links to selected scenes in the film, and 24 on-screen pages of "Rules of Wedding Crashing." ("The unmarried female rabbi -- is she fair game? Of course she is.") Of the two commentary tracks, the one with Vaughn and Wilson is amusing, smug, and disposable. Director David Dobkin, by contrast, turns out to be a regular Chatty Cathy, and his insights are alternately spot-on (he calls the film "a coming-of-age story for 35-year-old men") and sweetly pompous ("I love complex tonalities in a movie"). EW Grade: B+ 'Hustle & Flow'Reviewed by Kirven Blount Pimps have been clownified (a la Huggy Bear) or lionized (see Ice-T, Jay-Z, etc.) for so long, they're not even a good Halloween costume anymore. So it's refreshing to watch Terence Howard's simmering performance in "Hustle & Flow," wherein he presents pimp/hip-hop hopeful DJay as frustrated and bored by the sex trade. Though writer-director Craig Brewer veers here and there into overly scripted, crowd-pleasing moments (like when one of DJay's ho's finds meaning when asked to provide backup vocals), he manages to make a human out of 50 Cent. EXTRAS A reason to be even more impressed by Howard's transformation: A "Behind the Hustle" featurette outs him as a Kenny Rogers fan in real life. Brewer says in his commentary that he was looking to undercut the "pageantry of a pimp" and cites William Eggleston, Antonioni, "Rocky," "Amadeus," "Purple Rain," and "Taxi Driver" as influences (plus, they're all good pimp names). EW Grade: B+ Click Here
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