We record episode 3 of our podcast this week, taking a look at three back to school films—“Mean Girls,” “The Edge of Seventeen,” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Mark Ziobro from The Movie Buff is joined once again by Daniel Prinn as they compare and contrast the movies, talk about the films’ humor, performances, and break down their favorite scenes.
What makes these three films stand apart from more raunchy counterparts is they examine teen life from the point of view of sympathetic characters whose problems have real weight, and who aren’t used as caricatures. While John Hughes is renowned for this ability, with “Mean Girls” (the script written by Tina Fey) and “The Edge of Seventeen” (written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig), we see a Hughes spirit, in which the emotions and depth of the characters are treated as deferentially as adults. The results are pictures that transcend the teen audience that may have been their intention.
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*Sources: Audio clip courtesy of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” (1986), directed by John Hughes, distributed by Paramount Pictures.
