Tagged: Matthew Broderick
Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller
Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Vitals
Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller, clever and charismatic high school senior and righteous dude
Chicago, Spring 1986
Film: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Release Date: June 11, 1986
Director: John Hughes
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Bueller… Bueller…
Forty years ago today, audiences first joined Matthew Broderick’s charming truant on an elaborate jaunt through Chicago when Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released on June 11, 1986. Writer and director John Hughes completed his screenplay in less than a week, always with Broderick in mind to play the charming titular truant who was reportedly based on one of his own childhood acquaintances.
With just about two months until his high school graduation, 17-year-old Ferris Bueller wakes up to the forecast of a warm spring day. How could he possibly be expected to handle school on a day like that? Licking his palms to fake clammy hands that fool his parents, Ferris takes his ninth sick day of the semester—arousing the suspicions of Dean of Students Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), who isn’t about to let some snot-nosed punk leave his cheese out in the wind.
After setting up a complex system of safeguards designed to satiate his parents, school staff, and even fellow students, Ferris recruits his hypochondriac best friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) from his own sick day and liberates his girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) under the guise of a fictional grandmother’s death. At the wheel of Cameron’s dad’s prized Ferrari, Ferris speeds the trio into the Windy City for an unforgettable—if unbelievably packed—day:
The question isn’t “what are we going to do,” the question is “what aren‘t we going to do?”
Glory: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw’s Union Army Uniform
Matthew Broderick as Col. Robert Gould Shaw in Glory (1989)
Vitals
Matthew Broderick as Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army officer
Civil War-era America, Fall 1862 through Summer 1863
Film: Glory
Release Date: December 15, 1989
Director: Edward Zwick
Costume Designer: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Memorial Day honors military personnel of the United States Armed Forces who died during their service. The Department of Veterans Affairs credits the holiday’s origins with Mary Ann Williams, who was widowed during the American Civil War, and the resulting holiday was known as “Decoration Day” when it was first proclaimed by Major General John A. Logan on May 30, 1868. Logan originally intended the holiday to honor Union soldiers and officers who had died during the Civil War, but the scope expanded to recognize all members of the U.S. military who had fought and died in service. On the 100th year of the observance in 1968, Congress standardized the timing to align with the last Monday in May.
Last spring, my wife and I traveled the nearly 200 miles east to Gettysburg—my first time visiting the historic city and battlefield since I was a child—which reinvigorated my interest in this destructive period in history. Combined with the origins of Memorial Day following the devastation of the Civil War, it feels appropriate to honor the true story at the heart of Glory, Edward Zwick’s Oscar-winning drama about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment—one of the first Black regiments organized by the Union Army.
Glory follows the regiment’s real-life commanding officer, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick), from his service during the bloody Battle of Antietam in September 1862 through his assignment to lead the 54th and leading the regiment into battle against the considerable Confederate defenses of Charleston Harbor, culminating with the 54th’s heavy losses during the culminating Second Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Born to an abolitionist Bostonian family, the 26-year-old Shaw increasingly supports equal treatment and pay for the troops under his command.
The real Col. Robert Gould Shaw (1837-1863) and his screen counterpart, portrayed by Matthew Broderick in Glory.
You must be logged in to post a comment.