Alright, Alright, Alright: A List Worth Looking Into

Alright, alright, alright. Somebody finally put together a very good list of the all-time top-10 high school movies (with two glaring omissions, which I'll get to below). It got all of the usual suspects (Dazed and Confused, Rebel Without A Cause, Fast Times at Ridgemont High), as well as a very big surprise in My Bodyguard , a movie I remember watching on cable as a kid and thought I was the only person who ever saw it and actually liked it. Of course, I also thought the guy who played the bodyguard (Adam Baldwin) was Vincent D'Onofrio, and that just made me more freaked out when I saw Full Metal Jacket for the first time.

But there are two movies I have no idea how they missed:

1. American Graffiti: I started reading the list from 10 down, and I figured that this one would certainly be ranked #1. It's NOWHERE ON THE LIST! How is this possible? I love Rushmore as much as anyone, but does that movie really exemplify how one felt in high school? Not like American Graffiti does. The premise is simple: It's the last day before Curt Henderson (Richard Dreyfuss) flies away to college. The rest of his friends know it's their last day of freedom too, and things will never be the same after Dreyfuss gets on that plane. No other film comes close to matching the last summer before going off to college like Graffiti. It's set in the early '60's, but it could have worked in any era. How this one isn't in the top 5 is inexcusable. There's no other way around it. Christ, the movie was nominated for Best Picture!
2. Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Like Graffiti, the entire movie is set in one day, only this time, it's during the school year, as our hero Ferris (Matthew Broderick at his finest) tries to play the ultimate game of hooky. Everyone knows the story, he gets his sad-sack loser of a friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) and super hot girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara, who I haven't seen in a movie since, which is a shame because she still looks gorgeous) to skip school on a picture perfect day in beautiful Chicago. I know John Hughes fans are raising their hands right now also nominating Sixteen Candles (an underrated movie that holds up incredibly well, despite the somewhat racist scenes with Long Duck Dong) and The Breakfast Club (also holds up well, but where else did people go to school to spend 8 hours on a SATURDAY for detention?). Bueller's the winner here, because everyone gets that itch their senior year where they want a day to thumb their nose at everyone and go out and play and be the envy of everyone else stuck in class.