Platoon

Platoon takes us through a tour of the Vietnam War through the eyes of the fresh and idealistic young volunteer Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen). We follow Taylor from his first day in Nam to his final battle accompanied by voice-over which expresses his thoughts, worries and ideas. The film appears to accurately portray the day-to-day life of a soldier in the jungle and promotes the views of the monotonous nature of infantry warfare which is punctuated by moments of extreme violence. Platoon creates an environment for its cast whereby the characters fear not only the Vietcong and jungle but also each other as tensions and rivalries run high and suspicion spreads like wildfire. Personally I think it is one of the finest war movies ever made and it went on to win four Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture at the 59th Academy Awards.  

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it"

High School senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) decides he doesn’t want to go to school so tricks his parents into believing he’s ill. Having a day off, Ferris persuades his hypochondriac friend Cameron (Alan Ruck) to join him in downtown Chicago for the day and the two of them pick up Ferris’ girlfriend Sloane (Mia Sara) on the way in Cameron’s dad’s ‘borrowed’ Ferrari. Hot on the tails of Ferris and his friends are Dean of Students (Jeffrey Jones) and Ferris’ sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey) who is angry that Ferris keeps getting away with skipping school.

Ferris Bueller is one of those films which when I tell people I haven’t seen they look at me like I’ve just called their grandmother a whore. It seems to be one of those film which a lot of people absolutely adore and now I’ve seen it I agree with them that it’s very good but I wasn’t enamoured with it as much as many people are.