by E.J. Lambda

Created on: February 03, 2009

John Hughes is a liar! LIAR, LIAR, LIAR! I remember high school! I remember detention! Detention is where you were supposed to sit and think about the "crimes" that landed you in detention but just ended up with DIO and OZZY logos all over your Peachee folder. And nowhere in sight was there any Prada-ridden Molly Ringwalds, Be-tank topped Emilio Estevezy jocks, skinny, flare-gun toting nerds that looked like Rusty Griswold, and there certainly weren't any 35 year old Judd Nelsony stoners with cavernous nostrils to brighten our day.

I'm not saying we didn't have 35 year old looking stoners, we just didn't have any stoners with nostrils the size of gopher holes to spew their self-hating venom at us. We did however have a plethora of black garbed, psychotic, Ally Sheedy types. Hell, one of them once gave me a leaf covered in moisturizing lotion as a gift- but that's another nightmare-inducing story best saved for another time.

We start this film with all the high school "kids" arriving to detention early on a Saturday morning. All of them except for John Bender (Judd Nelson) are driven by quite obviously and righteously disappointed parents. It's not that Benders parents aren't disappointed...they just didn't care to drive him. They probably figured that since he was 35 he could drive himself. Or they figured that his huge moon-boots, nostrils, and forty layers of stoner clothes wouldn't fit in the El Camino.
All the "kids" find their seats in the school library where Bender promptly removes his Archie Bunker-esque overcoat and puts his enormous boots on the table for all to admire. Now it may just be me but this "John Bender" was not the typical high school stoner. He's a John Hughes stoner. Real stoners didn't wear Archie Bunker overcoats. They wore faded Levi jackets with 'Metallica' or "Megadeth" written in blue Bic pen on the back regardless of how cold it was! They were too metal to worry about the temperature. And chances are they wrote it in detention! Their names weren't John! They were either 'Tony, Vince, Ronnie, or Mick'! No exceptions!

Principal Vernon comes in, fresh from a raid on Barry Manilows wardrobe, and lets the "kids" know, in no uncertain terms, there will be no gamboling, horseplay, rough-housing, frolicking, knavery, rabble-rousing, tomfoolery, brouhaha-ing, hububbery, and definitely NO SLEEPING while in detention! He demands a thousand word essay from each of the students detailing why they're there in detention then threatens that

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