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'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Placed On Prestigious National Film Registry

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- When Richard Roeper was chosen to join his legendary Sun-Times colleague Roger Ebert on Ebert's syndicated movie show, Roeper was asked by the paper's executive news editor to name his 10 best all-time movies.

That list, along with news of Roeper's selection, appeared on the front page of the paper the next day.

One of those movies seemed a bit peculiar at the time: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" directed by the late John Hughes.

The veteran columnist, and now upstart movie critic, took some flak for that pick at the time.

The film is hardly "Citizen Kane."

Perhaps Mr. Roeper can enjoy some vindication today, as "Bueller" was chosen as one of the 25 movies being inducted this year into the National Film Registry for long-term preservation, the Library of Congress announced Wednesday.

The Library of Congress runs a major film preservation effort at its audio-visual conservation center built inside a Cold War-era bunker in Culpeper, Virginia. With this year's additions, the National Film Registry now includes 650 films — a small part of the library's motion picture collection, which contains 1.3 million items, according to the AP.

Filmed in Chicago, the movie followed the crazy adventures of Ferris and his pals on a day they skipped school

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" released in 1986 was chosen as the first film on the registry from Hughes. Curators noted Ferris Bueller emerged as one of the great teen heroes of film, the Associated Press reported.

To acknowledge the honor, here are some of the great Buellerisms:

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

The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh... you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.

The question isn't "what are we going to do," the question is "what aren't we going to do?"

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