The Stepford Wives (2004)

Rich with material for a big screen adaptation, Ira Levin's book is a macabre suspense thriller and a kind of bodysnatching horror with lots of room for black humor and feminist commentary, but at the cost of this potential, Frank Oz's big, glossy and not very remarkable Hollywood adaptation treats the material primarily as a goofball comedy and has Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick and Nicole Kidman hamming it up as the new residents of the all-too-perfect surburban paradise, Stepford, where residents live picture-perfect 1950s lifestyles thanks to an army of worryingly subservient, docile female homekeepers.

★★★☆☆

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Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

A high schooler skips school and despite the dogged efforts of a suspicious Principal and irritated sister who try to catch him out, he enjoys his day-off with gay abandon, roping friends into elaborate schemes, street parades, restaurant outings, in a John Hughes comedy as entertaining today as it was on its release in 1986, an enduring favourite for perfectly capturing the joys of unfettered youth.

★★★★☆

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You Can Count On Me (2000)

This is a heartwarming drama about a brother and sister reunited in adulthood after the deaths of their parents in childhood, starring next gen Marlon Brando and future Bruce Banner, Mark Ruffalo, and Matthew Broderick, a Culkin, and the always enchanting Laura Linney. 

★★★★☆

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