How old do I feel now? Real old. The guy who made me love being young... died yesterday.
I distinctly remember a childhood of lingering around my teenage brothers and their friends, hoping to catch a few glimpses of the "adult" John Hughes movies they watched. Maybe it was the John Hughes movies that made me idealize teen years as much as I did. Maybe, despite the fact that high school was kind of lame, I never really complained about it because I seemed to suffer in similar ways to the John Hughes characters I grew up with. Maybe, because of all those movies, I never, not even today, figured I'd ever get older than 17.
Anyway, I pretty much want to thank Hughes for the work he did during 1984-1987. He's been silent lately, but he freakin' OWNED '84-'87.
It all started with Sixteen Candles. According to my cinematic trivia genius brother, Hughes wrote and directed this one in order to impress the studio enough to deliver his real baby -- The Breakfast Club. For a buttering-up project, there is no film perfecter. EVERY teen party sequence since has owed itself to the party in Sixteen Candles. Strangely, I've seen few teen comedies to show the humiliation of riding the school bus. Maybe because it couldn't be topped in this one. Of course, this weirdly-rated PG movie was also quite a coming-of-ager for me. I still remember right after the pull-up scene my brother suddenly being like, "Oh, crap. Jon, close your eyes!"
Anyway, Breakfast Club is pretty weird. It was his script that he had to fight the studio to produce, but then you check the imdb trivia and it says that a huge chunk of the emotional parts of the movie was improvised. It makes me wonder what parts he was so anxious to film in advance. It also explains the weirdness of Claire going after Bender at the end after he humiliated her so bad. Of course it wasn't Bender who made Claire cry, it was Judd Nelson who made Molly Ringwald cry.
Pretty in Pink was such an important story to Hughes that he wrote it twice. The second time, was as one of my very favorite movies -- Some Kind of Wonderful. The love triangle sexes were merely switched. The stories were about Andie & Blaine and Keith & Amanda, but all of us viewers were completely and hopelessly attached to Duckie and Watts. Watch 'em. You'll know what I mean. John Hughes' third wheels were very three-dimensional.
Oh, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off! Sheesh! Love. It. Brilliant. I need to watch that again.
I'm sure you've seen this already (it's all over the net right now), but check out this blogger's story about him.
Anyway, bye John. Make some awesome movies for God!
R.I.P. John Hughes (1950-2009)
6 comments:
They just don't make movies like his anymore. They try, but they fail.
I'm having a Hughes weekend tribute - trying to watch as many of his films as possible.
He definitely had the gift. I grew up watching all that goodness over and over and over again. In fact Some Kind of Wonderful is where I first realized I had a thing for gingers and that it's cool to be a tom boy, Pretty in Pink made me want to make my own clothes and wish that I had a ducky to lip sync Otis, Breakfast Club was my first bad boy crush then it continued with Ferris, and 16 Candles...mmmm Jake Ryan! Actually I'm wondering now if these movies had a hand in my high school rebellious years??
I've felt so sad and depressed since I heard the news yesterday. I can't believe he's gone. As long as he was around there was this chance that he'd make another of his stunningly awesome, moving, life-affecting movies, but now that chance is gone.
Someday, I hope to meet up with Mr. Hughes in the Great Beyond and give him a big hug and tell him thanks.
So Jon did you think of this blog before or after my advice?
He died way too young. It's too bad he "retired" in 1990 and mailed everything in after that when he was sleeping with Disney... But I guess he made enough off of Home Alone for about 4 more lifetimes
Great blog you have herre
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