Sad news last night that director John Hughes has died. He started out as a copywriter at Leo Burnett in Chicago and went on to define a generation of geeky teens with a great slice of pop culture and angst.That generation then went on to be known as Generation X and for them he wrote the script and provided the soundtrack with movies like 'Ferris Bueller's Day off', 'Pretty in Pink' and 'The Breakfast Club', making young stars out of the likes of Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy; Anthony Michael Hall and Emilio Estevez.
Weirdly, I was watching the start of Kevin Smith's 'Dogma' last night; the bit in the film where Jay and Silent Bob go in search of the Chicago suburb (Shermer Illinois) where Hughes set his movie.
They were there under the perfect logic that the women were hot and there was no one selling drugs. Funnily enough there was nothing there. Hughes made it all up. Some of the kids in his movies might have been mean (where are you James Spader?), but nothing too serious ever happened and there always seemed to be the Smiths or New Order playing in the background.
The music was as important as what you were watching. Whether it was the final scene in 'The Breakfast Club' where Judd Nelson puts his fist to the sky to the sound of Simple Minds and 'Don't You (Forget About Me) or in 'Pretty in Pink' as Duckie mimed 'Try a Little Tenderness' in an effort to win Ringwald's character Andie Walsh.It was as the Los Angeles Times puts it "a very specific slice of Americana" that many understood whether you happened to be an American teen or not because the culture was trans Atlantic.
Roger Ebert once called Hughes "the philosopher of adolescence" and his influence has spread far. It wasn't only the likes of Smith that Hughes influenced after his time in Hollywood had passed (but not before he had made 'Home Alone' that became one of the top-grossing live-action comedies of all time - spawning three sequels) it was an even newer generation like Judd Apatow and Co of 'Superbad' and 'Knocked-up' fame who last year said: "Basically, my stuff is just John Hughes films with four-letter words."
For me my favourite remains 'The Breakfast Club'; it must have been all those detentions. The question what was your favourite Hughes movie sparked many a late night discussion and I know I wasn't alone in that. Follow me on Twitter
Watched Some Kind of Wonderful only last week. It's largely a remake of Pretty of Pink, but with a male lead, but none the worse for that. I know we always think the films of our adolescence were the best, but Hughes really did capture the angst, frustrations and clumsiness of being a teenager.
In contrast, today's teenagers will only have gross out movies to reminisce about.
Forgot about that one. I think I might have i bought a box set a few years ago with most of them in it.
There were bunch of teen movies in the late 90s including the Heath Ledger starring '10 things I hate about you', but that not as good and not sure the gross outs are quite the same thing. All there is much to be said for the geeks and stoners of Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow's films.
It has to be 'The Breakfast Club'. When I was 15, I was obsessed with it - just because it seemed to be the first sophisticated, genuinely funny and life-affirming film about being a teenager. The script was sharp and it was so well cast and performed. It articulated a lot of the angst and tensions of being in that netherland between childhood and adulthood and said 'if you feel like a misfit, it's okay - so does everyone else'. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed by Hughes' other films because they didn't seem to have the same sensitivity and seriousness - although the first Home Alone movie is brilliant. Watching The Breakfast Club now, you can see its flaws, its somewhat corny moments and occasional lack of subtlety but its still the greatest teen movie I've ever seen. For that film alone, John Hughes will always be something of a hero of mine.
Gordon Macmillan
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