John Hughes is not a man, he is a legend. If you are scratching your head right now, you need only turn to those who were teenagers in the 80s. Hughes gave a voice to the angsty teenager (often in the form of Molly Ringwald) and opened the door to a flood of copycats that continue to saturate the market. While he hasn't directed anything since 1991, Hughes continues to write. Here's a little retrospective on Hughes as an 80s (mad?) genius. By the end, so much fun will be had that, in the immortal words of Clark W. Griswold, you will "be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' out of your assholes." Enjoy.
Mr. Mom was a shout out to stay-at-home dads. Besides being downright funny, it's packed with binkies, carnivorous vacuum cleaners, and nympho neighbors.
Then, of course, there's Vacation. (Warning: Contains language not suitable when the boss is looming.)
Hughes made his directorial debut with this lil' gem called Sixteen Candles. He also wrote this story which follows the high school shenanigans of Sam, Jake Ryan, and the Donger.
Hughes then made detention fun in the "tragicomedy" The Breakfast Club.
After a return to the Griswold's in 1985's Europeon Vacation ("Oink oink, my good man") and Weird Science (a film that briefly made Kelly LeBrock famous), Hughes teamed up with Ringwald again, writing Pretty in Pink. Was I the only one pissed off that Andie chose that stick-up-his-ass Blane over Duckie??
Next, Hughes wrote and directed 1986's Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a film that gave teens everywhere the know-how to skip school (and avoid guys like this.)
Hughes then wrote a slew of comedies which continued the themes of teens and the caste systems in which they navigate (with a little John Candy thrown in here and there), including Some Kind of Wonderful, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, and The Great Outdoors. (He also directed Planes and Baby.) At the end of the 80s, he would drop one more guilty morsel on our plates: Uncle Buck.
Sadly, Hughes jumped into the kiddie pool in the 90s and 00s with five Beethoven films (the one about the dog), four Home Alone films, and some other forgettable fare. Maybe I just needed to be a teen in the 90s to appreciate these later films. I suppose some blogger could be posting a story right now about how Curly Sue changed his life.
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As sad as this may make me sound, there is not a day that goes by that I don't think about one of these movies. Longing for what used to be? Maybe. Or is it that John Hughes is a writer/director genius? Probably.
In fact, just on Thursday, Ally Sheedy was on CSI. She looked old and worn out and my first thought was, "This must be a continuation of her Breakfast Club charater". Those were the days. How many of us tried Captain Crunch and Pixie Stix sandwiches?
And did you know...That in the original ending of Pretty in Pink (which, incidently, I watched in its entirety on Sunday afternoon) Andie did choose Duckie? However, test audiences didn't like the ending and they had to redo it. At the time, Andrew McCarthy had already started shooting for a different movie and his head was shave. In the prom scenes at the end, you can clearly tell that he is wearing a toupe.
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