A Few Words About John Hughes

Well, John Hughes is dead. I'm sure you all have heard about it. And if you haven't before now... well, there it is. 

The truth is, I'm a little too young to be truly heartbroken over the death of John Hughes. I was born in 1982, which means that by the time the 80s -- the decade Hughes reigned over as much as any filmmaker -- was over, I was, you know, eight years old. 

But that's kind of the thing. Think about it. Sixteen Candles (his very first movie) was made in 1984. Home Alone (which he wrote but didn't direct) was made in 1990. He was involved in other things after 1990 (writing legendary turds like 101 Dalmations, Flubber and Maid in Manhattan), but between 1984 and 1990 he was responsible for The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. 

That's a pretty good run. In fact, that's fucking ridiculous. 

Not quite this ridiculous, but you get the idea. 

I mean, I remember when Home Alone came out on video. Macauley Culkin and I are about the same age, and the movie was quite an inspiration for a mischievous kid who, you know, thought he could probably outsmart the shit out of two seasoned thieves if it really came down to it. True story: a few days after we got it on video, I watched it seven times in a row. Then I dreamed up a plan to take over the world using cream cheese.

Though most of Hughes' movies were about people at least 10 years older than me, they had a quality that made them last and relate beyond that, and as I got older, I started to make my way through them. 

The Breakfast Club was first shown to me my freshman year of High School as part of some kind of hilariously useless orientation (at one point during a Q and A, this blonde senior jock confessed to having smoked a cigarette and had a beer at the same time. "It made me so sick," he said. "It was awful.") 

The experience nearly ruined The Breakfast Club for me, but I now recognize it as a very earnest movie that, you know, while sympathetic, didn't quite get it right. 

But all was forgiven, of course, the first time I watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ah, what a movie! Roger Ebert calls it a poor man's Mr. Hulot's Holiday. In fact, he's used that comparison so many times I actually watched that movie just to see what the fuck the deal was. 

Uh... yeah, it sucked. I turned it off after 20 minutes.

Ferris Bueller, however, doesn't suck. A movie about skipping school and having fun in Chicago for a day -- it proved definitively just how lame I am, as Ferris and his friends managed to have more fun on that one day than I did in an entire year of living there. 

So thanks, John Hughes, for proving that. And thanks for your movies. You really had something there for a while, and a lot of what you did turned out awesome. Sleep tight.