Director John Hughes, RIP

And for the record, I usually like movies with happy resolutions however unrealistic they might be. But I also like movies with unhappy endings if they better serve the story. I think the Hughes films all had the endings they earned.

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HEY SEXY GIRLLLLLLFREEEEEEEN

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PT&A is one of the 10 best hollywood movies of the '80s imo

agreed

^ Yes! I love PT&A.

John Hughes R.I.P. [Mark Hemingway]

The revered director and screenwriter died of at heart attack this morning at age 59. His impressive comedic talent was responsible for several classic films in the 80s and early 90s, including Planes, Trains and Automobiles, National Lampoon's Vacation, and Home Alone.

But he'll primarily be known for pretty much defining the American high-school experience for generations to come — Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, et al. They're all classics.

Hughes's work wasn't really political, but I always loved this bit from the original Ferris Bueller screenplay. It never made it into the film, but it made me laugh out loud when I read it:

FERRIS:
My uncle went to Canada to protest the war, right? On the Fourth of July he was down with my aunt and he got drunk and told my Dad he felt guilty he didn't fight in Viet Nam. So I said, "What's the deal, Uncle Jeff? In wartime you want to be a pacifist and in peacetime you want to be a soldier. It took you twenty years to find out you don't believe in anything?"
(snaps his fingers)
Grounded. Just like that. Two weeks.
(pause)
Be careful when you deal with old hippies. They can be real touchy.

Also, if you've never read "Vacation '58," the short story Hughes published in the old National Lampoon magazine that later became the basis for the Chevy Chase movie — well, it's available on the web and it's hilarious. He will be missed.

Was there any reason he went from his niche of teen movies to kiddie flick hackwork (beethoven, baby's day out, etc)? Not that his teen movies were much better.

My guess is because Home Alone was such a huge success, he tried to replicate it... then after Curly Sue bombed I guess he just stopped caring?

Well he still wrote and produced Baby's Day Out and Flubber after that - his career is sort of like the end of 2001

only bad.

err, the end of his career that is.

Aw man this sucks. Loved a good many of his movies (not so much the later ones, of course). Though, now that he's dead, I can reveal my secret love of 'Curly Sue'. My sister and I used to watch it all the time, and whenever I'm at a football game or I hear the National Anthem being sung, I always have to stop myself from saying 'play ball!', like Curly Sue standing on her bed saluting the TV in the middle of the night.

wow, ferris bueller was kind of an asshole

Has anyone actually SEEN reach the rock? We had the soundtrack at my college radio station and I saw two minutes of it on some network Fox Sunday Matinee oddly enough, but it's the last script actually credited to him. It's in one of Ebert's your movie sucks books.

Though, now that he's dead, I can reveal my secret love of 'Curly Sue'.

That's the last film he directed! Maybe he'd have liked to have known this information while he was still alive.

imdb trivia says he was considering directing maid in manhattan, but like Drillbit Taylor, who knows how many years it was in development before it actually came out.

Maid in Manhattan isn't bad as far as rom-coms go. I can't imagine he'd ever really commit himself to the genre as hard as he did to his teen films, but he probably could've made several very watchable films if he'd wanted.

this is crazy. Some people are saying it's a hoax but she sounds legit.

John told me about why he left Hollywood just a few years earlier. He was terrified of the impact it was having on his sons; he was scared it was going to cause them to lose perspective on what was important and what happiness meant. And he told me a sad story about how, a big reason behind his decision to give it all up was that "they" (Hollywood) had "killed" his friend, John Candy, by greedily working him too hard.

I always thought hollywood wasted Candy, rather than overworking him.

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Since I was in my 20s at the time...

aside from "Some Kind of Wonderful" (directed by Howard Deutsch), lousy fucking movies. Although I never made it past the first 5 obnoxious minutes of "Ferris."

especially beloved by kids who hate their parents. I hated kids from about the time I was 6.

because it's clear, as you point out, that Estevez likes her for her awesome battiness (the dandruff snowflakes, eerie private smiles, etc) and not because she looks and acts WASPY.

If this is true, why does Estevez' character looks totally smitten by Sheedy when he sees her after the makeover? Maybe there's some hidden subtext that he was hot for her all along, but the overt text totally contradicts that. And, you know, this isn't some super nuanced and realistic theatre piece where that sort of ambiguity is a positive thing. It's a teen-oriented movie with a anti-conformist message that's mostly handled very well, yet in that one moment it still succumbs to conformist/sexist cliches. I think the interpretation you and Dan suggest is simply reading too much into the film; certainly most of the BC's main target audience, i.e. teens, wouldn't have interpreted that scene in this way.

I hated kids from about the time I was 6.

hahaha me too

She looked hotter after the makeover. No offense, weirdos!

It doesn't matter if she looked hotter or not. That the makeover provided her a "happy" ending is pretty much against what the rest of the movie is about.

RIP

[/really wanted to post (nonexistent) YT of Emilio Estevez from BC getting all aggro/enthused after smoking weed & grooving SO HARD that he shatters glass!]

She looked hotter after the makeover. No offense, weirdos!

No! That was one of the dullest maid-to-maiden makeovers I've ever seen in a movie. I realize, though, that they were just using what Molly Ringwald had to work with being trapped in an empty high school and all, but Sheedy was much hotter when she was all mopey and clad in black.

certainly most of the BC's main target audience, i.e. teens, wouldn't have interpreted that scene in this way.

I think the reason 30-somethings and those who've seen them as hand-me-downs from older friends/siblings hold such a candle for John Hughes films is that the characters are left wide open for projection and interpretation. The adults or authority figures in all the movies rarely have any nuance (barring one insightful moment here and there), but the kids are always on the verge of some huge transformative action. Hughes was smart enough to leave space in what's presented to let you connect the dots on how they get there.

Sheedy: sexy underbite transcends all (non)makeovers.

It doesn't matter if she looked hotter or not.

It mattered to me!

Well, obviously you were then one of those conformists that scene was pandering for. :)

Ahh man... :-(

@omar little, please tell me what film 'Supplies' is from... Dying here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtRQsCgYmtc

It's from UHF by Weird Al Yankovic, a very funny movie!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB2GboGOuTI

Geddo Watanabe has a few awesome scenes in that movie.

I remember hearing/reading a comment from him that the reason he stopped making "those movies" is that he could no long relate to teenagers anymore.

Which is kinda enh as a reason; those teenagers grew up, same as he did. Make flicks about them.

Still, him as a writer is endlessly classic.

Thanks Tuomas, I actually saw UHF when young, plenty of times even, but I totally forgot about this. Fits in perfectly though.

"Badgers? BADGERS? We don need no stinking badgers!"

Well, he did do Planes, Tranes and Automobiles, which is definitely about adults, but after that went to writing/directing movies about kiddies. What does that tell, I wonder?

(x-post)

It suggests he had kids and wanted to make 'family' work while they were little, a la Robin Williams.

Exactly. Once he had little kids, he had a fresh supply of inspiration (though he mostly used it to create broad comedy).

RIP. that Phoenix mash-up gave me goosebumps.

I always had a soft spot for Maid in Manhattan, and now I understand why.

One of my favourite FB quotes comes from Grace: Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.. Also, when it randomly comes up in conversation, I am incapable of saying 'nine times' without it coming out in Ed Rooney's voice.

I remember hearing/reading a comment from him that the reason he stopped making "those movies" is that he could no long relate to teenagers anymore.

Which is kinda enh as a reason; those teenagers grew up, same as he did

When you grow up, your heart dies.

If this is true, why does Estevez' character looks totally smitten by Sheedy when he sees her after the makeover? Maybe there's some hidden subtext that he was hot for her all along, but the overt text totally contradicts that. And, you know, this isn't some super nuanced and realistic theatre piece where that sort of ambiguity is a positive thing. It's a teen-oriented movie with a anti-conformist message that's mostly handled very well, yet in that one moment it still succumbs to conformist/sexist cliches. I think the interpretation you and Dan suggest is simply reading too much into the film; certainly most of the BC's main target audience, i.e. teens, wouldn't have interpreted that scene in this way

kind of ironic that you are blasting this movie's handling of its non-conformist message for not conforming to your idea of how it should have happened

I think you're using the word "conform"/"conformist" there in two different ways that aren't really comparable. Anyway, I'm not saying how what should've happened, merely pointing out that for a movie whose main theme is criticism of conforming to expected social roles, it puts Sheedy conforming to expected ideals of femininity in an oddly positive light.

The movie is less about not conforming to social roles and more about befriending people who you like, no matter who they are. It's really odd that you WANT Sheedy's character to stay in a place that she's created because she is, by her own admission, deeply unhappy and trying to get people to notice her; is it really big surprise that when people do start noticing her and paying her positive attention, she would change the way she presents herself? Is the important thing here that she "betrayed" her weirdo self by putting on less eyeliner and a headband or that four other diverse students at her school decided she was funny and sweet and want to be her friend?

yeah, being so invested in her weirdo image makes you the shallow one a lil bit friend.

that said, she looks totally shitty post makeover, that thing where she's a thinly veiled Nan Goldin smack-lesbo was pretty good and she was waay hot in it, I wish they'd show it on tv again.

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