I was confused for a second there because I didn't see river wolf post on this thread...
― jaymc, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 19:56 (sixteen years ago) link
Anyway, Apatow could make crap for the rest of his career and I'd still vote for him on the basis of Freaks & Geeks alone.
― jaymc, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 19:57 (sixteen years ago) link
for the record, the Hughes stuff I had in mind for this thread is:
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) Pretty in Pink (1986) Weird Science (1985) The Breakfast Club (1985) Sixteen Candles (1984)
I think Sixteen Candles is easily the best and even that has a bunch of cringeworthy moments - really its the supporting cast (Anthony Michael Hall, all the grandparents, etc.) that lend it any kind of energy.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 19:58 (sixteen years ago) link
and as for Apatow:
Freaks and Geeks Undeclared 40 Year Old Virgin Knocked Up SuperBad
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 19:59 (sixteen years ago) link
that's the worst of the Ringwald trilogy
weird. The Breakfast Club? Pretty In Pink?
aw, screw it. No need to argue. They're all pretty bad.
― kenan, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:01 (sixteen years ago) link
wait a sec, didn't Apatow just PRODUCE Superbad?
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:01 (sixteen years ago) link
(ie, it's only his movie when you count $$$)
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:02 (sixteen years ago) link
just like hughes only produced Some Kind of Wonderful
― kenan, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Producers have influence.
― milo z, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:03 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm scared to see any Apatow as his big fans here are so frequently wrong
Trust the criticism, not the critic, etc.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:05 (sixteen years ago) link
oh, he also wrote SKOW... I stand corrected
― kenan, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Apatow also produced ANCHORMAN.
― Roz, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:05 (sixteen years ago) link
hmmm yeah okay including production credits seems a little sketchy, kind of a grey area there
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:06 (sixteen years ago) link
its like if Hughes had produced an Anthony Michael-Hall penned script right after Breakfast Club or something
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:07 (sixteen years ago) link
But didn't he conceive of and write Superbad, but didn't have time for it? ...
― humansuit, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:07 (sixteen years ago) link
The Breakfast Club is good up until the final 15 minutes or whenever Ally Sheedy gets her makeover. Pretty in Pink is also enjoyable and doesn't have weird racist stuff in it. It's also more stylish and zeitgeisty. When I watched all of these movies for the first time, in the summer of 1999, Pretty in Pink was the one that felt like an 80s Movieā¢ (Duckie listening to the Cure, Spader as linen-wearing proto-yuppie), whereas Sixteen Candles was just a bad teen movie that happened to be set in 1984. (Maybe 1984 wasn't the 80s yet?)
― jaymc, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:09 (sixteen years ago) link
No, Seth Rogen and Evan-what's-his-teeth conceived of and wrote Superbad when they were teenagers.
― jaymc, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I was totally appalled when, viewing TBC in eighth grade, I saw that Hughes had turned Ally Sheedy into Blair of "The Facts of Life."
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:10 (sixteen years ago) link
Seth Rogan and another dude have been writing Superbad since they were teenagers, but Apatow shepherded it into production/casting/etc..
but Rogen has had a hand (and a role) in most of the Apatow movies and TV shows since F&G, so it's kind of hard to separate them. Maybe Apatow is getting too much credit.
― milo z, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah it should be considered out of contention. But so what. Freaks and Geeks still wins it.
― humansuit, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link
the breakfast club has almost as many one-dimensional cultural stereotypes as titanic
― kenan, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:12 (sixteen years ago) link
i mean, really. it's just a bad movie, full stop.
but john hughes movies are not really about characterization beyond type. they're an arena for Issues to Be Worked Out. I guess that's why none of you like them, which is fair, but it doesn't make sense to be all, "the problem with the breakfast club is that the characters are shallow."
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:14 (sixteen years ago) link
Apatow's got his brand now, and it seems like he's giving his regulars the chance to write and direct stuff now that he can:
Step Brothers (2008) (pre-production) (producer) You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) (filming) (producer) Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) (post-production) (producer) Drillbit Taylor (2008) (post-production) (producer) Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007) (post-production) (producer) ... aka Walk Hard (USA: short title) The Pineapple Express (2008) (completed) (producer)
― Jordan, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:15 (sixteen years ago) link
Hughes is a bro and he made some pretty good non-teen movies (especially Planes, Trains & Automobiles!) before he descended down the path of Home Alone-type shit.
― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:18 (sixteen years ago) link
But Ferris Bueller? That's kind of like the Muhammad Ali of teen comedies.
― B.L.A.M., Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:18 (sixteen years ago) link
but john hughes movies are not really about characterization beyond type. they're an arena for Issues to Be Worked Out.
^^^^^ YES
Issues often worked out in a rather conservative offensive way though (see: TBC Ally Sheedy makeover, Ringwald getting the rich slimeball at end of PIP, FB's smug "stop and smell the roses at other people's expense" moral etc.)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:19 (sixteen years ago) link
LET THE GOTH BE A GOTH you BASTARDS
― mark s, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:20 (sixteen years ago) link
"conservative"
― gabbneb, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:20 (sixteen years ago) link
Bloated and brain-damaged?
― Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:20 (sixteen years ago) link
I mean it should be obvious that a lot of Hughes' films resolve in this deeply reactionary way that explicitly reinforces the status quo (which had supposedly been torturing his characters' throughout the course of his films)
x-post
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:20 (sixteen years ago) link
Ringwald getting the rich slimeball at end of PIP
this is incorrect! the politics of PiP are really, really earnest, but they're good.
(nb: I have no ability to be objective about this movie.)
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:21 (sixteen years ago) link
TBC shd have faded out to RAMMSTEIN
― mark s, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:22 (sixteen years ago) link
I was actually thinking the greatest of all time?
Seriously. Name me one better than FBDO in the Teen Comedy category. One.
― B.L.A.M., Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:23 (sixteen years ago) link
Dazed & Confused
― milo z, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:24 (sixteen years ago) link
its interesting to compare Hughes' spate of teen movies to its immediate predecessors like Little Darlings, Over the Edge, Foxes, etc. where the emphasis was always on TEENS GONE WRONG OH NOES WHAT HATH THE 60s WROUGHT. Hughes' vision is much more reassuring and polite.
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:24 (sixteen years ago) link
there are a million teen movies better than FBDO!
Dazed and Confused for one, Over the Edge for another, shit I think I even enjoy Revenge of the Nerds more
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:25 (sixteen years ago) link
ts: films starrin cherie currie vs films starrin joan jett!
JJ wins obv but i would say that
― mark s, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:25 (sixteen years ago) link
The teens on "The Price is R ight" are less smug. God, Ferris Bueller would have made Reagan a happier, prouder dad.
There's an anecdote involving Jack Nicholson at a FBDO screening.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:26 (sixteen years ago) link
Ferris Bueller is molten Reaganism in its purest form.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:27 (sixteen years ago) link
no, that's Adventures in Babysitting.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:27 (sixteen years ago) link
Better than Abe Froeman, the Sausage King of Chicago?
Better than Sloan Peterson?
Better than the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California?
Come on - D&C is GREAT...really great. Over the Edge, also very good. But in boxing terms, Foreman and Frazier to FBDO's Ali.
― B.L.A.M., Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:27 (sixteen years ago) link
YES
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:28 (sixteen years ago) link
(and by YES I mean that's why its kinda gross to have to live through)
guys, I take your point, but seriously, Adventures in Babysitting!
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Isn't that the one where Elizabeth Shue sings blooze? Jeezum.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:29 (sixteen years ago) link
Aren't Ferris Bueller and Adventures in Babysitting pretty much the same movie?
― jaymc, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:30 (sixteen years ago) link
one stars a girl the other stars a boy. MARKETING!
― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:31 (sixteen years ago) link
there should be a thread about "pretty much the same movie"
― kenan, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:32 (sixteen years ago) link
yes. most Reaganite moment in that movie: Shue's best friend Brenda, who the whole movie is devoted to "rescuing," and with whom we're meant to sympathize is stuck without money in a bus station in the terrifying city (as opposed to the suburbs, which the movie champions). she's on the phone in a phone booth which a homeless man knocks on, yelling, "that's my home!" she removes his personal effects from the booth and says, "you just moved!"
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 20:32 (sixteen years ago) link
someone should write an article on how harold lloyd movies are reflective of the intellectual shallowness and corrupt pursuit of self-interest of the warren g. harding years.
― J.D., Thursday, 23 August 2007 06:00 (sixteen years ago) link
I wonder if twenty years from now we'll be talking about how "Superbad" was all about the Iraq war and the reason the two boy's friendship was straining in the movie was because they were worried about Iran getting the bomb or the possibility of a draft. Don't look at the superficialities of the plot! It's about Bush pulling their innocent world apart!
― Cunga, Thursday, 23 August 2007 06:12 (sixteen years ago) link
Plz to reread thread for the specific context in which I wrote "Reaganism."
someone should write an article on how harold lloyd movies are reflective of the intellectual shallowness and corrupt pursuit of self-interest of the warren g. harding years
Hasn't this been done already?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 23 August 2007 11:02 (sixteen years ago) link
"Relax....You folks have nothing to worry about....I'm a professional"
http://img015.photo.wangyou.com/2004/12/11/35990/200511268706274.jpg
=
http://images.umvd.com/Toenails/aca1b72e511d4a5e8c91730619993ec4.jpg
― Mark Clemente, Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:25 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/ward.jpghttp://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/edson.jpghttp://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/perlich.jpg
― G00blar, Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:30 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/coffey.jpg http://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/schmock.jpg http://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/montague.jpg
― G00blar, Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:32 (sixteen years ago) link
http://www.80s.com/saveferris/images/cast/barberi.jpg
And how was the mindless consumption of the 1980s any worse than what occurred int he 1960s and 1970s?
Let me try this, briefly... The difference is the '80s is when conglomerates and bizmen who had not MADE THEIR CAREERS IN THE FILM BIZ began controlling the studios and what did or didn't get made. Which is why you get fewer Altmans, Rafelsons etc being greenlighted for anything at the margins of the studio system.
Reagan and mindlessness as the paramount value in mainstream entertainment are both SYMPTOMS of (de facto) unregulated capitalism; one didn't cause the other.
Again, as Jack Nicholson said at a Bueller premiere he attended: "These people are trying to kill me."
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:43 (sixteen years ago) link
I would really enjoy seeing a full-on bromantic comedy about how two adult men become friends!
Only tangentially to the point, nabisco: One of the gay NYC weekies is comparing the 'bromance' in Superbad to Midnight Cowboy.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:54 (sixteen years ago) link
^weeklies
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 13:57 (sixteen years ago) link
oh i see, it was conglomerates and bizmen driving everything in the 80s, and not the mass cultural backlash against the 70s, something that the kids of the 80s were raised into and then sought to get out from under (LIKE OH SAY IN THE CINEMA OF JOHN HUGHES).
I'm sure infantile 70s cowboy/lone ranger Jack's a much nicer guy than buttoned-up 80s family man (oh no, "family"!) Matthew Broderick
― gabbneb, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:02 (sixteen years ago) link
those Altmans and Rafelsons, they respect the women, I tells ya
― gabbneb, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:03 (sixteen years ago) link
Biden-fan gabbneb characteristically obtuse about '80s capitalist ethos and backlash vs counterculture being related.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:08 (sixteen years ago) link
how do you explain Forrest Gump?
― kenan, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:15 (sixteen years ago) link
no, see i get which way they're related - backlash ridden by deregulators rather than deregulators somehow having diktat-like impact on mass culture
― gabbneb, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:15 (sixteen years ago) link
he doesn't understand forrest gump any better than he understands ferris bueller
― gabbneb, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:16 (sixteen years ago) link
In what context, kenan? I've never seen Gump and have no desire to.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:19 (sixteen years ago) link
(but I also find Clinton to be the most Reaganesque of RWR's successors)
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link
xpost It's psychological horror.
― kenan, Thursday, 23 August 2007 14:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Yesterday morning it was a perfectly decent thread. Now look at it.
― Bob Standard, Thursday, 23 August 2007 15:35 (sixteen years ago) link
it all comes down to "liberal" gabbneb's cognitive dissonance about his love for an ostensibly conservative film
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 August 2007 15:48 (sixteen years ago) link
<A href=http://www.cinematical.com/2007/08/22/could-a-ferris-bueller-sequel-be-on-the-way/>Bueller SEQUEL?!?</a>
― Oilyrags, Thursday, 23 August 2007 18:16 (sixteen years ago) link
that was discussed upthread (highly unlikely, to say the least)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 August 2007 18:17 (sixteen years ago) link
i have less than zero invested in ferris bueller
i just like to point out mormonism
― gabbneb, Thursday, 23 August 2007 18:20 (sixteen years ago) link
i spose i shouldn't waste my time on the easy stuff tho
hey there's no mormons in Less Than Zero!
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 23 August 2007 18:21 (sixteen years ago) link
this thread was insane, just insane
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 10 September 2012 06:05 (eleven years ago) link