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Thursday, August 06, 2009

RIP John Hughes

John Hughes – director of such 80s classics as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Sixteen Candles," and "The Breakfast Club" – has died. Him and Chris Claremont pretty much defined my early teen years. Hughes was only 59. I forgot how much those movies influenced me. I mean, they were both totally the essence of high-school, and totally unrelated to the realities of my particular high-school experience. He had a knack for presenting me the version of adolescence I really wanted; he even sold me on the bad parts of it. Quentin Tarantino is to me now what John Hughes was to me then; not just a movie-maker, but the creator of a whole alternate universe of cool.

11 comments:

  1. Oh no. That well and truly sucks. When Hughes was funny he could make you bust up laughing, but he wasn't afraid to make you feel his character's pain, making the overall experience of his films much more whole than any of the generic garbage out there today. He'll be missed.

    Stac

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  2. Thank you for shooting 'Pretty in Pink', John Hugues..

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  3. thanks for comparing Hughes to Claremont. i never respected Hughes at the time cause I was a deadhead but i took guilty pleasure at watching his movies on HBO. Now I can look back and appreciate how great he was at creating those worlds where every adolescent eventually found understanding and acceptance. I quit Marvel by the time the Shooter period was over but back in those days it seemed like Claremont's characters wanted the same things as Hughes'. And they were all so verbose in such charming ways! And just thinking about all their work just brings me back to when I was so deliciously depressed and morose. Unlike now as an adult, I did not have to take responsibility for those feelings but could simply indulge myself. thanks for reminding me that the the Breakfast Club gang was every bit as much as much my secret society of super heroes as the X Men

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  4. PS Planes Trains and Automobiles was hilarious

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  5. Anonymous2:51 AM

    Well.
    That sucks.

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  6. It just has not been a good year for the icons of our youth, you know? :(

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  7. I'd like to offer this link to my blog where I offer a tribute to Mr. Hughes and what his work meant to me.

    http://the-one-about.blogspot.com/2009/08/one-about-john-hughes.html

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  8. "Quentin Tarantino is to me now what John Hughes was to me then; not just a movie-maker, but the creator of a whole alternate universe of cool."

    I am sorry, but that is just a litle sad.

    On a mroe positive note, I liked John Hughes although the depth of his films has been overrated by the sheep of our generation. Having said that, one of the "lessons" contained in Ferris Bueller is one of the ones I use to distinguish levels of maturity among adults. I have to admit that when I saw Ferris when I was 16, I was baffled as to why his sister had her change of heart, Charlie Sheen's advice notwithstanding. However, by my early-20s I understood it. You cannot spend your life worrying about what others get away with or that you seem to get the short end of the stick. You need to focus on your life and determine how to control your own destiny.

    I have seen so many people, some of them much older than me, that do not seem to be able to grasp that lesson.

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  9. That's a really apt comparison to Tarantino, I think. It never would have occurred to me, but I'll probably be mentioning it to all my friends.

    Man, did I ever love The Breakfast Club and Ferris.

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  10. I remember years ago at college, a tutor asked us to list our top 10 movies. It just so happened this coincided with The Breakfast Club being shown on TV the previous evening. I kid you not, it appeared in EVERY SINGLE STUDENTS top ten - including mine.

    The man reinvented a cinematic genre and spawned countless of imitators. A true legend.

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  11. Anonymous9:43 PM

    Yeah. Pretty sad, but his work holds up, I think. I wonder if teens today could get behind a John Hughes film?

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