John Hughes Tribute Thread.

Totally agreed with Buck. A few of them were pretty good -- "Vacation" is terrific, though he didn't direct that one, and "Ferris" still holds up well. I always liked "16 Candles." Some of the others are wildly overpraised. "Breakfast Club" is schlock -- stick five cliches in a room and they learn to love each other! Awwww. And I gag anytime I hear how he really captured teens of that era. I was a high school senior when "Breakfast Club" came out. It bore no resemblance whatsoever to anything or anyone I ever encountered in high school. ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High" got it perfectly.)

His films were fun as a teen. They tend to make me wince as an adult.

 

And to be fair, some of that could be regional. I'm from Southern California and knew countless guys who were EXACTLY like Jeff Spicoli, and that character probably seemed absurd to someone in a Chicago suburb.

As for the cliches, though, those aren't just movie cliches. We had The Jock, The Nerd, The Hood, The Beauty Queen, and The Weirdo. But we learn they're really all alike, they're just misunderstood! It's just that their parents don't get them! Well, except for the weirdo, who just needs a comb and some makeup and then she'd be so happy and so pretty that the wrestler would go out with her. Uggh.

The lack of depth didn't bother me in others films like "16 Candles," which didn't seem as pretentious as "Breakfast Club," where he really seemed like he thought he was saying something profound.

 

'Breakfast Club' in particular does take itself a little seriously.
And I loved the movie when I was 15.

 

The two movies that everyone forgets in the John Hughes repertoire are Some Kind of Wonderful (Lea Thompson and Mary Stuart Masterson fighting for the love of Eric Stolz, who wears some truly god-awful makeup and fights with his dad a lot) and Home Alone, which is still one of my favorite Christmas movies, no matter how old I get.

He gave one of the biggest child stars of all time his start (Macauley Culkin in Uncle Buck) and gave so many teen stars their start. As someone who was born in 1985, I love all of these movies. They're maybe a little dated but he has the social class systems from high school down pat.

 

Sixteen Candles is his magnum opus. Perfect mix of irreverence, absurdity and reality. Most of the rest of his movies have too much of one of those three, though very often entertainingly so.

Every character, down to the most minor, is written letter-perfect in Sixteen Candles.

 

"Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Christmas Vacation" top the list for me.

RIP

 

I'm surprised I don't see these words strung together more often.

 

I still love this scene. Even in German.