R.I.P. John Hughes

Last week, we lost a great director, John Hughes. John Hughes was most known for his movies that related to the typical American teenager's experience, such as Sixteen Candles and the Breakfast Club (however, I still love Uncle Buck!). Due to his wonderfully shot movies, I also fell in love with the city of Chicago, or I guess more accurately, the fictional city Shermer, IL. Due to Home Alone, I thought all houses looked that way.

John's movies have impacted many generations, not just 80s teenagers and are timeless. Remember the JCPenney back to school commercial from a few years ago that mimicked the Breakfast Club? I recently read an article about Hughes and one of the commenters (not me, I swear!) said "I was class of '89, and black, female, and Southern to boot, and I felt Hughes said much about my generation. No one filmmaker (or author, or musician, or artist) can capture everything there is about every individual within a generation, but Hughes captured a fairly broad array. He left out the punks, and the blacks, and the Southerners. But he still said a lot."

The themes of John's movies were multi-generational and cross-cultural. Even his movie soundtracks are memorable. I think I knew about the Simple Minds' Don't You Forget About Me song before I ever saw the movie. John, a self-described high school outcast, often took that perspective for his protagonist in portraying characters but never in a condescending, out of touch, cliched fashion of an adult who can't remember or empathize with the teenage experience. Molly Ringwold looked like the typical American girl, not like the over the top, 16 year old with breast implants characters that dominate current teen movies. Anthony Michael Hall looked every bit of the nerd. Unlike the 35 yr. olds that they cast as teenagers today in movies.

He vividly (and with the same awkwardness that a teen experiences) captured that time in our lives when everything seems so confusing and complicated only to realize in later years how absolutely trivial those things were & to almost longingly wish that our current concerns were as simple as our previous years and selves.

The exception to this is of course, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris Bueller's character was the popular kid, but I still feel as though anyone can relate to his character regardless of what their social class may have been in high school. We've all have a Ferris Bueller's Day Off at some point in our lives.

So, hopefully, TBS or TNT will run a marathon of John's movies soon. If not, I recommend that we all get re-acquainted with some of his movies as a remembrance. I, for one, have never seen Planes, Trains, and Automobiles from beginning to end. So, that's one for my movie queue!

Below is a clip of a spoof of John Hughes-esque movies that came out in 2001, Not Another Teen Movie. If you look closely at the coach's jacket, they go to JHHS - John Hughes High School. What's your favorite John Hughes movie or movie scene?