John Hughes, my hero



I was surprised that not many people know John Hughes. Up until one mentions Ferris Buellers' Day Off! A classic. That, for once, I have seen. Well, last weekend, before I even had the idea of the blog, I went on a John Hughes Marathon: Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink.

What can I say about it? For those who don't know, the Breakfast Club features a group of teenagers who have to spend detention together at school on a saturday. You hear "cliché"? Indeed: you have the geek, the rebel, the princess, the sport athlete and the outsider. As the day goes on they realise they are not that different. A real lesson of tolerance. And a very good laugh. the scene where they all whistle the music of The Bridge on the River Kwai is simply hilarious.

Then of course you have Some Kind of Wonderful, featuring Eric Stolz, Mary Stuart Masterson and Lea Thomspon, the one and only Mom of Back to the Future, no less! This movie would be deemed the origin of all rom-coms. Basically the guy is in love with someone out of his reach and does not realise his best friend is in love with him. The reason I like it so much is that, as opposed to today (movies and reality), things are much simpler, people do not hesitate to say it as it is, instead of hiding. Problems are real there, and not only "rich kids issues". Of course, the acting is not very credible, you can see this is these kids first movie! The award of the worst act goes to Craig Sheffer, who later in his career went on to play Keith in One Tree Hill but, there again, they deemed his acting so bad they had to kill him off after a couple of seasons. We can all relate to Mary Stuart Masterson, the only one truly capable of acting, who communicates her emotions so vividly and makes this movie fantastic. yes, I said it. Fantastic. I discovered that movie while watching the now famous, more girly, lass intelelctual (and certainly not deserving a review on that blog) He is just not that into you, when Gee Gee is watching it while waiting for a guy to call. Then again, who hasn't done that at some point? Never mind, don't answer that.

 

Finally, the marathon ended with Sixteen Candles. Molly Ringwald is as usual stunning and extremely credible as a shy girl with little, if any popularity. It is good to see her as the main star, I much preferred her than in Pretty in Pink, where those debates about rich vs poor took the center stage much more than in the others, I thought. The guy Jake is obvisouly cute, but says about 4 sentences in the entire movie. It is more the secondary characters that makes the movie fun and enjoyable: Anthony Michael Hall is brilliant. We also get to see Joan and John Cusack acting in the same movie! I was always amazed at how alike they look, even though there was always a nagging doubt in my mind: who would name their two children with names that are so similar? It's like Brenda and Brandon in 90210. Oh well.  

Researching some background information I found the actors that keep appearing in these movies (Molly Ringwald, Emilio estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, etc), constitute the Brat Pack - information available here.

Anyway - why did I start the series of "must-see" movies with John Hughes? Well, I cannot transition from watching only girls movies to serious movies overnight. I thought he was a good compromise. No, that's not true. I just really love him :)