john hughes Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Molly Ringwald's tribute to John Hughes in the New York Times offers outsiders an enlightening look at what it was like to work with the writer and director who created the movies that not only shaped our teen years, but those of his stars.

While her essay is sentimental, it's not saccharine, and like Ms. Ringwald herself, it's beautiful. She offers us a rare glimpse into the reclusive director, "a sort of J.D. Salinger for Generation X" whom she compares to Peter Pan with a huge, open heart that eventually closed off to the world of Hollywood.

She writes, "Most people who knew John knew that he was able to hold a grudge longer than anyone - his grudges were almost supernatural things, enduring for years, even decades. Michael suspects that he was never forgiven for turning down parts in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I turned down later films as well. Not because I didn't want to work with John anymore -- I loved working with him, more than anyone before or since...

Eventually, though, I felt that I needed to work with other people as well. I wanted to grow up, something I felt (rightly or wrongly) I couldn't do while working with John. Sometimes I wonder if that was what he found so unforgivable. We were like the Darling children when they made the decision to leave Neverland. And John was Peter Pan, warning us that if we left we could never come back. And, true to his word, not only were we unable to return, but he went one step further. He did away with Neverland itself."

And just like we all have our favorite memories of watching Hughes movies, so do his stars. Read her essay -- it will make you feel like you were there, crawling through the AC ducts above Maine North High School during detention.

James Spader returns to the villain roles that made him famous in Shorts, the new family film by writer-director Robert Rodriguez. But during the film's recent press day, the star of such '80s classics as Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero took a moment to reflect on his experiences working with John Hughes, who passed away last week at the age of 59.

"I actually was very lucky on [Pretty in Pink]," Spader said during a roundtable interview on Saturday. "John [Hughes] wrote and produced that film; Howard Deutch directed it, and it was just such fun. That was a picture where John was on the set every day, I was living in New York at the time and I was out here on my own, and John and I got along really well."

"He'd invite me over to the house a lot on weekends to have lunch with his family," he continued. "He had a big family, and they would all be jumping around in the pool and stuff. He had a very odd writing affect – he wrote at night, long after the rest of the family had gone to bed – and I've always been a night person."

Obviously not everyone's memories of Hughes and his films are as intimate, but what do you remember most about the iconic writer-director? A scene? A movie? Let us know!

I was a wee lass when my mom and I caught The Breakfast Club on late-night TV. I remember a distinct uneasiness mixed with giggles during the one scene where John Bender (Judd Nelson looking very foxy) snuck a peek at Claire's underwear while he was hiding under the desk. (Claire, in case you live under a rock, is played with ice-queen perfection by Molly Ringwald.) I teared up when Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) described his desire to commit suicide. And I admired how awesome, cool, and crazy Allison (Ally Sheedy) was in her black clothing, purse full of crap, and lies about sex with her shrink. (I was also disappointed by her makeover, but such is life. Duckie was supposed to end up with Andie, and Iona traded in her punk rocking-ness for a more normal dude in Pretty in Pink, after all.) And every time I hear "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds all I want to do is dance in my living room and trade earrings with a cute boy. I was never in detention, but The Breakfast Club makes me wish I was. At least once.

What's your favorite memory of watching a John Hughes movie? What scene do you wish you could have lived in, just for a minute?

I began writing this article within minutes of hearing the news that John Hughes passed away unexpectedly this afternoon, and I'm still reeling a bit, more than I had anticipated. Like most movie fans of my generation, I first heard of him in the summer of 1983, when two movies he'd written, Mr. Mom and National Lampoon's Vacation, were released within a week of each other. I saw both, smiling at Mr. Mom and laughing hard throughout Vacation. The following year, Sixteen Candles, his directorial debut, hit theaters, and he was off to the races.

Hughes was a prolific writer and a busy producer throughout the 80s and 90s, leaving his personal stamp on dozens of projects, not to mention the eight films that he personally directed. He mined his suburban Midwestern teenage territory thoroughly, leaving no awkward, class-conscious, embarrassing, financially slighted, pretty in pink, uncomfortable stone unturned. He left behind so many memorable movie moments that it would be a foolhardy project for me to try and list them all, but here are seven of his greatest, listed chronologically.

1. National Lampoon's Vacation
Hughes expanded his own short story into an epic road trip, as the Griswold family heads west from Chicago on a "quest for fun" to Walley World. Along the way, they endure annoying relatives, smelly Aunt Edna, and a dog that becomes a drag. Oh, and Dad tries skinny dipping with a supermodel. The clip that seems most emblematic of their travails comes late in the picture, as Mom and the kids start complaining again, until Dad finally loses it. Hughes was an expert at using the "f-word" (and other profanity) to great comedic effect. [Watch clip after the jump.]

John Hughes left an indelible mark on the childhood of most people who grew up in the 1980s. It was impossible to get through most days without hearing a quote from one of his movies, and chances are you can remember watching at least one of these with your friends: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains, & Automobiles, She's Having A Baby, and those are just some of the movies he directed -- he wrote and produced many more.

His words, characters, and song selections all made up the soundtracks of so many of our lives, and he passed away earlier today at the age of 59, according to TMZ. Cause of death appears to be a sudden heart attack while visiting his family in New York City. We're sure cable channels will be scrambling to toss together some Hughes marathons this weekend, and though his time as a director might have been over for some time, the impression he left on audiences and filmmakers will hopefully never be forgotten.

Now to go pull out my Ferris Bueller's Day Off DVD and reminisce about 1986.

There are plenty of John Hughes fans that consider Some Kind of Wonderful to be little more than a recycled Pretty in Pink. But today I'm going to nominate the story of Keith and Watts for Scenes We Love for a very important reason: it's about righting some wrongs. If you're a regular around here, you might remember a little theory I have about the ending of Hughes' teen masterpiece Pretty in Pink, and as it turns out I wasn't the only one who had a problem with it; as the story goes, Hughes wrote Wonderful as a way to finally get the ending that he preferred.

Wonderful was the story of Keith, a sensitive painter, and his best friend, a tom-boy drummer named Watts. When Keith makes good on the life ambition of every teen movie protagonist and goes for the popular girl (played by Lea Thompson), Watts realizes that her feelings for Keith go beyond friendship -- and, of course, what would any Hughes movie be without the abusive beautiful people (headed by Craig Sheffer) and the hoodlum with the heart of gold played by Elias Koteas -- who I've had a bit of a crush on ever since thanks to this movie.

After the jump: why I love this movie and Sheffer gets his well-deserved comeuppance..

If you're a fan of either man (or both), I bet the question Is Judd Apatow this generation's John Hughes? inspires an immediate, gut-level "yes" or "no." It's either a valid comparison or a terrible insult. But let's talk about it.

The two filmmakers are similarly prolific. Between 1984 and 1991, Hughes served as writer, director, or producer -- and sometimes all three -- on a whopping 14 movies. Apatow, meanwhile, has his name on 15 films just since 2005, three as director (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and the upcoming Funny People), and the rest as writer or producer. Granted, a producer (especially "executive producer") doesn't always have much influence on the actual creative content of a film, but it's not hard to look at something like, say, Superbad, and see Apatow's fingerprints.

Apatow-produced films tend to rely less on tight screenplays and more on improvisation and horsin' around -- but Hughes dabbled in that, too, particularly when working with people like Steve Martin and John Candy (Planes, Trains & Automobiles) or Chevy Chase (the Vacation movies). There are supposedly enough deleted scenes from Planes to make a three-hour version of the film, an idea that should sound familiar to Apatow fans.

On a deeper level, the films by Apatow and Hughes tend to focus on teenagers or immature adults whose lives are altered either by regular slice-of-life stuff (losing one's virginity; graduating from high school) or major events (unplanned pregnancy!). The films are always comedies, and often sarcastic and caustic (and, with Apatow, incredibly vulgar), yet there's always a tender side, too. Their films have heart.

For women of a certain age, Pretty in Pink is the film for any gal who ever felt a little left of center from the beautiful people. After this flick came out, Molly Ringwald was our patron saint, and Pink was our religion. But, as the story goes, after disastrous test screenings, John Hughes (and Ringwald) decided to scrap the first ending (with Andie and her best friend Duckie, played by Jon Cryer, falling in love and dancing to David Bowie's Heroes) and replace it with Andie (Ringwald) and the bland pretty boy Blane (Andrew McCarthy) reuniting at the prom (in front of his shiny BMW no less) -- and to this day it still ticks me off. To me that ending wasn't about overcoming labels about being rich or poor, it was about the popular and the truly cool, and to watch Andie wander off to the dark side with boring old Blane was not the emotional moment Hughes was probably hoping for (which is also why I liked Some Kind of Wonderful so much; at least Girl-Duckie wins in the end of that flick).

Maybe it was because I had a crush on Duckie, or maybe it's just because I don't like easy endings, but to this day, whenever I watch this movie, I turn it off right before the ending so I don't have to be disappointed all over again. Unfortunately, footage of the original ending has become the stuff of legend. But, just to show you I'm not alone on this one, take a look at a new edit provided by another Pink fan looking to right some wrongs...

With Thanksgiving coming up, I thought I'd revisit Planes, Trains & Automobiles, one of the few movies directly connected to that holiday and a delightful comedy classic in its own right. It had been several years since I'd watched it, and I assumed that in the meantime it had been released on some kind of special edition DVD. Last year was its 20th anniversary, in fact -- a fine time to put out a handsome disc with lots of extras.

Or so you'd think! As it turns out, Planes, Trains & Automobiles has only legitimately been released on DVD once, way back in 2000, with a poor video transfer and no extras whatsoever. Not even a trailer. Not even the extra scenes that are commonly included when the film airs on television. Deepening this wound is the fact that, as several reviewers noted at the time, Paramount's announcement of the DVD had promised it would have deleted scenes. Why the studio changed its mind at the last minute no one knows, but it sure disappointed people in 2000 who had been looking forward to the DVD.

The film was released again this summer as part of VH1's "I Love the '80s" series, but it still didn't have any extras and was essentially a rip-off in new packaging. The only bonus was the incorporation of one additional scene, of Neal and Del eating food on the airplane, that's often shown in the TV version. That's hardly a good enough reason to re-buy the disc, though.

Why is there no special edition of this movie? It's a perennial favorite. It is beloved. It is oft-quoted ("Those aren't pillows!"). It frequently appears on polls of movie fans' favorite comedies. Its very title has become shorthand for any trip punctuated by mishaps and setbacks, as in, "Our vacation to Mexico was a disaster -- it was a total Planes, Trains & Automobiles situation." You would buy it, right?