Writer/Producer/Director John Hughes died on the 6th of August this year and it's just hit me like a tonne of bricks. I always knew he was the creator of 'The Breakfast Club' which on its own is worth a fair amount of hero worship. I got forced to sit down and watch it with a friend about 2 years ago, and didn't quite get it at the time, but after the second watch it went from a zero straight into my mental top 20 'movies that will change your life' list. The moral: stay young. Youth knows when it's elders have forgotten how to see things. Youth knows how to use that against them, all tied up in an angst ridden entertaining package. Genius.
Then a few months later I read this blog after it appeared on my twitter feed a dozen times and felt sorry that the industry has probably lost one of the few nice blokes left in it.
And finally during my weekly rape of Wikipedia I found out that he wrote 'Uncle Buck' too and I can only imagine that the world has lost a messiah of cult cinema!
Should I not want to sound like a pretentious git and reel off a lists of arty/french/low budget titles as the answers to what my favorite movie is I would instead tell you that 'Uncle Buck' is probably it. Crude, crass and loutish uncle bonds with arrogant, spoilt and insolent teenage niece over the threat of drilling her sex-obsessed and ridiculously stupid boyfriends teeth out whilst he is tied up in the boot of the car. Inspired. Throw the Macaulay Culkin "aww" factor and a few golf balls to the head into the mix and you've got yourself another hit.
My dad and I sit down once a year and laugh hysterically at it, most of the time that day is christmas eve but ITV let us down this year and scheduled it about 3 days late.
John Hughes also wrote these beauties:
- Sixteen Candles
- The Great Outdoors
- Weird Science
- Pretty In Pink
- Planes, Trains & Automobiles
- Home Alone 1, 2 & 3
- Curly Sue
- Baby's Day Out
- Miracle on 34th Street
- 101 Dalmations
- Flubber
(On the downside he was also responsible for the 'Maid in Manhattan' script... but as Jennifer Lopez starring movies go you have to give it to him it was one of the more bearable ones...)
It took me almost 5 months to realise but the world has lost a hero of pop culture and I am going to wear black, eat a lot of carbohydrates and overload in the best of these 80's/90's classics for the rest of the week in mourning... I am seriously starting to worry if I will ever laugh whilst simultaneously gain some self awareness during a film again.
