John Hughes, the writer/director of everyone’s favorite 80’s movies (above in the glasses with the cast of The Breakfast Club), died of a heart attack yesterday. It’s only right that we show him some love here at Westcheddar, since I basically grew up quoting his movies endlessly. His catalog is extensive, and everyone has their favorites, so I won’t argue which are his best. But a couple are very close to my heart. Here’s my Top Five:
Weird Science might be my personal favorite. Gary (Anthony Michael Hall is my dude) and Wyatt are the coolest gips ever! And Chet rules as the dickhead older brother. Just last week I showed it to my all boys middles school group during a summer camp rain day, and none of them had ever seen it. Needless to say, they were cracking up during the whole movie, which just shows how timeless these movies are. I mean, what teenage boy wouldn’t want to use their computer to CREATE their very own, real life dream girlfriend?
Plains, Trains, and Automobiles is my Dad’s favorite movie of all time. I’ve cried laughing with him watching this during countless Thanksgiving afternoons. It’s a total tearjerker, but it’s laugh out loud funny too. You can’t go wrong with John Candy and Steve Martin.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is such a gem of a movie. Ferris is the coolest high school student ever. And Cameron is that dude! “Rooney!!!” And Sloane was super bad. I have an inside joke with my close friends, which is that I love movies about teenagers that take place during the day (as opposed to dark action flicks that take place at night). Well this may be the most fun of them all. It made me want to skip school. My wife can quote the whole movie word for word, which was one of the things that made me fall in love with her. And of course, it eventually gave birth to my biggest hit song.
The Breakfast Club is the movie that just gets better and better every time I watch it. It’s a genius look at high school life (in detention). I can see a piece of myself in every character. Of course Brian, the nerd (again played by Anthony Michael Hall), is so hilarious. And Bender, the rebel, is amazing too. This is the obvious choice for his best movie, and it probably deserves the title. And the edited for TV version rocks. “Flip you! No, Flip you!!!”
National Lampoon’s European Vacation is my curveball pick to round out my Top Five. People will argue that the original is better, or that Christmas Vacation takes the cake, but this was the one that I have the most love for. I think it was the first movie I ever saw tits in. And Clark Griswold is the funniest Dad in the history of movies. Hughes didn’t direct this one, but he wrote it. After traveling to Europe with my family in middle school, I appreciated it even more.
I know, I know, I missed alot. My boy Matty B will be pissed I didn’t put his favorite Sixteen Candles (above) on my short list. It certainly deserves Top Five status, and Anthony Michael Hall’s rookie nerd role is amazing. But again, this is MY Top Five, and it just didn’t make the cut. But really all John Hughes movies helped shaped my existence. I gotta shout out a couple others that deserve honorable mentions too. Home Alone and Home Alone 2 are awesome holiday kids movies that were a big part of my childhood, and another one I really like that gets slept on sometimes is The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Aykroyd. Good family fun. And I recently watched Pretty in Pink for the first time in at least a decade, and it was excellent. Anyway, check out Rolling Stone Magazine and Spin Magazine’s tributes to John Hughes, and also a nice little video montage I found of the eight movies he directed (he wrote and produced a bunch more, click HERE for a complete list). It’s a fun/emotional watch…
Remembering John Hughes: A Teenager At Heart
John Hughes and the Soundtracks to Our Lives
And finally, take a look at this star studded John Hughes tribute from back in 1991 when he was awarded Producer of the Year by the National Association of Movie Theater Owners…
RIP John Hughes. He will most certainly live on through his movies. I doubt I will ever go longer than a week without quoting from one of them. Feel free to share your favorite movies and/or quotes in the comments section….
The pressure is on you now Judd Apatow…
Westcheddar 