Chicago Guy: “Life Moves Pretty Fast…”

“… You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Good advice. Sadly, Hollywood lost one of it’s seminal scribes last week in John Hughes, screenwriter and director of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and several other classics of ’80’s cinema.

I have a confession to make, however. I never considered myself a big fan of John Hughes. Perhaps because I was still so young in the ’80’s, I missed the Hughes-mania. I had yet to start kindegarten when Ferris Bueller was taking his ninth sick day of the semester. I had about three candles on my birthday cake when Samantha was lamenting her forgotten Sixteen.

And to make matters worse, I’ve had a minor bone to pick with Hughes for quite some time. I finally saw The Breakfast Club in high school, in the late ’90’s, and I remember being very upset: as Brian Johnson, aka the Geek, reads their final essay, we see the Rebel get the Princess, the Jock get the newly-beautified Freak, and who does the Geek get? The PAPER. As a self-proclaimed geek, then and now, I feel a bit slighted. Hughes spends the whole movie breaking down stereotypes, only to reinforce this one at the final moment?

I know what you’re thinking: SACRILEGE! BLASPHEMY! HERESY! Well, put down the ropes and the torches and hear me out.

Despite my few misgivings, the simple truth is this: John Hughes owned the ’80’s and early ’90’s. He was to movies what Rick Springfield and Rick Astley were to music. He defined the term “teen comedy”. The Brat Pack can thank him for their entire careers. His collaborations with John Candy (Uncle Buck, The Great Outdoors, and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles) were some of the best of Candy’s career. Or how about his more family-oriented fare, such as the Home Alone or Beethoven franchises? Or, the National Lampoon’s Vacation series?

An entire generation grew up adoring his characters. The rebels all wanted to be John Bender, the class clowns idolized Ferris Bueller, and the princesses could choose from a host of Molly Ringwald incarnations. Very rarely can you say that one person’s style sums up an entire decade, but Hughes was just that: the cinematic epitome of the “Me” Decade. Love him or hate him, the movie world will never forget him. RIP, John Hughes.