Don’t You Forget About Me: Brian’s Favorite John Hughes Moment
Posted: August 9th, 2009 | Author: Brian | Filed under: Chicago, Uncategorized, pop | Tags: 80s, Chicago, Ferris Bueller, John Candy, John Hughes, Judd Nelson, Teen Movies, The Breakfast Club |After the tragic passing of John Hughes last week, Araceli suggested we all choose our favorite moment in a Hughes film. Gee Whiz. That’s a nearly impossible task when you look at the movies he’s been a part of as a writer, director or producer:
- The Breakfast Club
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Weird Science
- Sixteen Candles
- Home Alone
- Uncle Buck
- The Great Outdoors
- Mr. Mom
- Planes, Trains & Automobiles
- National Lampoon’s: Vacation, European Vacation, and Christmas Vacation
Wow. Arthouse films they are not… but they are all classics. I’m reminded that Hughes, although he’ll be remembered for his teen comedies, filmed the era’s best comedic actors in my most favorite roles: Chevy Chase’s epic Clark Griswald in the Vacation series, Steve Martin slowly going mad in Planes, Train & Automobiles, Dan Aykroyd’s fast-talking yuppie industrialist in The Great Outdoors, and OF COURSE… the late great John Candy in, well, the two mentioned above, but especially Uncle Buck.
The amazing thing is that most of his teen movies predate my adolescence, and were already idolized by the time I had reached those teen years. John Hughes had the pulse of growing up white, awkward, and middle-class in the Chicago Suburbs. In fact, Hughes’ teen comedies were all supposed to exist in the same Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois. A town that lots of people fell in love with, including director Kevin Smith and his characters.
Because I couldn’t choose which of the eleventy-million Judd Nelson quotes in The Breakfast Club were my favorite, I have to go with Ferris Buelhler’s “Twist and Shout” dance scene that takesplace during some sort of workday afternoon Germanfest(?) parade in front of Mies Van Der Rhoe’s Federal Building in Chicago.
As every highschool boy’s Id, Ferris cruises into the city ditching highschool in a stolen Ferrari leaving angry authority types and innumberable montages in the dust, showing Cameron (i.e. most of the angsty, fretful, teenage viewers) how to REALLY do a sick day.