While we still haven’t hopped off the Nostalgia Train of the late, great John Hughes, we decided to make a quick list of the great music moments in teen movies. John Hughes took his soundtracks very seriously, as one of his very few post-80s interviews on Sound Opinions attests, and why shouldn’t he?
Teen movies, in general, have great music. I don’t know how that is, but when you think about it, teenagers take music more seriously than any other demographic I can think of, so if you’re making a movie by/for them, it’s gotta have a great soundtrack. Some of the choices may be silly, but, then again, most teen movies are too.
15. Clueless, General Public “Tenderness”, Radiohead “Fake Plastic Trees, Coolio “Rollin With The Homies”, Jill Sobule “Supermodel”
A fitting introduction to all modern teen movies. Writer/Producer/Director Amy Heckerling, a veteran of the Brat Pack era herself, re-imagines Jane Austin’s Emma as a match-making high school gal cavorting around to a killer soundtrack that featuring a number of re-made 80s songs. The flick revived the late Teen Movie Factory which began churning out a ton high school comedies, as well as plenty of classicd-turned-teen drama… like She’s All That (My Fair Lady), Cruel Intentions (Les Liaisons Dangereuses), O (Othello), and 10 Things I Hate About You (TheTaming of the Schrew).
14. Weird Science, Oingo Boingo, “Weird Science” & General Public “Tenderness”
13. Risky Business - Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight”
12. Rushmore - “Making Time”
Wes Anderson’s much-copied montage of Max Fisher’s busy extracurricular schedule set to Brit-invasion fuzz.
11. Romeo + Juliet, Garbage “#1 Crush” or Radiohead “Talk Show Host” or Des’eree(?) “Kissing you”
10. Pretty in Pink, Psychedlic Furrs “Pretty in Pink”
Awww, Nick Cage used to be cute! This soundtrack kills, and has both Modern English’s “Melt With You” and Men at Work’s “Who Can it be Now?” but Araceli pointed out that the soundtrack LACKS this classic (which I can’t find the full clip of).
7. Some Kind of Wonderful, Lick The Tins, “Can’t Help Falling in Love”
This appeared earlier as Araceli’s favorite John Hughes moment, and I’d never seen the movie but, oh man, it IS a great song. Love the tin whistle. Skinny Eric Stoltz and a tin whistle is all you need.
6. Dazed and Confused, “Free Ride”
Honestly there are TONS of songs to choose from on this one… a great classic rock soundtrack. “Free Ride” narrowly beat out the pool hall entrance scene to Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane”.
5. Fast Times at Ridgemont High: The Cars, “Moving in Stereo”
Hilariously, the actual scene isn’t on YouTube (probably because of the nudity), but the scene has obviously reached legendary status, as you get the idea here.
4. Donnie Darko, Tears for Fears “Head Over Heels”
Donnie Darko is either adored or maligned depending on the crowds you sit with at lunch. In this clip we’re introduced to nearly all the characters in the film while touching on some major plot points and motifs in the process. Richard Kelly’s film style seems to give a nod to John Hughes, Baz Lurhman and David Lynch — all of whom have a healthy fascination with teen drama. Did you catch Phantom Planet singer Alex Greenwald doing a line of coke with a young Seth Rogan? Gotta love it.
3. The Breakfast Club: Simple Minds, “Don’t You Forget about Me”
Because some dope has disabled embedding, you can check out the ending here. Simple Minds were the centerpiece of this teenage testament to high school cliques — the song made the Judd Nelson still-frame ending iconic (and lovably cheezy), but it’s also bookended by an instrumental version that opened up the movie with Anthony Michael Hall’s voice over.
2. American Graffiti - “Rock Around The Clock”
1. Say Anything, Peter Gabriel “Your Eyes”
As I’ve been hunting for all these clips on Youtube, I’ve realized two things. 1: The more popular a scene is the LESS likely the actual clip will be on YouTube, and 2: Because it is popular, there are going to be TONS of crap tributes, iMovie photo clips, and terribly unimpressive/unfunny/poorly-executed re-creations. All in all… posters of YouTube, you’re terrible. Go to hell….
-A: Unbeknownst to me “Your Eyes” was the “it” track on this album, but Depeche Mode’s “Stripped” is by far the real stand out song.
I wrote this blog entry six years ago. In it, I talked about my life 11 years ago, and how it paralleled Andie and Blaine’s in “Pretty in Pink” because my boyfriend then was really rich and there really seemed to be this class divide between him and his friends, and me and my friends. This entry, made before Youtube, references every scene I could relate to.
Pretty in Pink=My Life 5 Years Ago
So I was watching Pretty in Pink with Mark last night and I realized that it was the story of my life five years ago! (I then googled his name and it turns out some other girl believed my ex was also Blaine to her Andie! I am not alone!)
He does pithily look and act like Blaine, in fairness.
It was also a coinkidink that I was playing “Rumble Breath Man” right before we started watching and I was telling Mark how most of my songs were written with CTCFS (what we called said Ex) in mind. Proof:
#1 The Party:
The party where they first go to where everyone was stoned and drunk and Andie felt totally awkward? That was me! I was so scared to meet his coño friends because I didn’t have the right clothes, the right address, the right look…one of his drunk friends even told me, “Oh, you finally broke through our group…” or some shit like that.
God. As if it was everyone’s lifelong dream to sit on the coño bench.
#2 Duckie:
Ed was my Duckie! My friends used to diss CTCFS to his face all the time (”Make pa-share the ice cream? Pa-share?! PA-SHARE?!? Can you make pa-tuhog your eye?!? Bwahahaha!!” or “Lille! You’re ditching us to hang with Mr. flavor of the month?”)
The same from Ducky: “Blaine? That’s not a name, that’s a major appliance.”
Ed even wrote CTCFS a break-up letter (separate from mine!), saying “you are a spineless fuck…” or words to that effect. Hee!
#3 Le Freak C’est Moi!
Tapos the part where Andie freaks out on him in the school hall? I totally wish I had done that to him instead of freaking out to my friends outside the 7-11 in Malate right after a reading in Caribana. “If somebody doesn’t believe in me, I can’t believe in them.” Whoo!!!
#4 “I don’t want you to take me home!”
The part where Andie doesn’t want Blaine to see where she lived kills me. The first time CTCFS picked me up he said, “I’ve never been anywhere like this before.” (This=Skwaking). On one date, he picked me up first then went back to Forbes (where he lived) to pick up his friend! Sheeyet. I guess cause he didn’t want his friend to see where I lived. And of course in the end, his car stereo was stolen right outside our house in Baguio. But that house was in a really nice area, so that’s pretty ironic. Hee.
Man, young love. It is hilarious and cute now, but hurt like hell when it was happening. So watching that movie was like reliving my past. I hate the ending though; I forgot that Blaine and Andie ended up together. I would never have let that happen. But read what Jon Cryer has to say about the ending.
Seriously? All I wanted was to live in a bubble with him. Aww!
My ideals about men and love practically reside solely on the collaborations between John Hughes and Molly Ringwald.
I was conditioned by the age of six to know that unrequited love was a way of life. And throughout all of my adolescence it seemed the only way I was content when a boy liked me, is only after some big build up, because a kiss without a dramatic back-story is simply just a kiss.
Here are my favorite Molly Ringwald/Mary Stuart Masterson built-up moments courtesy of Mr. Hughes.
Sixteen Candles: (This Spanish dubbed version makes it even better)
Some Kind of Wonderful: Tears + walking in the street at night +kiss + Lick the Tins cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” = Perfect
Pretty In Pink: Poor, new wave girl confronts her rich, preppy (but down to earth) boyfriend in the hallway. This qualifies as the epitome of high school drama.
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.
Bembang! is a music blog written by a trio of music nerds who live in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City.
