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.
