John Hughes

OK, I'm back in the game. In my humble opinion, the past week has been one of the slower ones in recent memory.

Yes, there was that famous dancer.
There was Time's Woman of the Year in 1986.
And how about the screenwriter who wrote "On the Waterfront?"
Then there's England's beloved manager from their 1990 World Cup semi-final appearance.
And how could I leave out the 'sweater zombie' from Day of the Dead?

But none of them captivated my imagination. And who knows? Perhaps I just needed a break. A Vacation, if you will.

John Hughes. Well, that death cannot go unnoticed. I feel blessed to be a member of perhaps the one generation that truly has its own canon of movies. Sixteen Candles. Breakfast Club. Pretty in Pink. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. See, when my kids ask me what it was like growing up in the eighties, I can just refer them to these films -- classics, every single one of them!

You want a memory? I remember standing in line to see Pretty in Pink at the old twin theaters back behind Town & Country Plaza. Pensacola people, ya' feelin' me? I remember when Molly Ringwald said "They Fucking Forgot My Birthday!" My mouth popped open and I looked at one of my friends, probably Ed Spears. See, Sixteen Candles was rated PG, and she said "Fuck," and you're not supposed to say that in a PG movie, at least none that I had ever seen. The next year, whadda ya know, the PG-13 rating comes out. I'm pretty sure that line was a big contributor to the whole movement.

I go could on and on about Sixteen Candles. "Girl's Underpants!" That really was the ultimate prize back in the day -- maybe still is, but I feel like kids have moved beyond that. I'm not sure whether I got into the R rated "Breakfast Club" or I had to wait for the video, but God Damn!, another amazingly quotable, well written masterpiece. Then, there was Bueller, which pretty much contributed to a nationwide rise in "skip days" in high schools, I'm sure of it.

Hell, I even liked Uncle Buck, which I recall seeing in college with my roommates. The "melanoma head" scene made me laugh out loud then and it makes me laugh out loud now.

Hughes made me cry with the whole Kevin Bacon not knowing if Elizabeth McGovern was going to make it or not in "She's Having a Baby." The Kate Bush song there, not sure if that was John's call, excellent choice.

Damn, so many Hughes memories. So many.

So, here's the strange serendipity part of the whole story. Recently, my kids have been consuming Beethoven movies like ice cream. It's pretty much been the summer of Beethoven. For those who don't know, and don't click on my painstakingly researched hyperlinks, Beethoven is a series of movies about a huge dog. Who wrote those films? Come to find out it was Edmond Dantès, which is the pseudonym of one John Hughes.

Hughes dropped out of sight in 1994, still writing, but not directing anymore. Speaking of directing, this is my favorite Hughes story. The entire film, Breakfast Club was conceived by the writer Hughes, as a way for him to get into directing. He had never directed before. Never been on a set, even. So, what does he do? He writes a film with a limited number of actors, who are mostly kids (easier to direct), with a limited number of shots (easier to direct). Talk about making your own luck!

Well, I could sing the praises of Mr. Hughes for days, but I do have a format to keep to. I'll leave you with one of Hughes earlier works, as a pure writer for National Lampoon. It's about a boy who wakes up one day with a vagina. OK, not fair to women,..um men...um..I'm confused. Here. Here's the opposite story, also written by John.

Oh, God, good st