It was 40 years ago today

And Ferris Beuhler.

 

That used to be ubiquitous on HBO back in the day, but I haven't seen it in a long-ass time.

If you went to Catholic school, especially in an urban environment much like that, as I did, it really hit a lot of things that rang true.

But I haven't seen it in ages, so I wonder if it holds up?

 

And Risky Business.

Way to go, Jacobson!

 

Hughes' movies were both satisfying and incomplete. He knew what people wanted and had a terrific gift for making a movie in 90-100 minutes...per a Wiki check, he either wrote, directed or produced 31 movies from 1982-2001, all but nine of which clocked in between 83 and 107 minutes. The only one to hit two hours was Home Alone 2, which was right at 120 minutes. Honestly, that's as long as movies should be. I'm not sure who decided you had to have your mail forwarded every time you went to the movies.

But the third act, especially in the teen movies, often seemed rushed to arrive at a pat ending. The original ending for Pretty In Pink (Andie and Duckie end up together) flopped in test screenings so they re-shot an ending in which Blane (Andrew McCarthy wearing a ridiculous wig b/c he was already off to another project) and Andie hurriedly ended up together. His movies also sort of strayed into semi-serious territory and then veered off right away. I guess that's sorta good, b/c the alternative to Cameron smiling and declaring everything would be all right after he wrecked his Dad's car is his Dad coming home and murdering him with his bare hands. That'd be a downer of a third act. And of course today, we'd get a 50-minute third act in which Ferris avenges Cameron's death by hunting down and murdering Mr. Frye.

That said, I thought The Breakfast Club ending was good outside of rushing to pair up everyone except poor dorky Brian. I liked how they generally agreed the bonding ended once they left the building and they'd be back in their respective roles on Monday.

 

What About “The Breakfast Club”?

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/526/is-that-what-i-look-like/act-three-6

 

One other note: I enjoyed it when I was a teen, but I'm not sure there is a movie anywhere that has aged as poorly as "Sixteen Candles."

A celebration of date rape with a horrendous depiction of an Asian man for comic relief.

 

Revenge of the Nerds says to hold its pie.

 

And speaking of Revenge of the Nerds, that has to make any "that was always on HBO in the '80s" list w/Just One Of The Guys (It's OK, everyone, he has tits).

 

John Hughes had a penchant for making really funny movies - that made you feel like an a-hole at the end when you learned the source of the humor was something tragic.

 

Can't deny that. It's a real shame, because it's one of the very, very few movies in any genre where it's enhanced by nearly every secondary character in it.

 

I think we've discussed this before, but of the 3 that had essentially the same plot (Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink & Some kind of Wonderful), I remember thinking that SKOW was by far the best movie.

 

What I can't get past in Hughes movies are how adults are almost universally buffoonish. Even as a teen, I felt that way. There were teachers I had that had bits and pieces of what Hughes portrayed in his movies, but it was almost never the whole picture and never so over-the-top. If it were a movie or two, no big deal, but it's a theme that runs through almost every Hughes movie, especially ones that were teen-kid oriented. Shit, even Home Alone is based on a ridiculous premise that parents would leave a kid behind for a flight-based vacation.

This buffoonery works very well in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, because the whole movie is a fantasy comedy in the first place. Same for Weird Science where the whole thing is absurdist.

The other movies? Particularly Breakfast Club? It comes off as over-done or betrays a very weird world view from Hughes himself as an adult. It's almost like his teen movies were a revenge tour for shit that happened to him when he was younger. (The Vernon character is based on a wrestling coach who failed him when Hughes was in school.)