It was 40 years ago today

[micropolitan guy]

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. ship, 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 ship 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.)

I think if he's making the movie from the teen's POV, most adults are buffoonish.

 

[qtlaw]

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. ship, 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 ship 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.)

IMHO, the audience should get a reminder that characters are not intended to mirror real life, that's the point of fiction, to get you to think beyond your everyday life. Adults as buffoons? That's funny and a release from the real world. Whether the 5 in Breakfast Club were real or not, their interactions were interesting and the themes involved resonated to me. I think that's all Hughes was intending.

 

[Songbird]

No '80s teen flick had an ending within a thousand miles of Last American Virgin.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

No '80s teen flick had an ending within a thousand miles of Last American Virgin.

I was thinking of this on the always-on-in-HBO jack! Incredible ending.

 

[qtlaw]

No '80s teen flick had an ending within a thousand miles of Last American Virgin.

THAT was the most brutal ending EVER!! If ever there was a lesson that the "hanging around" method was not going to get you the girl (i.e. pining from the side) nothing would (of course I didn't learn until later.)

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

Life can go from the Plimsouls to James Ingram in a heartbeat.

Haven't seen it in ages, but my recollection is that "Last American Virgin" was more honest than some of its peers.

Also, part of the early 80s abortion teen movie wave! To this day, I ashociate "Open Arms" with abortion. Why?

Because I'm an idiot as I became convinced that was the song in "Last American Virgin" Diane Franklin had an abortion to, even though I think it was actually "Oh No" by the Commodores ... if there was even any music in the scene at all.

 

[YMCA B-Baller]

Also, I mean, I'd hang around for Diane Franklin.

 

[garrow]

Lane Meyer certainly did

 

[Junkie]

(And I don't want to be the guy who drops in to ship on a beloved movie ...)

We do what comes most naturally to us.

 

[Junkie]

If ever there were a movie that calls for suspending disbelief, it's "The Breakfast Club." I mean, they forking fired up fatties in the library, which probably would not have gone unnoticed, no matter where Vernon and Carl (the best character in that show, by the way) were at the time. They had a wrestler, in season, pounding a 3500-calorie lunch. In reality, he'd have had that apple and a glash of water. ... Bender probably caused $10,000 (ca. 1984 money) crashing through the ceiling ... Claire kissed a hood in front of her rich dad ... Andrew kissed a goth chick in front of his jugghead dad ... nothing like any of that ever happened. Questioning the realism of this is completely pointless. We don't do it with Forest Gump, which is the least believable movie of all time, so why do it with "The Breakfast Club" or ...

"16 Candles." Everything about the movie -- every single second -- is an ongoing caricature. Of everything. People want to go all Zapruder on it and break it down frame-by-frame. It's a stupid teen comedy. It's not meant to be taken seriously. Never was back then and shouldn't be now. And "16 Candles," which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in about six weeks, is still funny as hell now, maybe even more so because of all the exaggeration that went on. Not one thing in that movie was believable, nor was it intended to be.

And yet all of it was more believable than "St. Elmo's Fire," when Kevin gets a front-page editorial in the WaPo as his first "byline" after doing obits for the first few weeks of his career.

Great stuff. All of it.

 

[Twirling Time]

It was interesting seeing the "brat pack" grow up from the early 80s high school to the late 80s young adulthood. That's the only observation I have.

Pretty much the ash end of the Boomer generation, when you think about it. The last of the Boomers turned 18 in 1982 and these teen movies were their dying teen spasms.

 

[BTExpress]

No '80s teen flick had an ending within a thousand miles of Last American Virgin.

Great pull.

I mean, NO teen movie back then had an ending where the poor, downtrodden star didn't wind up on top of the world. And then this! No ultimate revenge, no finding the even prettier girl at the party, just . . . heartbreak (to a great ending song).