If you want proof that John Hughes has still not been succeeded as teen movie king, take a look at the 2001 spoof Not Another Teen Movie, which references Hughes’ films more than any other, despite the fact that it’d been 14 years since the filmmaker had last given us one of his signature entries into the genre. Also see the marketing of last year’s American Teen, a documentary that was sold as a non-fiction version of The Breakfast Club, 23 years later.
There will likely never be another John Hughes, at least not in the way he defined a type of movie. And at the same time, as much as nearly every teen movie since his seminal six recognize his influence, few of today’s teen movies can even get away with or accomplish things his films did. It would be appropriate if we could name sixteen of these things present in Hughes’ early works that are absent from modern teen movies, but we’ve got half that number, and we’re hoping it’s enough to establish that his films were, for better or worse, of a certain time, despite the fact that they’re so timeless. …Read more
John Hughes was probably my first favorite filmmaker, or at least the first I really knew by name and reputation. So I’m especially saddened by his death from heart attack today, at age 59. Ferris Bueller’s Day Offmay no longer be my favorite movie of all time — actually attending high school somewhat ruined the teen mythology that exists in Hughes’ films for me — but it forever remains in my top ten list of titles I enjoy watching over and over again (even if I am critical of the musical number).
Because many of us film bloggers grew up religiously watching his movies, including those he scripted but did not direct, there’s a lot of shared memories and tributes popping up around the web this evening. Check out what people are saying about the legacy of the iconic filmmaker after the jump:
Nerds for 1930s horror (myselfincluded) have cause to both cry and rejoice today. Bad news first: Universal has announced plans to remakeBride of Frankenstein, James Whale’s 1936 masterpiece, with The Illusionist’s Neil Berger in talks to write/direct. Berger’s probably not the worst choice in the world, but I think I speak for all concerned fans when I say that Oingo Boingo’s “Weird Science” video was remake enough.
In much better news: Lou Lumenick alerts us to the October release of the Karloff and Lugosi Horror Classics DVD box set, which includes the first DVD release of my favorite horror film of the 1930s, Michael Curtiz’s The Walking Dead, starring Karloff as a pianist who is wrongly executed and then brought back to life. Yay!
It’s been a long time since I watched a movie aired on commercial television. As a kid, however, I watched enough TV edits of films to have seen both Fast TImes at Ridgemont Highand Sixteen Candlesabout a thousand times each before I knew that either film, in its original cut, features nudity. As far as language goes, though, any kid could figure out what curse words were really being mouthed by the actors instead of overdubbed words like “stuff,” “funsters” and “mothercrusher.”
But a young person watching Weird Sciencemay have been seriously confused, because much of the censored dialogue wasn’t even inappropriate for television. So, when words like “nipples,” “fart” and “bang” are replaced with “pimples,” “puke” and “hit,” we kids of the ’80s just simply had to abandon TV edits forever. Therefore, I’ve never had the pleasure of hearing a coarse phrase from The Big Lebowskiturned into the bizarre line “This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!”
According to a list of “10 Worst Movie Edits For TV” at AskMen.com, the #1 offender is Die Hard’s infamous “Yippee-ki-yay, Mr. Falcon.” But I have to go with their #10, Weird Science, for the top spot, because it ruined me for future movie edits, and now I’m aware that some of them are actually quite enjoyable in a ridiculous sort of way. Check out a montage of Weird Science overdubs after the jump.
This is it, the day we’ve been waiting for two full decades (or, at least, since we first heard it was happening back in December): the Huey Lewis plot song written specifically for the David Gordon Green-driected, Judd Apatow-produced stoner comedy Pineapple Express has hit the web! The Playlist first posted a clip of the song last night; today, Whitney at Pop Candy points to the full thing, available for streaming or download on MySpace.
It’s very much in classic Huey Lewis plot song mode, complete with gratuitous hand claps and sax solo. It’s not as directly narrative as, say, “Back in Time” (above), but it’s slightly more literally connected to the film than, like, “The Power of Love.” A sample from the chorus: “How did we get into this mess? Pineapple Express! Can’t deal with this stress! Totally gone, cause we’re on, Pineapple Express!” It is the best, and it is also totally the worst.
As we’ve discussed before, plot songs take the science of the source cue to a new level. After the jump, a brief, video-guided journey through plot song history. Let us know what we’ve left out.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon recently gave a lengthy interview to the GeeksOn podcast, and half the blogs in my Google Reader are talking about it (yes, the mostly the nerdy ones). You’d assume that the geeks would be most excited about what Whedon had to say about future movie projects, or maybe the his new TV series, which stars Buffy/Angel vet Eliza Dushku. Wrong. All anyone is talking about is a throwaway diss from Whedon on the subject of John Hughes’ Weird Science:
I hate Weird Science not a little. I find it offensive. The boy fantasy of building a girl. Obviously, we were doing the nasty version of it, because I find it grotesque.
When Whedon says “we”, he’s talking about a storyline on a late season of Buffy, in which ancillary character Warren built a robot version of Buffy for the sexual gratification of Spike. Warren eventually got flayed by Buffy’s lesbian witch friend Willow, and the Buffybot was destroyed by demons, so I guess everyone got their comeupance for engaging in the “grotesquerie” of the robot girlfriend game. Except for Spike, who moved to LA and partnered with Buffy’s other vampire ex-boyfriend to fight evil lawyers. But whatever. Back to Weird Science…
Let’s talk about my insatiable appetite for pre-postmodern horror. I don’t care about sorority girls getting slaughtered because they ran the wrong way up the stairs; I basically don’t care about anything that’s not in black and white. I like stuff that takes place in creepy laboratories, where some desperate soul is trying to violate the natural boundaries between life and death. The Universal monster movies of the 30s, the Val Lewton stuff of the 40s, the nuclear panic stuff of the late 50s/early 60s. So it’s a given that my favorite part about the weeks leading up to Halloween is that Turner Classic Movies floods their schedule with ancient, half-forgotten horror films. Halloween itself is kind of a letdown, because it means the well of stuff I love is about to dry up.
But as usual, YouTube makes it all better. As a child of the 80s, I think I always had some awareness of of the Boris Karloff films, particularly Bride of Frankenstein, but it was filtered through Young Frankenstein, Elvira and “Weird Science” (the Oingo Boingo song, which I definitely heard years before I saw the movie). Above, you’ll find a clip of the creation of the bride from the 1935 sequel to Frankenstein; below the jump, the various cultural detritus that led me to it. Happy Halloween!
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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John Hughes was probably my first favorite filmmaker, or at least the first I really knew by name and reputation. So I’m especially saddened by his death from heart attack today, at age 59. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off may no longer be my favorite movie of all time — actually attending high school somewhat ruined the teen mythology that exists in Hughes’ films for me — but it forever remains in my top ten list of titles I enjoy watching over and over again (even if I am critical of the musical number).
It’s been a long time since I watched a movie aired on commercial television. As a kid, however, I watched enough TV edits of films to have seen both 
