... or How I Learnt To Stop Worrying and Love Blogging: John Hughes - 1950

There have been a number of obituaries eulogising the impact of John Hughes on modern cinema, and its true. He above all over directors influenced and effectively created the teen comedy but I'd like to take his passing to remember his affect on me as a child growing up in the 80's. On Friday night I honoured his work and output by watching The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles and Planes, Train and Automobiles. Take a second to let that soak in. Four films in one night. Essentially a Anthony Michael Hall trilogy and a Steve Martin/John Candy comedy classic. All made in the 80's. An era which I have repeatedly said means any film immediately needs to lose one star - unless it's not set in the 80's. Somehow my argument always holds up, films in the 80's are always 1 star worse than any other decade. All of the classics are set in an era outside of the 80's and are probably classics because in many ways the 80's was a genre of nostalgia. And then there is John Hughes. The 2nd most important American filmmaker on the 1980's. Sorry Robert Zemeckis, but it's true. After Steven Spielberg, the 80's belonged to John Hughes. In six years from 1984's Sixteen Candles to 89's Uncle Buck he directed 7 films. He wrote 17 films in the same decade from National Lampoon's Class Reunion via Vacation, European Vacation & Christmas Vacation, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and ending with Home Alone in 1990. That's some level of work, and some level of quality comedy. You may not be a fan of 80's comedies, but they guarantee to make you laugh and will probably melt you heart if you let them as well.

So to the 4 films I watched in dedication to Mr Hughes.

The Breakfast Club - what can be said which hasn't already been so. The quintessential teen comedy. Aimed at everyone from pre-teens right through to young adults who can still remember be teens. The film may not offer the complex depth of character which might expect today, but it pisses all over any number of Road Trip or American Pie is crytallizing the angst and depression of being a teenager, as 5 students - the brain, jock, criminal, weirdo and prom queen, have to spend their Saturday in detention. It a perfect film. The set up, the characters, the performances, the pace. That the character act out and express themselves exactly when you need them to is perfect pacing and writing from Hughes. And how many teen films have 5 fully realised, believable and above all loveable characters.

Weird Science - ok, this is the very 80's one. Frankenstein filtered through a teenage boys wet dream and what do you get - Kelly LeBrock aparently, and this is one of those films where, if you were the right age when you first watched (the right age being somewhere between 11 & 14) then Weird Science was not only a brilliant romp, but also the basis of your formation of the opposite sex, especially how perfect a woman could be. I don't think of LeBrock as the being the first cinematic woman to stir my loins, but she, and the film especially will always have a unique place in my development from boy in man - for that John Hughes I salute you.

Sixteen Candles - never seen this one before. But its the one from the point of view of woman. Molly Ringwald, that classic 80's teen star, her career made by John Hughes and possibly this film. It's charming, endearing and funny, thanks mainly to Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. It's also one of the few, if only film about middle child syndrome. Yes it may be corny, and yes it may be odd that the hunk falls for her without ever meeting her, and spends the whole film trying to speak to her - but come on John Hughes made boys believe they could create Kelly LeBrock, why shouldn't girls get a film where after having your 16th birthday forgotten by your family, a geek sophomore hitting you, and being ginger you can still get the guy without doing anything.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles - Steve Martin, John Candy. Lots of different transport. A comedy of errors really with a perfectly clear goal for Steve Martin's exec trying to get home for Thanksgiving to spend it with his family. En route he is thwarted unintentionally by the loveable John Candy. The ending may be predictable and the set simple but the pay off comes in two of the 80's best comedy actors, some hilarious scenes and some witty dialogue. Planes, Trains and Automobiles is a classic comedy, and will cheer up even the bluest of moods.

So John Hughes contributed the most prolific comedy films of the 80's defined the careers for good and bad, of many 80's star, helped create the Brat Pack, gave boys going through puberty Kelly LeBrock, makes Judd Apatow look lazy, and not very funny and defined the teen movie. The model for which is still used today in countless tripe which passes for teen comedy.