Marissa A. (penfold) -
Helpful Score: 1
A well-written assessment of John Hughes' more influential teen films, as well as more information on the enigmatic Hughes himself. There was an inclusion of St. Elmo's Fire (by Joel Schumacher) and Say Anything (by Cameron Crowe), presumably for padding and a tad unnecessary, but it all comes back to Hughes.
The man was definitely a genius, but with the good came the bad. I didn't realize for example, how he would get really close with a colleague or his actors (Ringwald and Hall especially), and then suddenly become very cold and shut them out of his life completely, for no real reason that any of them could pinpoint. He wrote teenagers so well because it really seemed like he thought he was one (e.g. hanging out with the teen actors after filming, shunning the adults behind the scenes, naming two of the girlfriends in his movies after the teen daughter of one of his mentors), until the day he decided that he just wasn't and was done with them. It would be interesting to know what he was like at home, but I'm also quite all right with letting his private life stay that way.
There was a whole chapter dedicated to John's love of music and how he fought for a lot of those new wave songs that we all know and love in those soundtracks. I certainly can't hear "If You Were Here" without thinking of Sixteen Candles, "Tenderness" without thinking of Weird Science, or "If You Leave" without thinking of Pretty in Pink.
There was a lot of gushing, to be sure, especially about the 'brat pack' actors. Ultimately, this is a love letter to those films of the 80's that a lot of us love so much, and I loved the nostalgia.
The man was definitely a genius, but with the good came the bad. I didn't realize for example, how he would get really close with a colleague or his actors (Ringwald and Hall especially), and then suddenly become very cold and shut them out of his life completely, for no real reason that any of them could pinpoint. He wrote teenagers so well because it really seemed like he thought he was one (e.g. hanging out with the teen actors after filming, shunning the adults behind the scenes, naming two of the girlfriends in his movies after the teen daughter of one of his mentors), until the day he decided that he just wasn't and was done with them. It would be interesting to know what he was like at home, but I'm also quite all right with letting his private life stay that way.
There was a whole chapter dedicated to John's love of music and how he fought for a lot of those new wave songs that we all know and love in those soundtracks. I certainly can't hear "If You Were Here" without thinking of Sixteen Candles, "Tenderness" without thinking of Weird Science, or "If You Leave" without thinking of Pretty in Pink.
There was a lot of gushing, to be sure, especially about the 'brat pack' actors. Ultimately, this is a love letter to those films of the 80's that a lot of us love so much, and I loved the nostalgia.
