Steven O'Rourke posted on August 06, 2009 20:00
An excerpt from the Kevin Smith movie, Dogma:
Bethany: What exactly brought you to Illinois?
Jay: Some fuck called John Hughes.
Bethany: Sixteen Candles John Hughes?
Jay: You know that guy, too? See, all these movies take place in a small town called Shermer, in Illinois, where all the honies are top-shelf, but all the dudes are whiny pussies - except for Judd Nelson, he was fuckin' harsh - but best of all, there was no one dealin', man; then, it hits me: we could live like phat rats if we were the blunt connection in Shermer, Illinois. So we collected some money we were owed, and we caught a bus. You know what the fuck we found out when we got there? There is no Shermer in Illinois. Movies are fuckin' bullshit.
Outside of my family and friends, there are few people whose death would stop me in my tracks and make me reflect upon their life and work. John Hughes was one such person though. It was with a mixture of shock and sadness that I heard of his passing this morning. You see, as a child of the eighties, Key Notes grew up with movies like Breakfast Club, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Of course, this blog was a bit too young to see them first time around but, as a teenager in the early '90's the movies seemed to fit perfectly with my own teenage angst.
Hughes was great at writing outsiders and showing, ultimately, that they're not so different from the rest of us. There was a Ferris Bueller, Wyatt Donnelly or Samantha Baker in all of us during our teenage years. It's not often as a teenager that you feel that someone 'gets' you, but when watching a Hughes movie you really felt like he did. Such a pity then that he moved away from teen movies so as not to be considered a one trick pony.
Pop songs always played a huge part in a John Hughes movie. Sixteen Candles had Paul Young's Love of the Common People and True by Spandau Ballet, Ferris Bueller had Twist & Shout and an instrumental cover of The Smiths' Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want and The Breakfast Club had, of course, Simple Minds' Don't You.
However, my own personal favourite was Tesla Girls by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark from Weird Science and that's the song I'm going to finish this blog off with today.
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it - Ferris Bueller. I, for one, will be having a John Hughes marathon this weekend.
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