2009 - the summer the 80's died - RIP John Hughes

John Hughes taught me how to apply lipstick with my cleavage. He introduced me to so many dreamy boys - both good boys - Andrew McCarthy, Eric Stoltz, and in what would become my battle cry as a teenager, bad boys (& now if truth be told) - Judd Nelson and James Spader... sigh. He totally understood what I was going through in high school. And then there was also the awesome music that provided the back drop to these movies. It is like all of the icons of the 1980's are been taken away. I was very very saddened to hear that John Hughes died on Wednesday of a heart attack.

Hughes defined a generation of coming of age movies directing such iconic movies as The Breakfast Club, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Sixteeen Candles and Weird Science. He also wrote Pretty In Pink, The National Lampoons Vacation movies, Home Alone, Some Kind of Wonderful. He unwittingly created the "Brat Pack" - launching the careers of Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Anthony Michael Hall and many others who were 80's movies for me.

I loved his films. I can't think of another filmmaker who has so totally captured a genre of films the way Hughes did. He created the teen angst dramedy and without him movies such as Heathers, St Elmo's Fire (although that was 20-something angst dramedy) and Mean Girls would not have been made. My absolute personal fave will always be The Breakfast Club. I could watch that movie everyday and not get bored. It was on yesterday (with all the cursing cut out so it was not as good), and I could remember watching it over and over again when I was younger.

I could go on and on and on about how amazing I thought John Hughes was, I could provide a list of quotes that made his movies so fantastic (pretty much any line in The Breakfast Club). But I will leave it to his teenage penpal to express for us all the devastation and loss we all feel at the passing of this legendary film maker.

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

RIP John Hughes - you will be missed.

XO