...gone, but not forgotten.
As it were, I was also born the year John's future film-maker son was born...1976, in the same area that John filmed his best work, the northern suburbs of Chicago. That put me in prime-time viewing of the main cannon of his greatest films. I can't describe how vivid and impactful those movies were...how fond I was of Weird Science, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, and later...The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
My brother and I must have watched Weird Science a hundred times on it's run on basic cable, when my mom foolishly left us home alone. To this day, it is hard for me to take Bill Paxton serious in any movie, after his turn at the militant dickhead older bother, standing in his boxers with a shotgun in one hand and a cigar clenched in his idiotic grinning teeth...."Shaddup...buttheads!"
It still brings a smile to my face as I write this.
Hilarious:
-Practically every line in Christmas Vacation... seriously, look it up in IMDB!
The characters were so memorable, the situations, no matter how outlandish and surreal...nevertheless seemed eerily close to home. When Cameron (Alan Ruck) drove his fathers Porsche off the back of the garage...I think we all collectively cringed in horror, and empathy...knowing full well what kind of punishment he would be facing, relating it to our own lives.
There never seemed to be a lack of true emotion that crept into the dialog. Comedy mixed with the uncomfortableness of memories and feelings from our own lives.
Hell, even the movies I didn't know he had a hand in, left the same mark. Admittedly, I had no idea he wrote Career Opportunities [My first young crush at gazing upon a young Jennifer Connelly].
I will spare writing more, as countless newspapers will no doubt do their best. But let us all thank John Hughes, for leaving a creative impact on most of my generations young lives...
R.I.P. John
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