[icwhatudo]

the true nemesis of Ghost Busters wasn't Gozer but the EPA

rotflmao-that guy will always be the EPA to me.

[Redgirl]

"Sure enough, there's Harold Ramis—another Lampoon alum, who directed Hughes' screenplay for Vacation—reflecting on the Chicago Seven hearings in a recent interview with the Believer: "They ran up and down the street, smashing car windows and stuff. My first reaction was, 'Yeah, right on!' But then I thought, 'Wait, I'm parked out there.' " The polite term for this gentle rightward shift when it happens to artists and intellectuals is embourgeoisement.
What a shame the philosopher of puberty never warned kids about that."

I'm glad John Hughes didn't use his films to try to shove philosophical life lessons down our throats.

[Alkhin]

Man is this article dripping with disdain or what?

[Recovering_Democrat]

Hughes' Best Film post-Breakfast Club

[Jhensy]

As a connoisseur of the classic-era National Lampoon (1970-79), I can tell you John Hughes was a fantastic and hilarious addition in the late 70's. I remember the "Pants-Down Republican" piece well... it summed up the feelings of many a young Republican rebel at the dawn of the Reagan era: a return to the values of the old America of our Dads and a rejection of hippie liberalism, but without the uptight stick-in-the-mud "fogeyism" the left branded the right with.

When the great Doug Kenney left the Lampoon around '75, publisher Matty Simmons handed the reins to PJ O'Rourke, to the horror of the staff left-wingers like Tony Hendra and Sean Kelly. These guys have held grudges to this day against O'Rourke, always bad-mouthing him, while PJ was responsible for some of the funniest material they ever did, including the High School Yearbook Parody (with Kenney) and the brilliant Sunday Newspaper parody, among many, many other pieces. O'Rourke and Hughes were SO funny, you would literally shake with laughter. They were that good.

It goes without saying that Hendra and Kelly were never, ever funny. Intellectual, yes. Funny, no. I have the back issues to prove it.

[Tribune7]

The '80s were cool bump

If you leave, don't leave now
Please don't take my heart away
Promise me just one more night
Then we'll go our separate ways . . .

[fieldmarshaldj]

I wish Hughes would get back to doing his best material again. His kiddie films are really grating and subpar, and the best film he has done in the past 18 years is "Reach the Rock", which I doubt most folks around here have even seen or heard of.

[art_rocks]

I was always curious who selected the music for his movies? Did he or someone else did it. Where else could you hear the Smiths and New Order in a soundtrack.

[retrokitten]

Some Kind of Wonderful is the prolier-than-thou retelling of Pretty in Pink. It has the two hard-up best friends, their gender roles swapped, wind up together. Keith (Eric Stoltz) is the male Andie who, in the ridiculous space of a two-second flashback, realizes that Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), the tomboy Duckie, is the one for him.

I didn't know that. But I am still in love with Eric Stoltz.

[Mr. Silverback]

Fans who have been waiting since glasnost to see these two tragically hip hearts beat as one will still feel cheated, however. All we get on the new DVD are some rough dailies of Duckie asking Andie for a "moonlight dance," accompanied by a voiceover explaining how test audiences and an insistent Ringwald loathed any resolution that had the preppie failing to rescue his damsel in distressed jeans.

Dang, was Ringwald a snob even then?