[Beowulf9]

Well, thats my rant and I'm sticking to it.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Boomers and (early) Gen-X actually DID ditch school and go joy-riding in Dad’s car.

(late) Gen-X thought about it but decided it was easier to watch a movie about it.

[T.B. Yoits]

[caver]

There are certain comedy movies that I can’t stand, usually because of the actor. I didn’t realize that the same guy did all the ones you listed. The only good one out of the whole bunch is Ferris Buellers Day Off.

[dfwgator]

[Williams]

Alone at Home perverted? Not

Or Ferris Bueller

Vacation maybe but still fun

The earlier ones on your list never interested me.

As for the director, I would never have known the same person made all those.

[HYPOCRACY]

Planes, Trains and Automobiles is one of the funniest movies ever.

[Frank Drebin]

[montag813]

Great music in those films, though

[Jolla]

Watched HERE last night, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. All shot as if one location (the living room) from prehistoric to modern and all of the families or people in that space. Most of it was Hanks born at the end of WWII and his retirement. But includes many scenes from Revolutionary War to today and the 4-5 families that lived there.

[BBQToadRibs2]

The were a product of that era. And not too much is far off in my opinion. Some Hollywood liberty, yes. But they did capture the culture of Gen-X as teens in that era.

[Alberta's Child]

Not a bad rant, but “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is one of the most iconic movies of that era — and it hits on the culture of the 1980s perfectly.

The legendary “slo-motion Ferrari getting air over a hump in the road while the Star Wars theme song plays in the background” scene is one of the funniest movie scenes in history. LMAO.

[Roadrunner383]

Taken as a whole, they’re better than almost all of the CGI dreck in the theaters today.

The wife and I had to sit through a seemingly endless series of movie previews at the theater a few weeks ago. Every single preview involved either super heroes, or silly horror films, all CGI, and none involved believable effects.

[equaviator]

"...movies that make me think of some NOT teenaged guy, but a pervert living out his sexual fantasies..."

Have you no shame, sir? John Hughes died in 2009 and can't defend himself against such an abuse of the power of suggestion.

[joesbucks]

Home Alone is sexual fantasy?

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Those are the best, funniest movies of the 1980’s.

[discostu]

Sexual fantasies in Home Alone?! That sounds like a you problem.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I loved Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club. 😉

[stylin19a]

Uncle Buck is till great...Take this quarter. Go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face.

[Restless]

My favorite of the list is Hairspray. It’s a fun, campy movie that is a good parody of 50s/60s TV dance shows. As for The Breakfast Club, I saw it in college with my buddies. We all related to it because each character reminded of us of people we knew in high school. And the actors made them realistic, not stereotypical.

[PGR88]

I can’t watch those movies now either, but I saw them when released, and they were indeed popular and at the time, and considered new and different.

He captured “teen angst” of the 1980s in a way that hadn’t been done before. Molly Ringwald was a sweet girl with a woman’s emotions and Matthew Broderick was still a kid, but with the manipulative ability of an adult. His films didn’t involve gratuitous sex, violence, or dirty language either, which automatically (and smartly) made them “mass-market.”

The common theme of his “coming of age” films was emotionally mature and intelligent children in conflict with obtuse or wooden adults around them.

I guess Gen-X kids liked this. It was somehow particular to that era

But I agree with you - watching teen angst now as a middle-aged adult is cringe-inducing, like looking through awkward yearbook photos.