R.I.P., John Hughes

In theaters Friday: Bandslam, District 9, Paper Heart [limited], Ponyo, The Time Traveler’s Wife

New on DVD/Blu-ray: 17 Again, I Love You, Man

What is so dangerous about a character like Ferris Bueller is he gives good kids bad ideas. That, to quote smarmy Principal Ed Rooney, pretty much sums up Matthew Broderick’s mischievous school-skipper in John Hughes’ classic comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. That’s also exactly why my mom didn’t like me watching that movie when I was a kid. Ferris was too charismatic, too likeable, his mission too universal to ignore.

Because who doesn’t want to bail on school or work or life for just one day to drive a Ferrari? Who wouldn’t want to explore an art gallery or cheer at the ballpark or sing along to the Beatles in a parade? Asking ‘Who wants to be Ferris Bueller?’ is like asking ‘Who wants to have some fun?’

But that was the Hughes touch. Bueller is such a simple idea, but executed with a brilliance and ingenuity that made it feel like nothing short of a revolution. Hughes died last week at age 59, though he had long before retreated from Hollywood, a recluse nearly on par with J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. Last year four filmmakers set out to find Hughes, and interview actors and friends who’d worked with him over the years. That film, Don’t You Forget About Me, will certainly need another chapter considering Hughes now is among the ultimate recluses, but you can watch the trailer here.

But maybe it’s better that Hughes didn’t continue directing into the late ’90s or the ’00s. Maybe when the times change there’s little place for those who used to so heavily define them. Make no mistake, the guy was once a machine. He wrote and directed Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Great Outdoors and many more, while penning screenplays for a dozen others, including Vacation, Mr. Mom, Pretty in Pink and Home Alone. In short, John Hughes was not part of 1980s cinema, he was 1980s cinema. And he so perfectly captured the pop culture zeitgeist, the clash of parents who were last teens in the 1950s raising Reagan-era kids who just didn’t care what they thought, the crush of first love unrequited and the weight of being unique when everyone just sees you as a stereotype.

Everyone has favorite scenes from John Hughes’ movies. Here are mine.

5. Macaulay Culkin quizzes John Candy in Uncle Buck. An extremely young, pre-Home Alone Culkin asks Candy 11 questions in as many seconds in this perfectly-pitched non-sequitur, almost Abbot & Costello-esque routine. “I’m a kid. That’s my job.” I can’t tell you how annoying I probably was quoting this line when I was 9. Over and over, anytime it seemed to fit into the conversation.

4. Jack gets laid off. If there’s a right way to get fired, this is it. Michael Keaton—who needs desperately to return to comedy—lets his Mr. Mom employer really have it by not taking any guff or blame for mistakes he didn’t make. He just tells it like it is, and how they’ll be begging him to come back in no time. Nice.

3. Clark’s “quest for fun.” There comes a time when all fathers are pushed to the absolute limit. Even well-meaning, if brainless, ones. When Clark Griswold finally loses it on the way to Wally World, when his family has completely turned on him and all he wants to do is to take them on a fun vacation, Chevy Chase unleashes one of the funniest tirades put to film. “You’ll be whistling ‘Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah’ out of your—” you know what.

2. Ferris twists and shouts. How any filmmaker can write and shoot a karaoke/parade/group dance scene without it looking cheesy is a certified genius. And Hughes did it. One of several Beatles references in Hughes’ films—The Geek sang the Fab Four’s “Birthday” to Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles—the filmmaker always showed incredible musical taste from ’60s classics to hits like the Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me.”

1. The essay from The Breakfast Club. Everyone watches this movie and identifies with one of the main characters. I’ll admit it, I identified the most with Anthony Michael Hall’s nerd. So when he reads the group essay at the end of the film, I was reading it. And Bender, Claire, Andrew and Allison weren’t just his new friends, they were mine, too. And we weren’t about to be defined by a pompous, power-tripping jerk who wasn’t with us in the trenches.