:: sniff :: I think I have something in my eye…
I graduated from a Chicago-area suburban high school in 1986. When they came out, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off both seemed to have been made just for me.
The setting of The Breakfast Club was very similar to my high school. In fact, my high school is less than 15 miles away from Maine North High School, where the film was shot. Glenbrook North High School, where John Hughes went to school (and which was used for the exterior shots in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, is even closer.
I had actually done much of what Ferris had done before Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released, including: skipping school (once), leaning against the glass on the Sears Tower observation deck, visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, attending a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, and even “borrowing” a car (Porsche instead of a Ferrari). None of this was in the same day–they were just various things I had done during the few years that I lived in the Chicago area. Anyway, seeing the movie was positively weird. It was one of the few movies I’ve ever seen in my life where I immediately recognized almost every scene. It was actually kind of creepy at the time.
So anyway, rest in peace, Mr. Hughes. You will be missed.
We had a major thread about The Breakfast Club a few years ago.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=348170&highlight=breakfast
So then you’re saying that Ferris and Kevin lived in hovels, or what? You’re missing the mark here. Hughes attacked classism, prejudices, and the straitjackets that society puts us in. This can’t be reduced to a rich/poor, or teen/adult thing, although he used those at times as microcosms.
His movies are not terribly deep, of course. “The Breakfast Club” was probably his most serious attempt at making a statement, and I always thought it was fairly simplistic and monstrously boring. On the other hand, it’s every bit as good, to my mind, as “The Catcher in the Rye.” Both, I guess, have resonated with a lot of people; I just don’t happen to be among them.
But when the guy went for funny, he could definitely deliver.
So, you lived in Shermer, Illinois (emphasis on the"s"). I hear all the honeys are top-shelf, but all the dudes are whiny pussies - except for Judd Nelson, he’s fuckin’ harsh - and best of all, there is no one dealin’. I’ve always figured you could live like a phat rat if you were the blunt connection in Shermer, Illinois.
Yep, one of my favorites.
When the movies came out, I was many of those characters as I journeyed through junior high and high school. My particular schools were very heavily cliqued and stratified, and his themes of the struggle to break those boundaries were very resonant with me.
If you mixed in a blender John Cusack in 16 Candles, Ducky in Pretty in Pink, and Anthony Michael Hall in Breakfast Club, you’d get me.
Without freezing it even? How do you type?
I saw *The Breakfast Club *twice in the Eighties and it most definitely was one of the significant films of the decade.
RIP Mr. Hughes
Man, movies are bullshit.
God bless you, John Hughes- not only for your own movies but for inspiring a ton of others (Hiding Out & Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home come to mind).
Why do you have a fake i.d.?
So I can vote.
Do you know what I like about you?
Is it my clean close shave?
Automobile???
Interesting story:
Brian
Psst. See post 39.
Opps, I skimmed the 1st page but obviously misse dit.
Brian