DanTaylorBlog

I was first informed about John Hughes passing via a text message from my friend David (who I’ve known since high school) while I was at work. I immediately jumped online to find out the details. Apparently the famed “teen-film” director had died of a heart attack earlier in the day while on a morning walk in New York. While John Hughes has been out of the spotlight for sometime – in fact almost to the point of obscurity recently — there is no denying his impact on movies in the ’80s, and his influence on coming-of-age movies that followed.

Four of the all-time classic high school movies were released while I myself was in high school — Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And, while Weird Science (I dig movies that feature Oingo Boingo tunes) isn’t exactly an “all-time classic high school movie” it was released during that same four year sentence I was serving in the hallowed halls of Huntington Beach High School. Not only were these movies entertaining to the fourteen to eighteen crowd, they spoke from the heart with an added since of humor that kids like me were drawn to listen to. John Hughes movies during that time personified the high school experience and let us kids realize that we all wrestle with the creature that is that time in our life. He didn’t dumb it up just to be funny. And, we devoured his films. I was in a media class during my junior and senior year in which we produced a weekly news program called Campus Update. One of my roles on the program was that of entertainment reporter in which I often did movie reviews. The Breakfast Club was one movie that I reviewed and one of the stories that I was most proud of. Someday I’ll have to throw it up on YouTube. Let’s face it, even today there are kids in school that know kids exactly like those portrayed in Hughes’ films. But, more than likely, they identify with a character or two themselves.

But, John Hughes wasn’t only about teenage angst. He wrote Mr. Mom and National Lampoon’s Vacation. He also wrote and directed Plains, Trains & Automobiles and She’s Having A Baby (a personal favorite movie of mine that I’m man enough to admit). And, there was that one movie — Home Alone, among many others that he wrote, directed, and/or produced.

John Hughes has definitely been an inspiration with my writing — screenplays and comic book scripts alike. (Nate and Hayes was one of the movies I re-watched while writing Pirat Tales, believe it or not.) Hero Happy Hour is very influenced by the likes of Hughes’ writing. The sidekick character of Scout would be right at home in a Hughes’ movie. And, when Pop: Darlings of America ever sees the publishing daylight take note of the nightclub in one scene called Pretty In Pink.

To quote Ferris Bueller — “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Thank you, Mr. Hughes for making us stop and look around.