R.I.P John Hughes

At the end of the work day today, I heard that John Hughes had died of a heart attack in New York, at age 59. It was kind of a busy day so I just posted an obligatory Twitter Tweet and went on with it.

But thinking about his work made me realize that he was a real talent. Yeah he was behind She's Having A Baby, but come on. Ferris Beuller, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Weird Science and Planes Trains and Automobiles stand out as five of the all time favorite 80s movies. Throw in Fast Times and Real Genius and I am pretty much all set on the 'teen flick' front. And let's not forget he was also behind National Lampoon Vacation...

The two I liked the most were Ferris and Planes. I emphasized with the isolated Cameron character in Ferris, and loved the comic weirdness of Planes. Like when John Candy drives the car the wrong way on the highway and in the crash scene, they turn into screaming skeletons for three seconds. Surreal touches like that were cool. I also loved the end of that movie, where the frame freezes on John Candy's smiling face. I always wondered if that was how Hughes envisioned the ending or if he came up with it on the fly in editing.

From the CNN obituary: "The script for 'Planes, Trains, and Automobiles' was the best script I had ever read," Steve Martin told CNN. "I asked John how long it took to write it, he said, 'I wrote it over the weekend.' The weekend. That shows you what he was able to do."