Skip to main content

Sixteen Candles John Hughes?

For many years, I had seen only a couple of movies with ties to John Hughes (whether he was the writer or writer/director): Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. That meant no Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, or The Breakfast Club for me in the 80s. Of course I knew about those movies, but I wasn't drawn to R-rated movies in general because my parents didn't want me to see them. The R-rated movies I was attracted to were action flicks, not salty-language pics about romantic triangles.

When I really got into movies that were beyond what the multiplexes had (aka, college), I was more into horror flicks and indie movies. I'm talking the Scream franchise (and its ensuing knock-offs), some of the Halloween movies, Good Will Hunting, Swingers and all of Kevin Smith's movies. While I did see Weird Science, I had been told that I must see The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles by many friends. The whole, "You haven't seen it? Awww man, you gotta see it!" came up frequently. And not even a reference to Shermer, Illinois in Dogma made me drop everything and watch those movies.

Well, it only took ten years to get there, but I finally saw Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club this year. And guess what? I didn't hate them, but I thought, If I saw these when I was in high school, I'd completely relate and worship them. I think they're essential to watch when you're in high school/college because the topics are incredibly fresh and timely. But as we age and embrace adulthood, topics like taking somebody to the prom and choosing the right boyfriend don't resonate as much as the central theme of Ferris Bueller's Day Off ("Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and take a look around once in a while, you could miss it.").

I'm not weeping over misspent youth here. I wouldn't change a thing about watching Star Wars, Back to the Future, and Buckaroo Banzai repeatedly as a suburban kid. I find life to be a series of playing catch-up while doing what I want to do. Ah yes, the joys of being stubborn.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Hello, Control

I'm still a big fan of iTunes . I haven't tried Napster , Urge or eMusic as I've been perfectly happy with Apple's program ever since I downloaded it two years ago. However, an annoying new feature has come up with its latest version, 7.0. Whenever you pull up your music library, a sidebar taking up 3/4ths of the screen appears plugging the iTunes Music Store. Why is this an annoyance? Well, first and foremost, since you can't close the sidebar, you can't escape it. I believe a music library is a private collection, a spot away from the music store. So what's the need for constant advertisements and plugs? To provide a better visual, let me describe what I see whenever I pull up a song in my iTunes library. When I listen to "This is a Fire Door Never Leave Open" by the Weakerthans, I see a graphic for Left and Leaving , the album that it comes from (and available in the iTunes Music Store), along with a list of the Weakerthans' other albums,

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J