I like The Breakfast Club and hate myself for it.
I love “The Breakfast Club” and I’m completely unashamed to admit it. So far it’s the closest a movie I’ve seen has come to capturing realistic high school dialogue and cliques without being ultra-realistic (i.e. Van Sant’s “Elephant”).
I mean, obviously not every group is represented (seeing as it was made in the 80’s and each high school seems to have its own specific hierarchy), but Hughes pretty much got the gist of it.
And the fact that movie only follows the kids for one day makes it very cool. It’s like an experiment: What happens if you put one kid from every basic high school group in a room for a day and make them talk to each other?
Never seen a director who can capture the life of being a teenager of that time so perfectly.
Let’s not go too far. I’ll defend some of Hughes’ work (let’s say, pre-Curly Sue) but Fast Times at Ridgemont High is far superior than anything he’s done and it captures high school dialogue and the life of being a teenager of that time far better as well.
I love “Fast Times At Ridgemont High”.
Having said that, I think “The Breakfast Club” was better in terms of accessibility. “Fast Times” is more specific in terms of location and culture (i.e. West coast and the surfer culture).
Now I’m certainly no one to debate the authenticity of 1980’s high school speak seeing as I wasn’t alive in the 80’s, but I know that “The Breakfast Club” happens to hold up the best in a modern setting. It’s the only high school movie that the majority of my teenage peers can relate to regardless of the time it was made or its setting. The setting could have been anywhere because it was limited to the halls of a high school. Therefore, it could have been ANY high school, making it accessible to far more high schoolers than just West coast high schoolers, knowutimsayin’?
“the breakfast club” is timeless. i really love that movie. i get a chill up my spine every time the music cues at the ending, and we get near that final freeze frame.
You guys don’t like Curly Sue? Also, I think that was the last film he directed. He’s in more of a dry spell than Cisse and Cameron!
I was an extra in Uncle Buck. I was living in Chicago at the time working at a homeless shelter. A casting director needed some “local color” so some of our clients were recruited. It was a wonderful experience although one of our homeless unfortunates vomitted during one scene at a bowling alley causing a real panic. That same lost soul was later found frozen to death under a viaduct near Lake Michigan.
RIP
1950-2009
I still love that Simple Minds song. What a drag to be just 59.
Too bad he didn’t do much during his last years. Great director and scriptwriter!
maxwellsilver
What do you guys think of John Hughes?
Especially his 80s…Coming of age…stuffs.
Great?Love it?Hate it?Guilty pressure? Classic?
by the way I found this mash up video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtRQsCgYmtc
pretty cool…