Damn, I hate this summer. Everyone's dying. He directed the classic '80s teen flicks like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, etc.

May he rest in peace.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0916263/

That was unexpected. :o  RIP Mr. Hughes, Hollywood will miss you.

that's very sad  :(  love his movies.  good bye John Hughes

Wow! How sad.



Cat

I just read this... so very sad. Sixteen Candles is my favorite movie of all time, and so many of his other films make up my Top Ten list, including The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, Mr. Mom and Christmas Vacation.

His movies always had such an authentic sense of comedic timing and were always relevant in their scope and tone. He truly knew what was beating at the very heart of every 80s teenager, that is without doubt. His films with Molly Ringwald always captured perfectly what it was like to be an angst-ridden teenager during that period of time. If you want to know what it was really like to be a teen back then, simply watch a John Hughes film and it is a perfect demonstration down to the most subtle of nuance, such as the type of earrings a girl would wear to how a teen would speak with a parent and the language they would have used. No one else captured the time the way John did and his movies will stand as time capsules for an entire decade which he in many ways helped define. I think I'll have to have a John Hughes marathon over the weekend and watch some of his films I have in my collection. I'll still laugh at the antics of Farmer Ted and Clark Griswold, but it will be tempered with sadness at the passing of a true 80s icon... :(

I'm in shock, absolute shock.  He was such an icon, he directed some of the best movies of the 1980s... Even some of his flops were great., like Dutch which is a personal favorite of mine.  Oddly I showed my wife that movie before she had even seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Sadly he ended up doing a ton of Home Alone and Beethoven movies... those are best left off the resume once the sequels began.

Man, just what the (bleep) is going on? Why are all the legends dying?  >:(

I loved all of Hughes films, especially St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty in Pink.  This is so tragic. If this keeps up, entertainment will indeed become a glittering cesspool.

Wow, this really creates a void in movieland.  :\'(  Hughes' movies were an era unto themselves.  8)

On the CBS News I learned a bit of Hughes trivia.  Before he was a movie director, he worked at an ad agency hawking all sorts of products.  Remember the old "Edge Gel" commercials where the guy scraped his face with a credit card?  ("Scratch scratch... this side shaving foam.  No sound... this side Edge")  That was his work!  8)

RIP John, you did it right....  :)

Another unexpected loss!  :\'(

I've watched many of his movies countless times.

RIP John Hughes.  :\'(

First Michael Jackson, then Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays, Walter Cronkite, Gidget The Taco Bell Dog, and now John Hughes.

This has been a crappy summer, indeed.

Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Some Kind of Wonderful...

These are all iconic movies of my adolescence.  

I too was surprised and saddened to hear of John Hughes' death by heart attack at 59.

I was actually familiar with Hughes' early work as a National Lampoon writer in the 1970s.  My big sister had a subscription, so, as perverse as it may sound, NatLamp was some of my early reading material!  The original "Vacation" screenplay is based on his short story "Vacation '58."  The character that became Long Duk Dong in "Sixteen Candles" appears in the followup to "Vacation '58," "Christmas Vacation."  I guess Hughes didn't want to repeat the character when the screenplay for "Christmas Vacation" was optioned.  The gag in "European Vacation" in which the nudie video of Ellen Griswald gets stolen and printed appeared first in a pictorial of grainy stills with captions in a NatLamp issue circa 1979.  

I was the perfect age for "Sixteen Candles" when it came out.  In fact, Hughes developed a highly stylized vision of American teens in 16C and the other subsequent movies he actually directed: "The Breakfast Club," "Weird Science," and "FBDO."  The fashions and music embraced by these teens was actually not typical for the time.  I keep thinking of the Human League and Depeche Mode posters in Wyatt's room, or the Simple Minds and Cabaret Voltaire posters in Ferris' room.  You would find these in 1985 perhaps in an elite prep school dorm in the rooms of students on the verge of coming out!  Hughes' slick rendering of American adolescence became more '80s than the real '80s was.  

:\'(

WTF!!! Seriously?  Now I do wanna cry!  :\'(

:\'(

  Aw man...

  RIP and thank you for the memories, John...

This is unbelievable :\'( R.I.P John

Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Some Kind of Wonderful...

These are all iconic movies of my adolescence.  

I too was surprised and saddened to hear of John Hughes' death by heart attack at 59.

I was actually familiar with Hughes' early work as a National Lampoon writer in the 1970s.  My big sister had a subscription, so, as perverse as it may sound, NatLamp was some of my early reading material!  The original "Vacation" screenplay is based on his short story "Vacation '58."  The character that became Long Duk Dong in "Sixteen Candles" appears in the followup to "Vacation '58," "Christmas Vacation."  I guess Hughes didn't want to repeat the character when the screenplay for "Christmas Vacation" was optioned.  The gag in "European Vacation" in which the nudie video of Ellen Griswald gets stolen and printed appeared first in a pictorial of grainy stills with captions in a NatLamp issue circa 1979.  

I was the perfect age for "Sixteen Candles" when it came out.  In fact, Hughes developed a highly stylized vision of American teens in 16C and the other subsequent movies he actually directed: "The Breakfast Club," "Weird Science," and "FBDO."  The fashions and music embraced by these teens was actually not typical for the time.  I keep thinking of the Human League and Depeche Mode posters in Wyatt's room, or the Simple Minds and Cabaret Voltaire posters in Ferris' room.  You would find these in 1985 perhaps in an elite prep school dorm in the rooms of students on the verge of coming out!  Hughes' slick rendering of American adolescence became more '80s than the real '80s was.  

:\'(




Wow Max, you could become the next Siskel or Ebert...  Well written!

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

read this and you'll understand just how awesome the man was...

How very sad!  :\'(

Wow, thanks for that link, Chucky.  He was pretty awesome. 

Wow, thanks for that link, Chucky.  He was pretty awesome. 


It was a really awesome link, and really made my day.

Not only he directed some good movies, but he also wrote the screenplays of "Home Alone".

Maybe they SHOULD call a school after him now.

Not only he directed some good movies, but he also wrote the screenplays of "Home Alone".

Maybe they SHOULD call a school after him now.


That would be cool.

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

read this and you'll understand just how awesome the man was...


That's very touching.  It really is. 

I remember when John Candy died.  He was trying to lose weight and he had quit smoking.  According to IMDb, Candy's father also died young of a heart attack.  I had not heard the studios were working him harder than he wanted to work.  Dell Griffith (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles) was my favorite JC character.  He reminded me -- heck, he still reminds me -- of my close friend Matt, a big, jolly, tubby, friendly guy who doesn't catch on when he's being annoying as all hell!

I think my favorite non-comedic scene in a John Hughes movie is John Bender's "No, dad, what about you?" speech.  Judd Nelson captures the same hurt and rage I had from the horrible blowouts with my dad, which were spoken in a more genteel manner, but just as nasty, and my dad was fond of saying f-you!
::)

Wow, I never knew how many great movies he was responsible for!  Some of my favorites!

R.I.P. John Hughes  :\'(  :\'(  :\'(

That would be cool.


I know they did that with "Not Another Teen Movie", but maybe they can do that now...and not like "Not Another Teen Movie".

Damn, I hate this summer. Everyone's dying.


Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.


Karma for FBDO!

That's very touching.  It really is. 

I remember when John Candy died.  He was trying to lose weight and he had quit smoking.  According to IMDb, Candy's father also died young of a heart attack.  I had not heard the studios were working him harder than he wanted to work.   ::)


He did not have to take on those jobs.  Nobody held a gun to his head.

Can't say I was a big Candy fan his first few roles were pretty cool, but then the vast majority of his work was simply rehashing the "fat jolly guy", with very few exceptions.  Kinda like Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, and Rosie Perez who 95% of the time rehash the roles that got them intial fame.

According to Wikipedia, by 1994 Candy's career was in decline.  My guess is he was scoring as many jobs as possible to get cash while he could.  I have to imagine he amassed some pretty good dough for the various big films he was in.

He did not have to take on those jobs.  Nobody held a gun to his head.

Can't say I was a big Candy fan his first few roles were pretty cool, but then the vast majority of his work was simply rehashing the "fat jolly guy", with very few exceptions.  Kinda like Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, and Rosie Perez who 95% of the time rehash the roles that got them intial fame.

According to Wikipedia, by 1994 Candy's career was in decline.  My guess is he was scoring as many jobs as possible to get cash while he could.  I have to imagine he amassed some pretty good dough for the various big films he was in.


According to IMDb, he got 2 million dollars salary just for "Armed and Dangerous," one of those notoriously BAD '80s comedies!  I can't imagine he would have accepted less for a major role after that.  Candy wasn't a versatile actor, but if you could get 7 figures for just being yourself, that would be hard to turn down!  Perhaps with the dire warnings about his health, he knew the jolly fat guy gig couldn't last forever, so he was trying to build up the biggest nest egg he could...but his heart problems nailed him first.

According to IMDb, he got 2 million dollars salary just for "Armed and Dangerous," one of those notoriously BAD '80s comedies!  I can't imagine he would have accepted less for a major role after that.  Candy wasn't a versatile actor, but if you could get 7 figures for just being yourself, that would be hard to turn down!  Perhaps with the dire warnings about his health, he knew the jolly fat guy gig couldn't last forever, so he was trying to build up the biggest nest egg he could...but his heart problems nailed him first.



I really love John Candy's work and like you said, Max, he tried to lose weight and quit smoking.

But since he and his father had a heart-attack in their 40's, it may be heredity. Because my dad had a friend who died young from a heart-attack and so did his father.