Don't you forget about me....

I've been doing a lot of reminiscing lately about high school...

Maybe it's facebook and catching up with all these people that I haven't been in contact with in over 20 years.

Maybe it's because of my 40th birthday is looming right around the corner....can you say midlife crisis?

Maybe it's because my kids are at an age that I remember so well....and that is frightening in it's self.

Then I heard that John Hughes died this week. Talk about getting all nostalgic.
For better or worse John Hughes' movies shaped my teenage years.

He wrote and directed movies like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, and many others. In the 80's these movies that were written from a teenagers point of view were pretty right on (well, maybe not Ferris Bueller's Day Off--that one was a little out there). Each movie a little bit of something that we could all relate to.

In Sixteen Candles I could relate to the character Samantha. Feeling awkward (didn't we all when we were teens?). Feeling misunderstood by my family and sometimes completely ignored (how I longed for a Brady Bunch moment when I would go to my room upset and my parents would come in and we could talk it out and have a happy ending in 30 minutes).Or the unrequited crush on the guy who didn't even know you existed. I even had an eerily similar incident as Sam when my grandmother "assessed" my "development" and discuss it loudly in front of all the extended family at Thanksgiving....oh! the horror! Of course Hughes movies had things that were over the top....like the exchange student Long Duk Dong....or the geek, Ted, being trapped in the coffee table all night. But that's part of what made them so fun to watch.

I didn't really care for the movie Pretty in Pink. I was crazy in love with Andrew McCarthy and hated his character in the movie. I actually rooted through out the movie for the main character Andie to end up with the geek Dukie Dale. He was head over heels in love with her the whole movie and so sweet, then gives her up at the end. Yuck. But the movie did a pretty good job showing how our friends and peers influence the choices we make.

The Breakfast Club, with a group of kids from different cliques in Saturday detention, taught us that we all have our insecurities and not so perfect home lives and how we all just want to fit in. That there is always more going on than what people see on the outside. It was all taught with humor, outrageous scenes and good music (or at least I thought so at the time).

Of course a lot of Hughes' movies were just plain silly, like Vacation, Home Alone, Weird Science, and Uncle Buck. I didn't realize all the movies he had either written or produced until I googled him after he died.

Too bad he's not around to make some coming-of-age movies for my up coming midlife crisis.

How about a movie about a 40ish mom who can't sleep because of her hormones going crazy? Or the trials and tribulations of dealing with multiple teenagers...there could be a lot of humor behind that. The struggles with wrinkles and gravity. Fading eyesight and memory. There could be a scene with some cool music going on when she has one of her hot flashes?

I'm sure more funny movies would have come from him if he hadn't died so young. Thanks Mr. Hughes for all the 80's memories and laughs.