Monday, August 02, 2010

John Hughes

August 6 will be the one year anniversary of John Hughes' dying, which means the tributes are gonna be making the rounds again. When people think of Hughes they think of his Sixteen Candles/Breakfast Club/Pretty in Pink/Some Kind of Wonderful run, but his Planes, Trains and Automobiles/Great Outdoors/Christmas Vacation/Uncle Buck/Dutch run is pretty phenomenal too.

Here's a dude talking about meeting Hughes and finding himself watching Hughes act out the entire movie.
After a while, I asked him what his movie was about. I knew next to nothing except the title and that John Candy and Steve Martin were going to be in it.

"Planes, Trains & Automobiles" Poster Hughes started telling me the story of “Planes, Trains & Automobiles.” But he did much more than just describe the plot—he performed it for me. It was funny and moving, just the way the movie would be. At the time I was thinking that he really must have connected with me to tell this story that was a Woody Allen-style secret. Looking back I realize he was doing something a similar to a pitch. But pitches are for high-powered studio execs, not for lowly Unit Publicists. The Unit Publicist usually ends up on the credits somewhere between Craft Service and the guy who drives the Honey Wagon (toilet truck). But talking through stories was a normal aspect of LA life, and for some reason, he felt like telling his story to me. It was wonderful, but as he went on, I kept thinking. “There is no possible way he is going to take this all the way to the end….” But he did. He performed the whole damned movie just for me.

1 comment:

Kiko Jones said...

You know, as someone who has much lauded Hughes' teen flicks, I was surprised by my lack of awareness of the fact that they strongly imply that conforming to the mainstream to be popular is the way to go. As someone recently reminded me, Andie does not choose Duckie, the basket case gives up her goth look so that she can look "normal" and attract dudes, etc. Not to get revisionist here, but, fuck!