John Hughes Piece on NPR

I found out about this interesting NPR piece by way of one of my favorite procrastination engines, Metafilter. (Here's the original post on MeFi.) Proving, once again, that the influence of John Hughes is damn near perpetual, if not always pleasant.

Drillbit Taylor

Ok, it may not be the two and a half hour director's cut of The Breakfast Club that I've been hoping for, but Drillbit Taylor just might be a promising return to form for John Hughes (under his I'd-rather-not-take-full-responsibility pseudonym, Edmond Dantes). At the very least, he's taking a break from pre-tween protagonists, and returning to high school.

There are a few genuinely funny, er, "bits" in the trailers and clips available here. All in all, it looks sort of like Weird Science meets My Bodyguard (but funny), with a Superbad sensibility, for good measure. At any rate, it'll probably be better than this piece of crap.

P.S. (Man-of-the-moment, Seth Rogen is listed as a co-writer, and the bully is played by this kid, who was one of the gunmen in Elephant. Stay tuned for a post on Elephant, probably coming later today.)

Oh, Ilan!

I'm still not done with Chapter 2, but I will not be defeated. It's a complicated chapter. Lotta ins, lotta outs. I'm just now starting the last section of the chapter which deals with Keith Gordon's adaptation of the Robert Cormier novel The Chocolate War.

The movie stars Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Jerry Renault. Ilan was in a smattering of movies in the '80s, including one of the six movies in John Hughes' teen oeuvre, Weird Science.

Ilan pretty much gave up acting, and took up academia. Here is his faculty profile at Angelo State University (that's in Texas), where he is now Professor Mitchell-Smith. He is an English professor, go figure, and he looks just about the same as he did in The Chocolate War, except perhaps appropriately swollen.

I read a story about him in People Magazine a while back that I like to share whenever I get the opportunity. Apparently, after giving up fame and fortune as a minor child star he completely forget about acting and started living a "normal life". When he met the woman who would later become his wife he didn't even tell her about his past success on the big screen. They had been dating for quite some time before conversation finally found its way to all things Hollywood. The future Mrs. Ilan Mitchell-Smith confessed that when she was a kid she really liked this movie called The Chocolate War because she had such a crush on the kid that played Jerry Renault!

True story. True story? I dunno. It's a good one, though.

Newport South; Reach the Rock

I found this article some time last week. I had not realized that John Hughes wrote the screenplay for Reach the Rock, which I knew about only because John McEntire of Tortoise-fame composed the soundtrack. Geek-that-I-am, I purchased a VHS copy on Amazon for $.01 - plus the $2.98 shipping cost - which I received yesterday. When the flow stopped some time last evening - still working on The Breakfast Club chapter, for feck's sake - I sat down for another perspective on the mind of John Hughes.

It was not disappointing, if not actually enjoyable, which was a surprise given the fact that it pretty much disappeared upon release. The story - which takes place in Shermer, IL - could be reasonably described as a return to the teen-angsty flicks of yore. At least it was much more BreakfastClub than CurlySue. Damn it, I liked it, and I would watch it again, but I am a geeky fan-boy of sorts.

Speaking of which... There is another almost completely unknown high school movie, tangentially connected to the Hughes canon. Newport South was written by John Hughes Jr. with dad acting as executive producer. It is about as angsty as they get; three friends orchestrate an all out rebellion in their high school with the help of some hip graphic design and a soundtrack that out-cools the movie itself. No wonder that Hughes Jr. would be more successful as muso and big-serious-important-guy at Hefty Records.

Newport South also features this guy as an emblem of angry authority. I ran into him in Boston recently and recognized him from NS, not realizing that he had claims to fame far more weighty than bit-parts in virtually unknown high school flicks. I accosted him, and explained that I had a keen interest in silly movies about high school. He seemed bemused, if not slightly annoyed, and rightly so. He also wrote and directed this movie, which was nominated for an oscar or five, and this movie, which I still haven't seen, but it has one of the best trailers I have ever had the privilege to witness.

Ok, geek-time is over, back to work. I plan to post Chapter One later today.

Geek Out - The John Hughes Font?

I'm working on "Chapter 1" now, which focuses on The Breakfast Club and therefore will have to say something about the larger Hughes oeuvre. This morning I started watching Pretty In Pink - one Hughes movie that I would prefer to forget - and I noticed that the opening credits use the same font that appears in the opening credits of TBC. I had a hard time finding an example of what I'm referring to online, but if you click here you can briefly see the typeface in question.

Are there any hipsters out there, well versed in the alchemical vagaries of graphic design, that could help me find out what this font is called, or if it has had any other applications?