John Hughes Dies: Director of ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’ Dead at 59

It’s a cruel cruel summer… John Hughes, director and screenwriter of 80s films that did more for teens’ self image than prozac, died today in New York of a heart attack.

While most pop culture of the 80s have become things of nostalgia, Hughes’ contributions like “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Weird Science,” “Pretty in Pink,” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” continue to be as relevant as ever, clearly due to their wholly REAL characters portrayed by very real actors like Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald. In fact, the only one who didn’t seem like someone you might actually find in your school was Kelly LeBrock in “Weird Science” – and she was a computer simulated Frankenbabe!

The letter at the end of “The Breakfast Club” sums up best what people will always love about John Hughes’ films (omg spoiler alert?):

…You see us as you want to see us… In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case, a princess and a criminal.”

Edited: August 7th, 2009