John Hughes, a writer/director whose stamp on the movies he was involved with was so iconic his name was turned into an adjective, passed away yesterday at the age of 59. Hughes’ heyday coincided with the MTV era, and a lot of the movies that he had a hand in—which included The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink, and other totemic comedies of the 1980s—both shaped for the music tastes of the day and had scenes that could have been snipped out of movies and directly placed into MTV’s rotation. (Witness Matthew Broderick’s performance of the Beatles’ “Twist And Shout” from the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, which Hughes wrote and directed.) Chicago Sun-Times pop critic Jim DeRogatis has a nice appreciation of Hughes’ love for music: More ยป
