It says plenty that “The Breakfast Club” may be director John Hughes’ most iconic slice of ‘80s-era filmmaking. The Hughes Decade also delivered “Pretty in Pink, “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” but the director’s take on teen angst, detention style, stands as his hallmark achievement. No singing on floats, forgotten birthdays or Ducky. Just five teens talking about their bruised feelings for 90-plus minutes.

And you’ll hang on nearly every word while watching the new Blu-ray release of “The Breakfast Club: The 25th Anniversary Edition.”

The story’s setting strips matters down to the bare essentials. Five disparate teens are forced to spend time together in a Saturday detention hall. Each represents a high school stereotype, from the no-account thug (Judd Nelson) to the rosy-cheeked princess (Molly Ringwald).

Naturally, they bicker from the start, but their conversations wear down each others’ defenses. They poke and prod each other verbally, their faces registering every direct hit. (more…)

In the well-known 1980’s film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Mr. Bueller famously says, “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” That line could refer to the death of John Hughes who wrote and directed that film and who died last week at the young age of 59. However, that line could also refer to some of the themes from some of Hughes’ most well-known and iconic films that are still loved by many today.

Admittedly, I have not seen every John Hughes movie. Before his passing, though, I had seen only a few of his most well-known pictures like “The Breakfast Club,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and “Home Alone.”  Last weekend, after the death of Hughes, I watched two of his other well-known movies, “Pretty in Pink” and “Sixteen Candles,” for the first time in commemoration of his death and to see why these films had such an effect on the young people of the 1980’s.

Because I was not a teenager during the 80’s, I did not have the opportunity to watch Hughes’ movies during the decade that Hughes helped define for so many young moviegoers. I was a child of the “Home Alone” era, not a teenager of the “Breakfast Club.” (more…)

Without John Hughes, would there have been a 1980s? The filmmaker and screenwriter died of a heart attack while walking Thursday in Manhattan. For the uninitiated, he wrote National Lampoon’s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off–directing several of those films as well.

Memories of Hughes’s films are as likely to be audio as visual: The Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, and Simple Minds were among the acts introduced to a wider audience through Hughes’s sonically-savvy films. (more…)