{"id":1775,"date":"2009-08-09T01:07:05","date_gmt":"2009-08-09T01:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=1775"},"modified":"2009-08-09T01:07:05","modified_gmt":"2009-08-09T01:07:05","slug":"hughes_montage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2009\/08\/09\/hughes_montage\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Wasteland"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have encountered this already, but here’s a nifty little video clip that’s making the rounds. It’s a tribute to John Hughes comprising scenes from his best-loved movies set to The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly,” which many people think is called “Teenage Wasteland” because of the refrain. Whoever put it together did a fine job of editing, and I think it’s quite effective:<\/p>\n

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There’s a lot of memories and associations packed into that five minutes. Personally, every time I hear “Baba O’Reilly,” I find myself instantly transported back to the speech and debate room at good old Bingham High School. (FYI, I was on the debate team for a year.) Somewhere along the way, I’ve lost the context of this memory; I don’t know if the moment I recall so clearly occurred during the day or at one of our after-school prep sessions, or maybe it was in the wee hours after a tournament. I just have the moment of the song itself, the first time I remember hearing it, or at least the first time I paid attention to it. One of those moments when whatever’s playing on the radio seems to have been programmed specifically for you<\/i>, like the soundtrack of your life. I remember I wasn’t especially happy at that moment. I didn’t really like being on the debate team; it was more work than I’d anticipated, and less fun. I was worried that I didn’t seem to have what it took to effectively compete. And of course I was swimming in all the usual adolescent angst, the insecurity poorly concealed by swagger, the constant preoccupation with the mysteries of sex, and the bigger mystery of why I couldn’t get any. But man, I must’ve looked cool, crashed on the worn-out thrift-store couch in the back of the room, wearing my cheap Ray Ban knockoffs and my ratty old trench coat. Teenage wasteland indeed. Just like a John Hughes movie.<\/p>\n

Getting back to him, I’ve collected a few links that fans may find interesting. First up is a brief retrospective of the music<\/a> in his movies, which was essentially a character in itself and always seemed to be utterly perfect for the mood of the scene. Following that, have a look at where Hughes’ teenage stars are<\/a> now. I had a big crush on Molly Ringwald back in the day, and I think I kind of still do. Interestingly, the guy who played Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles<\/i> has completely dropped off the radar, as in reporters are unable to locate him. Rumor has it he’s a carpenter now. Finally, this blog post<\/a> is a personal remembrance of John Hughes and what he meant to a young woman who became his pen pal. It’s a beautiful piece that gives you a good idea of what he must’ve really been like, and it even includes some insight into why he left Hollywood. (Here’s a big hint: it involved his sons and John Candy’s death.)<\/p>\n

And just for a little treat after all that, here is something I never expected to stumble across, the original short story<\/a> that inspired National Lampoon’s Vacation<\/i>. The basic bones of the movie are all here, but the overall effect is quite different. It’s a fascinating comparison…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have encountered this already, but here’s a nifty little video clip that’s making the rounds. It’s a tribute to John Hughes comprising scenes from his best-loved movies set to The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly,” which many people think is called “Teenage Wasteland” because of the refrain. Whoever put it together did a fine job […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}