Man, twenty years ago when I told people I disliked John Hughes movies it was as if I had defecated in the punchbowl, and if I said it today I would be accused of clout-chasing. Dang ol’ moral arc of the universe is long but bends towards justice, I tell you whut.
I couldn't believe people praised that piece of crap when I finally saw it - if you'd told me it was a Verhoeven-esque satire of Oscarbait movies, I'd almost believe you - I laughed out loud at the plastic bag scene - people actually thought that bullshit was profound! Madness!
It is extremely of the moment in nearly every way and further, it sacrificed a lot of human universality for an extremely white, extremely suburban story that was in a lot of ways a throwback to the Hayes code themes except they were able to show more.
I remember people saying in '99 that this & Fight Club were a tag-team of criticism of the American way of life, and thus important etc. When I finally watched this, I remember thinking a) Spacey is creepy & an asshole in this, & b) that there must be some wrong w/ me, as I thought it was just okay.
One of the very few movies that I almost walked out of the theater on - and if I hadn't been a starving grad student who didn't want to waste the money I'd already spent, the odds would have been higher that I'd done so.
I used to have to explain to people that I was uncomfortable with it because I am relatively close in age to Mena Suvari and so it made me very uncomfortable and grossed me out. That really should have made them think that something was wrong with it.
I used to be a big JW fan (I was the right age for Buffy) but the rumours around his treatment of Charisma Carpenter were circulating the internet reasonably early on so the sheen did come off. I really dislike his version of Much Ado
At exactly the age & in exactly the demographic I was supposed to love John Hughes, I saw The Breakfast Club & thought “Okay, the Judd Nelson character getting beaten by his parents has a legitimate beef with the universe, all the rest of you STOP WHINING.”
Puts me in mind of the reading of John Wick that it's what happens to Ted 'Theodore' Logan in the reality where doesn't get out of going to military school
smug rich kid has a $7K Emu Emulator II (~$20K in today's money) that he uses to make sick noises to get out of school...
hated him then, hated him now.
Meanwhile, I was over here on the East Coast, 3000 miles away and a 2-3 steps below them, economically.
"Rich California Kids with cars & swimming pools" didn't exactly resonate, and a movie ticket cost more than an hour's pay bagging groceries, dammit.
This but for Kevin Smith, an embarrassing hack who somehow became the voice of a generation (this is why Gen X fucking sucks) and even somehow fraud ed and conned his way into being one of the first inductees into the Criterion Collection (with probably his worst aged film, at that)
Like, Clerks was a watershed landmark movie for indie cinema and I could very easily see an argument for THAT being in Criterion, but Chasing Amy? Before fucking Tarkovsky?
As this boring, ambitionless douches' movies got worse and worse over time to the point he was releasing true garbage like Tusk and Yoga Hosers, I think the universe let out a roaring sigh of relief when he went into a semi-retirement to do shitty podcasts, a task much better suited to his "talents"
If anything I'd punt Clerks and just have Chasing Amy as the 1 nod to what he brought to the game. It's the most polished and accessible version of what he had to offer ["there's two bros, and their orbiting friend group, and things get a lil zany"], and it was downhill from there.
