Tuesday, January 10, 2012

movie review: Don't You Forget About Me (John Hughes documentary)


This is a documentary about 4 film-makers who love John Hughes and set out (from Canada) to find his house and try to interview him & let him know that he is awesome and missed by all. Throughout the movie, various people who have worked with Hughes are interviewed as well as people in the film industry who admire him and teenagers who relate to his movies even today.

This should have been, could have been, a great documentary. Sadly, it was not. The problem was that the film-makers were completely unprofessional and came across as stalkers. Their plan? Drive to Chicago, knock on John Hughes' door, and ask him:
1. Why he stopped making movies.
2. Will he make movies again?
3. Does he know how much everyone loves him?

I'm sorry, but if these people actually had gotten an interview with Mr. Hughes (they didn't), these were their questions? These?! Really?

More than anything else, this movie made me mad. It made me mad because it should have been a good documentary about a film-maker who connected to a generation of teenagers - who still connects to that generation and to generations to come - but instead it ended up being a documentary about what assholes these young film-makers were. Ugh. Wasted. Sad.