Results tagged “johnhughes”

None of the reports about director John Hughes's death specified exactly where in Manhattan he collapsed from a heart attack, and you can see conspiracy theories already sprouting on the internets, with one Hollywood Elsewhere commenter wondering, "I have been trying to discover WHERE in Manhattan he dropped dead since the day he died... Is he, in fact, not even dead yet? I'm not entirely joking." Well, Movie Line has just pinpointed where he passed away on the morning of August 6th: 60 West 55th Street, outside Alain Ducasse’s brasserie Benoit; there is now a small shrine with a photograph of Hughes and sixteen candles on the sidewalk. But that's probably not going to satisfy Michael Wolff, who's written a provocative essay titled "Who Killed John Hughes," which posits: "Certain deaths do something weird to the media mind and temperament. John Hughes, a maker of what are essentially genre slapstick films, has, by his early death the other day, become a great auteur and, as well, a saint, without anyone seeming to be remotely nosy about the strange circumstances of his life and untimely end... So, come on, what happened to the guy?" Let us know who you think killed Hughes, preferably IN ALL CAPS.

Like every other American raised in the Reagan era and versed in such quotable phrases as "Drinking and driving don't mix, that's why I ride a bike," we were saddened to learn of John Hughes's untimely death yesterday. But now we're also angry, because today's Times obituary fails to make any mention of Hughes's funniest movie, and one of the best comedies of the '80s: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Here's just a taste of comedy gold—anyone recognize that actor playing Owen?

TMZ is reporting that writer and director John Hughes has died at age 59 while in town. The website says he was taking a morning walk during a trip to visit family. Hughes is best known as the writer and director who defined the teen genre and led to the "Brat Pack" phenomenon throughout the 1980s, creating films such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and Some Kind of Wonderful. Hughes had a background in comedy, getting his start at National Lampoon and continuing to write screenplays for contemporary comedies up until last year's . A majority of the teen films that Hughes shaped a generation with took place in the greater Chicago area in which he grew up, but several of his screenplays were set in Gotham, including Home Alone 2, Maid in Mahattan, and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street. He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Nancy, two sons, John and James, and four grandchildren.

THEATER: At the end of December 2003, with her daughter in an induced-coma brought on by septic shock from a fatal bout with pneumonia, Joan Didion’s husband John Gregory Dunne unexpectedly died during dinner. Her struggle to navigate the subsequent minefields of grief formed the basis for her best-selling memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. She’s now adapted the book into a one-woman play of the same name, directed by David Hare and starring Vanessa Redgrave. (Photo of Didion and her late husband.) - John Del Signore

Brian Stack is a writer and performer on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. You might know him as Frankenstein in the segment Frankenstein Wastes a Minute of Your Time or you might know him for his terrific work as Special Agent in Charge in the film Spaceman. Now you'll know all about Brian's childhood, how he got to where is today, and his limited run Improv show Let's Have A Ball, featuring writers and actors of The Colbert Report, 30 Rock, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Yesterday morning, a drunk driver crashed in Dyker Heights, hitting two cars and hitting two kids crossing the street. With blood alcohol twice the limit, Jian Kai Huang ran a red light, hit a truck that was crossing with the light, and then both cars hit a van waiting at the red light. Vegetable stand manager John Hughes told the Post, "I ran over there and I saw people laying all over the street. I called 911. I told the guy, 'You have to send as many ambulances as you can.'" Another witness, Gerri Reyes, said to WABC 7, "On the corner was a group of people, women and children waiting to cross and a black vehicle coming from the opposite direction and could not get out of his way. He hit into the white car. The next thing I know there are people all over the floor and I ran to call 9-1-1."

READINGS: A handful of good readings on the slate for you tonight - Claire Messud reads from the highly anticipated . Too bad you've got to pick just one. - Krissa Corbett Cavouras

I actually grew up in Dune Acres, which is a suburb of Chesterton. Chesterton is the sort of place that didn't have a McDonalds until I was in high school. It was a very boring place. We would ride our bikes six miles to go to the Dairy Queen. It was all right. It's a unique place in that northwest Indiana is a convergence of Midwest farm life and the steel mill rust belt. The steel mills of Gary, which is ethnically diverse and Indiana, which is very white bread.

The Fame

Craig Zobel, Film Production

Gothamist agrees with many (but not Moulin Rouge - meh), but would have to consider many others, like Almost Famous, A Star is Born, Amadeus, Hard Day's Night, A Mighty Wind, The School of Rock, plus the genre of movie musicals (Annie, The Muppet Movie, Kiss Me Kate, The Sound of Music) if we came up with our own list. And then there are the movies and filmmakers that aren't about music but their soundtracks change that: Anything by Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, Cameron Crowe, John Hughes, Woody Allen, Spike Lee, and Quentin Tarantino, plus Trainspotting, Brown Sugar, Dazed and Confused, Ocean's Eleven (the remake)...what are we missing?