february 22, 2019

I’m pretty sure that everything that needs to be said about late 1980’s filmmaking icon John Hughes has already been said. But here’s a few more things about John Hughes! While there was some new John Hughes product in theaters about 2-3 times per year between 1982 and 1991 you might be surprised to learn that my man Hughes directed just EIGHT feature films. He did, however, write the screenplays for about 75% of all comedies released during that 9 year span. We’re talkin’ Pretty in Pink...The Great Outdoors...we’re talkin’ Vacation’s both Original AND Christmas. For a kid like this kid growing up in the 80’s Hughes was king..and I feel like I learned a lot of big life lessons from his writing...and whatever whatever. I love everything with his name on it...even Dutch. And let’s just lay it right on the table: Sixteen Candles plays the sexual assault of one its characters for laughs. It’s also so racist that they actually edited some of Long Duk Dong’s scenes out of a basic cable broadcast that I caught recently. I like to think the man lived, learned, and softened his tone (look no further than the unimpeachable Planes Trains & Automobiles). Now let’s say John Hughes is the band The Clash (bear with me...I’ll get to the movie eventually). Popular...critically acclaimed..but not mega popular. But then Hughes drops Home Alone (Combat Rock in my Clash analogy)...and now he’s got fuck you money. It’s the highest grossing comedy of all time by a wide margin. Not his most respected work, critically speaking, but the one that guarantees he never has to work again. And that’s more or less exactly what he does. He shits out a couple of screenplays for Home Alone sequels and then retires to his farm up in Illinois never to be heard from again. Anticipation/speculation about his return to filmmaking always remains just shy of a full on fever pitch until the summer of 2009, when Hughes drops dead on a Manhattan sidewalk at age 59...and my dreams for Weird Science 2 officially turn to dust. Now let’s jump back to 1990. Hughes has put out Home Alone after concluding a decade where he officially ruled ass. He has directed seven films...all stone cold classics (yes...even She’s Having a Baby..watch it again!). Before he rides off into the sunset he will direct one more movie. It’s called Curly Sue....and it is terrible. And I have consciously avoided it until this week...for the same reason I have never listened to The Clash’s swan song “Cut the Crap”: I didn’t want to see a near-flawless body of work tainted by an ignoble conclusion. So there...Curly Sue is the “Cut the Crap” of John Hughes movies (I suck at analogies). I mean...I only HEARD Curly Sue was balls bad and didn’t bother to actually see for myself....but I found a copy this week...and you know...Roger Ebert’s VHS box pull quote claiming that “(Curly Sue) ranks among John Hughes’ finest work” makes me think that Roger Ebert was only pretend-sober in 1991. From top to bottom there are zero things that happen in this movie that point to John Hughes’ involvement...which is weird seein’ as he wrote, directed, and produced it. What happens is this: medium talented actor and permanent reminder of what could have been Jim Belushi plays Bill Dancer, a homeless dude who spends his winters unwisely traveling around the coldest parts of the USA with a 10 year-old girl who isn’t his real daughter (it’s only scarcely explained why he has custody of her. She was handed to him in a bar or some shit? I already can’t remember). Little Curly Sue is played by Alisan Porter...who grew up in Worcester just like yours truly...and I’ll be damned if every other motherfucker in my 6th grade class didn’t claim to be her best friend or second cousin. It was totally a thing. Her and Nuno Bettancourt from Extreme. They must have a million best friends/second cousins in Worcester County between the two of ‘em. Me? I didn’t know her....but her grandmother’s dance studio WAS at the end of the street I grew up on...which makes us...ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! But yeah...it was a huge deal in Worcester when this flick came out. I want to say they had a huge premiere at Showcase Cinemas but I’m pretty sure the only big Hollywood premiere they held there was for the Nick Nolte basketball flick Blue Chips...which has nothing to do with Worcester as far as I can recall. ANYWAY! Not John Belushi and Ali Porter are grifting their way across the midwest...scamming folks for grub...sleeping in shelters and whatnot. They hit Chicago and immediately try to pull some bullshit at the fanciest restaurant in town. The maitre d isn’t falling for their “we know Abe Froman” rap. He immediately orders a no-line having waiter played by future Emmy winner Steve Carell to fetch the chef...who comes out of the kitchen just to beat the shit out of Jim Belushi. Meanwhile across town a yupwardly mobile attorney (it actually says this on the VHS box...I shit you not) played by the actress Kelly Lynch, last seen balling Patrick Swayze against a stone fireplace in Roadhouse, is dealing with a client who is trying to divorce her bigwig hotshot husband. K Lynch tells the client she’ll help her take him for everything he’s got. Then her boss, currently deceased republican senator Fred Dalton Thompson, comes in and mansplains that the man should always have the upper hand when it comes to divorce. He also calls her “Grey” because that’s her character’s name: Grey. Whatever you say, dudes. Down in the parking garage of Grey Dalton Lawyerface LLP Beloosh and Curly Sue are waiting for a someone to hop in a fancy car so they can run their favorite scam: Curly Sue cracks him in the head with a baseball bat and then he pretends to have been hit by said fancy car. This is some dark shit right here. Of course it’s Grey who hops in the choicest Benz in the lot. She thinks she ran over the dude’s face. We, the audience, assume they’ll sue her or at least hit her up for a couple of bux, right? Instead she just takes them out to dinner...and not even to Charlie Trotter’s or nothin’. They go to a Pot Belly for roast beef sando’s and she’s all “sorry about your noggin’...see you never.” Grey is rescued by her boyfriend Walter...who is such a ridiculous caricature of a rich white person he is never seen without a tuxedo on. He makes Donald Trump look like Mother Theresa. So Grey goes back to her penthouse and Belushi and Curly Sue spend the night at a shelter...where they are totally robbed by the “keep the change ya filthy animal” guy from the movie inside of Home Alone! I’d probably be honored if that guy robbed me. They are not. The next day, while walking around town trying to figure out where their next hot meal is coming from, Belushi is somehow struck by Grey’s Mercedes a second time...but for real this time, you dig? Even though this occurs on a busy street in the middle of Chicago...and Grey is a LAWYER....she does not allow anyone to call an ambulance. She somehow drags Belushi back to her penthouse and calls her own private doctor to come check him out. Rich people always got doctors who will come to your penthouse in a pinch...free of charge. Me, I’ll probably owe $4020.20 to Quest Diagnostics until I hit the lotto or die. Grey agrees to let Belushi and his kid stay up in her crib while he recuperates. She goes to her fridge to fix them a snack and finds that she only has fresh eel, sea urchin, and unpasteurized Humboldt Fog cheese (I’m not making this up). They order pizza. She tells Belushi that if he pulls any funny business she’ll pull out his mullet one hair at a time and then call the police. I’d be like “I wish you fuckin’ would...and tell them about all the vehicular-almost-homicide while you’re at it!” But that Belushi...he’s a nice guy! He figures he and Curly Sue can hang out and chow pig’s head terrine for a few weeks if they play it cool. This arrangement works for everyone....except Grey’s boyfriend...who is wondering why Grey would let a homeless orphan and her not-a-father move in with her. Grey starts to wonder this also. She has a heart-to-heart with Curly Sue...who tells Grey that she never learned to read...but that she knows all you need to know ‘cuz she learned it from the streets. Grey says that she needs a mother figure because “one day you are gonna get ya period”. She also suggests Curly Sue should become a lawyer...to which Curly Sue replies “And spend 20 years in college? Suck a butt you legal eagle!!” Grey decides the best way she can help Belushi and Curly Sue is to throw a shit ton of money and gifts at them. There’s the obligatory shopping montage and what have you. Once they have their new duds they all head out to the same fancy restaurant from the beginning of the flick. Belushi sees the maitre d and is all “how you like me now” and then proceeds to punch him in the face. They are then seated at the best table in the joint. Wouldn’t go down like that at my restaurant...no sir/ma’am. Belushi and Curly Sue aren’t digging the foie gras torchon so they offer to take Grey out on the town homeless grifter style. They crash a wedding and sneak into a movie and all that kind of bullshit. Over the course of like 5 movie minutes Grey has gone from coldhearted Yuppie lawyerface lawyerlady to someone who doesn’t mind eating out of a garbage truck. They get back to the penthouse and Grey suddenly has googly eyes for Jim Belushi...even though he has a mullet and is Jim Belushi and they have barely spoken throughout the entire movie. He does, it turns out, play the piano like a homeless Liberace. He totally could’ve bought a cheap Casio and made some bucks busking. Lazy motherfucker. Anyway...Grey’s boyfriend eventually calls shenanigans on this whole shitshow and DSS takes custody of Curly Sue and Belushi goes to prison for...something or other. Grey tries to adopt Curly Sue but DSS ain’t having it...even though she keeps explaining that she’s a rich white lawyer so it’s all good baby baby. They are unmoved. So Grey turns to the hotshot bigwig she was trying to get divorce money from at the beginning of the movie who turns out to be Taggert from Beverly Hills Cop! He pulls some strings and Grey gets custody of Curly Sue. Belushi gets out of jail and threatens to leave town and there’s some mild “will he or won’t he” suspense for about 3 minutes. Eventually he decides that marrying Grey and moving into her penthouse sounds better than homelessness. Flash forward to the following September: Grey and Belushi are married and Curly Sue is off to her first-ever day of prep school. And a career that began with so much promise ends with a freeze frame of Alisan Porter’s face and a crap ass Ringo Starr song called “You Never Know”. Fin.