"Big Baby" Scanned

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A friend has faxed me the pages of that John Hughes/"Big Baby" article that I mentioned the other day, the one that trashed him -- despite Hughes being at the time the 25th most powerful person in Hollywood, according to the the then-thriving Premiere magazine -- for being "one crazed, scary, capricious bully." It turns out it was a January 1993 Spy magazine piece by Richard Lallich.

So here it is: page #1, page #2, page #3, page #4, page #5, page #6, page #7 and page #8.

Apologies for the quality, but these are scans of faxed pages. At least they're legible. The type may seem small at first but just double-click and zoom in.

comment #1

Mgmax says ...

The last link doesn't work (though it's easy to fix-- bigbaby8)

I dunno, Hughes doesn't sound that terrible and crazy. By the standards of crazy showbiz. And has Hollywood inflation gone up so much, or are they pissing and moaning for no reason? I mean, was it that big a deal back then that Home Alone cost $18 million to make? Wouldn't that make it a Sundance picture now?

So I guess the real question is, did Hollywood slam the door on him, or did he slam it on Hollywood? Still sounds to me like the guy who couldn't slow down... finally slowed down.

comment #2

Don Murphy says ...

I cannot believe you managed to get the copyright cleared on this article. You are such a hard worker

------------------
IRON MAN
from the director of ZATHURA

comment #3

MiraJeffAICN says ...

Where the hell is page 8??

comment #4

gruver1 says ...

Page 8 has been re-scanned...it works now.

comment #5

Rothchild says ...

Don,

Do you really think Nick Cassavetes would have done a better job? Isn't there more of a through line from Zathura to Iron Man than John Q or The Notebook?

comment #6

lazespud says ...

God I miss spy magazine. That was such a brilliant mag. I miss Walter Monheit's movie reviews too...

comment #7

MiraJeffAICN says ...

Thanks, Gruver. Fascinating read.

comment #8

Josh Massey says ...

Completely, totally, 100% off-topic, but I thought readers here would be interested: Children of Men is potentially going to become a TV show.

Five years ago, I would have immediately scoffed, but TV is better than the big-screen these days - so who knows?

comment #9

Ray says ...

Yikes.

Spy magazine disemboweled the guy. I might quit the biz, too.

I am not a fan of Hughes' later films, nor do I really care for much of his earlier, "acclaimed" films like THE BREAKFAST CLUB. However, I think SIXTEEN CANDLES is a near-perfect comedy.

comment #10

BurmaShave says ...

THE BREAKFAST CLUB is a masterpiece, unless you have somehow never been young.

comment #11

corey3rd says ...

Maybe it's best to leave John Hughes alone so he can spend more time writing Maid In Manhattan 2 or Drillbit Taylor Vs. Uncle Buck.

Don - how's your mantle holding up?

comment #12

hiviper says ...

ugh, The Breakfast Club is a study in a stereotypical 80's teen overacting soap opera, and each and every one proved to be a no-talent has-been, except for the character actors. And Ferris Beuller isn't much better. I hate the shit Hughes has foisted upon my generation. Good riddance.

comment #13

Ray says ...

@ Burmashave - I really can't believe I read that comment attributed to your name. Hopefully, for the sake of your genetic line, you were joking.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB is, as hiviper rightly pointed out, soap opera nonsense. Every character is a cardboard cliche of high school cliques, and no, the film does not enlighten these cliches by trying to show their soft underbellies.

In my mind, THE BREAKFAST CLUB is really Hughes' teenaged dramedy version of Michael Bay's ARMAGEDDON: over-produced, loud, and obnoxious.

comment #14

Ray says ...

One caveat to the above comparison: The special effects required to repeatedly flare Judd Nelson's nostrils in THE BREAKFAST CLUB were far superior to anything seen in ARMAGEDDON.

comment #15

BurmaShave says ...

Sorry Ray but I watched it when I was 13 and I've loved it ever since. It's like FIELD OF DREAMS. I'll not tolerate any revisionism or criticism. See also: FERRIS BUELLER is awesome.

comment #16

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

ugh, The Breakfast Club is a study in a stereotypical 80's teen overacting soap opera, and each and every one proved to be a no-talent has-been, except for the character actors. And Ferris Beuller isn't much better. I hate the shit Hughes has foisted upon my generation. Good riddance.

isn't the whole decade a study in stereotype?

comment #17

Mgmax says ...

Nate and Hayes is a criminally neglected masterpiece.

comment #18

DavidF says ...

I don't hate Breakfast Club but I mostly agree with Hiviper.

Even the grand speech at the end lets you know how stock the characters you've been watching are (in case you missed it): The jock, the nerd, the princess etc. They're just all a bit more like cliches than real people.

And is that speech punctuated by a rebel character punching his fist into the sunset as we freeze frame and roll credits? Yes, yes it is. There's your subtelty.

Despite all that - there are few things as funny as watching the TV version of Breakfast Club.
"No, FLIP YOU, Dad! FLIIIPP YOUUUU!"

And I don't see the point bashing Ferris Bueller. I guess it kinda-sorta has a message but it's mostly aimless fun. It doesn't aspire to the Art I think Breakfast Club seems to.

comment #19

George Prager says ...

I told you it was a SPY article.

Mr. Blood Vessel: Anyone who gets on here and posts about "my generation" is an Irredeemable blowhard.

Best line in WEIRD SCIENCE: "Can we keep this between us. I wouldn't want to lose my teaching job."

comment #20

George Prager says ...

Sorry Mr. Blood Vessel. I see that hiviper is the Irredeemable blowhard. You are...well, you. Whatever Whoever you are.

comment #21

actionman says ...

Josh Massey: COM potentially becoming a television series is just about the best entertainment-news related item I have heard this year.

Even if it never goes to series based on the pilot they produce, it will be a cool pilot to check out.

I just got my hands on a copy of the unaired LA Confidential pilot that Fox did with Keifer Sutherland a few years back. Really looking forward to checking it out. They did that one, and if I recall correctly, 24, in the same round of pilots.

comment #22

MilkMan says ...

Vacation and Sixteen Candles and then it's all downhill from there, although I have a soft spot for She's Having a Baby and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The problem with Hughes is that he wanted every movie of his to end with a Grand Emotional Climax. Sixteen Candles ended nicely, I don't know if you could call that a GEC, but the rest of them, no thanks. If John Hughes is the new JD Salinger, then congratulations, you just bought into his con game. That's exactly what he wants people to think of him. But he's not JD Salinger; he's SE Hinton with a nice haircut.

comment #23

erniesouchak says ...

"It would be different if it were Martin Scorsese"? Interesting comparison, as many similar stories have leaked from the S. camp. And today, S. is clearly on the downward slope of his career.

comment #24

christian says ...

My main problem with THE BREAKFAST CLUB, and I felt the same way as I when I saw it opening night with the most receptive generartional audience possible, is that Bender is just an asshole. I know he's supposed to be the cool rebel, but he's a jerk. Without the others feeling pity for him, he brings nothing to the club.

And of course the awful "ooh, she's pretty without the glasses and dark clothes" moment with Ally Sheedy.

But. But. I love the sense of epic youth struggle Hughes brings to the opening of the film. It's a great start. And Anthony Michael Hall is fantastic as is Estevez talking about what him and his buddies did to the nerd in the locker room; his awareness of is poignant as hell. Good stuff.

comment #25

Mgmax says ...

The strength and weakness of Breakfast Club is that it completely buys into the high school mindset. Of course, Ally Sheedy will go to college and being sort of goth and Sylvia Plathy will be cool there; they might as well have just made her character name in High Art the same as in Breakfast Club, that's what she'll grow up into. But the point is that these characters are high schoolers, they don't have the perspective on their high school years that we do, so what seems to us as awful as McMurphy getting a lobotomy in Cuckoos Nest, the depersonalization of making Sheedy into another high school Barbie clone, is for the film's audience the great triumph of the film, her rescue from the worst fate imaginable-- differentness. John Hughes was like the Frederic Wiseman of teen comedy makers, he absolutely refused to comment from above, from the wisdom of age and the omniscience of the creator, but took the kids and their values at total face value. A canny commercial decision, to be sure, but also the reason why his films spoke so directly to kids and not just appealed to them as a target market. And a limitation is not the same as an artistic failing.

comment #26

christian says ...

I tend to agree with Mgmax on this. And in my high school, me and my friends were happy to be on the sidelines of the cliques. We knew who we were more than most. But what I hated about TBC is that ultimately, the blame is on the parents. Through and through.

I also like the moment when Paul Gleason confronts Bender in the supply room. It's pretty raw and Hughes doesn't give Bender any smart-ass retorts. Hughes true gift was excellent dialogue.

But I still think 16 CANDLES is his best film.

comment #27

Josh Massey says ...

"And Anthony Michael Hall is fantastic as is Estevez talking about what him and his buddies did to the nerd in the locker room..."

I remember thinking, and I still do, that Anthony Michael Hall was deserving of a Best Supporting Actor nomination that year. Especially so being that 1985 wasn't a particularly strong year for supporting performances (see nominee: Roberts, Eric).

And I can't think of a film that is more rewatchable than Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

comment #28

Rich S. says ...

Hughes got performances out of kids and teenagers that Spielberg can only dream of. Sixteen Candles and Uncle Buck are still the high points of Anthony Michael Hall's and Macaulay Culkin's respective careers. Just about everything Farmer Ted says is solid gold.

I never really enjoyed Breakfast Club that much because I was slightly past that point in my life, Anthony Michael Hall was not particularly funny and Judd Nelson, as observed above, was just a jerk. There are some excellent moments in the film, but it never resonated with me.

comment #29

AbeGoldfarb says ...

It's weird and appropriate that Hughes's pseudonym is Edmond Dantes; a character who is put-upon and victimized, and then takes his revenge. Hughes sounds like a guy who painted himself as the underdog so keenly that he identified.

comment #30

Mr. Blood Vessel says ...

Christian:The strength and weakness of Breakfast Club is that it completely buys into the high school mindset. Of course, Ally Sheedy will go to college and being sort of goth and Sylvia Plathy will be cool there; they might as well have just made her character name in High Art the same as in Breakfast Club, that's what she'll grow up into. But the point is that these characters are high schoolers, they don't have the perspective on their high school years that we do, so what seems to us as awful as McMurphy getting a lobotomy in Cuckoos Nest, the depersonalization of making Sheedy into another high school Barbie clone, is for the film's audience the great triumph of the film, her rescue from the worst fate imaginable-- differentness.

I think that's exactly also why it resonates so highly.
It allows the fans to later on to really look in the mirror and see what really matters now.

comment #31

hiviper says ...

hey Prager,
ok - "was in high school / college approximately when John Hughes assembly line movies came out". Maybe that will mitigate your outrage for using "my generation".

and props to you for calling it was a SPY article. My favorite mag, with 70's Lampoon of course.

comment #32

hiviper says ...

Prager, one more thing...
go ahead and out your real name and I'll do the same. No one really cares.

comment #33

MarkEbner says ...

I want my two dollars. Two dollars...cash...now.

- Savage Steve Holland

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