phaota1 I absolutely love the movies of John Hughes. They are classic, timeless in the emotion, story and character aspects, beautifully written and superbly acted by the then young celebrity kids. As noted in this well-done documentary, and supported by many of the actors and people that worked in the various films (with the exception of a some cast that clearly had too high an ego to take time out for an interview), John's films have and will continue to stand the test of time for their realistic portrayal of teenage life. How any critic could have bad mouthed his movies back in the 80s is amazing to see. I'm looking at you Gene Siskel. Your ugly review of "Ferris Bueller" was uncalled for. That was and still is one of the all-time best John Hughes comedies. No matter how many times I've seen it, the movie always makes me laugh hard.As for the documentary, these Canadian kids went above and beyond to get such great interviews with various actors and people involved with the films, as well as chatting with teenagers of today on their views of John's movies and how teen films of the 90s and now just do not have the realism of teenage life and personalities that they can connect to personally. They are more fantasy, and as one kid said, "T&A". Very true. The editing in this documentary is perfect, especially finding great dialog clips from the various Hughes films that correspond to the discussion segment. You will definitely laugh a lot. My only complaint is the ending. Not for the filmmakers and their job, but at John Hughes himself. I'm not going to saying what happens, but it really made me mad. And now that John is gone, it bugs me more.If you love the films of John Hughes, you owe it to yourself to watch this documentary. It is a wonderful look back at his great films and how they continue to touch peoples lives today, especially teenagers.

DelBongo This film left me genuinely torn, but only with regards to how vicious and spiteful this review was going to be. I've decided to allow the review to precisely reflect the way that the film in question made me feel.For the record, I do fully understand that the filmmakers - having made the unforgivable idiot's error of beginning a documentary without their centrepiece in place - must have felt that they had to do something with the footage that they'd shot. The problem is that all of their footage, without one single exception, is entirely bereft of pop cultural worth.The interviews - which make up for a depressingly slim amount of the total running time - are about as deep and interesting as a puddle of day-old dog urine. It goes without saying that the likes of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall and Matthew Broderick don't appear here, but the actors who do take part aren't actually asked anything of note. You can envisage this crew of filmmakers putting exactly the same questions to Judd Nelson and Andrew McCarthy that they do to a band of young schoolchildren at one point. "So like, why is John Hughes so great?"Nobody has the answer. The inarticulate buffoons behind the camera try to answer it themselves during one utterly toe-curling sequence (that takes place in a twilight-tinged field) but if that moment of abject horror isn't to your taste, then believe me - every single other interview is quite indescribably boring. John Hughes was a genius. John Hughes meant the world to everyone. John Hughes spoke to teenagers like nobody ever has, before or since. Yes, we get the picture. So what else you got?What else they got is footage of themselves; and an apparently endless supply of it at that. What makes this fact so thoroughly appalling is that the film stops being about John Hughes after about five minutes. This isn't a film about him - it's a film about them. And these people think they're funny. They think they're cute. They think they're wise. Not only are they none of the above, they also collectively believed that eighty-odd minutes of their inane potterings would somehow make for acceptable entertainment for the paying public. I only have three words for them: how dare you.As a fan of John Hughes, the fact that a documentary pertaining to be "about" the great man features such a disarming lack of insight and investigation is absolutely shocking. This is nothing more than a poorly-shot travelogue about a group of deeply uninteresting people making trite and stupid observations for the entirety of the running time.I paid to have the DVD imported, so I'm sure that the ten-watt bulbs who were responsible for this production are probably laughing their heads off right now. But then again, I literally just made my money back via a re-sale on eBay. In a very, very small way, I just bucked a stupid system to make it work for me. John Hughes would have been proud.

Argemaluco Director and screenwriter John Hughes (1950-2009) was undoubtedly one of my favorite filmmakers.I see him as a genuine artist whose movies have acquired new relevance through the decades, making me to today appreciate them not only as funny comedies or juvenile melodramas, but also as honest reflections on life, youth and the authentic meaning of maturity.The producers and the director of the documentary Don't You Forget About Me also admired Hughes, and in 2006, they decided to undertake a peregrination from Canada to the city of Chicago in search of the revered filmmaker, who partially retired from the cinema despite the legions of fans who were begging for his come-back.So, during an hour and a half, we see the team looking for his idol in order to interview him, and maybe discover the reasons behind his voluntary exile.We parallel see interviews to actors who worked with him; to famous directors who were influenced by his work; and to modern teenagers who keep finding amusement and valid messages on the movies their fathers saw when they were young.Hughes died in mid-2009, when Don't You Forget About Me was in editing process, something which significantly changed the tone from the documentary and it raised the emotions generated by the testimonies from his fans.It would be cynical (and realistic) to think that that morbid angle raised the financing and distribution from this documentary, but it includes so many interesting data and such emotive moments that I can ignore the commercialism from the project.Besides, I think the movie fulfills with the intention of honouring an important, but unfortunately not very famous, eminence from modern cinema.What is more, it is very entertaining to listen to figures such as directors Jason Reitman, Howard Deutch and Kevin Smith and film critic Roger Ebert (pre-operation) talking about their personal experiences as fans, friends and critics from the filmmaker, not to mention first-hand anecdotes from Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Kelly LeBrock, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara and many others.All of them agree on Hughes' talent, the influence of his work in modern cinema and his famous artistic integrity.However, Don't You Forget About Me has a few fails: on the one hand, the producers and the director make the mistake of assigning leading characters to themselves, something which feels unnecessary; and on the other hand some of the points the movie makes are repeated again and again ("Nowadays, nobody represents the teenagers in cinema"), something which also feels unnecessary.Nevertheless, I liked this documentary pretty much, mainly because of its sincerity and the impact it produces (I cannot deny the ending left me with a lump in my throat).In summary, Don't You Forget About Me represents a honest tribute to Hughes, which is something he really deserved.

Nuclear-Atom I've always wonder what ever happened to the late John Hughes. To my mind, he was a brilliant writer. His movies captured something that other movies, recent or in the past, haven't. The question always haunted me, where is he and why isn't he doing anymore films?This documentary takes four producers/filmmakers/friends on a road trip to the homeland of Mr. Hughes, Chicago Illinois. It acts as a tribute, a road trip documentary and an insight to the man of THE teen movies. The filmmakers takes the road with cuts of cast & crew members from past John Hughes films being interviewed. Not exactly interviewed. It's more like hearing their theories where he could be, why he left, how he wrote characters that everyone can relate to and their message to the legendary writer/director.There's other people being interviewed as well like the producers from Napoleon Dynamite, Kevin Smith of Clerks & Dogma, producer & director of Not Another Teen Movie and Jason Reitman of Juno. And then there's today's teens and everyday kid on the street on what they think of John Hughes movies compared to today's teen films.After seeing this documentary through the series of theories from cast members, quotes from John Hughes and clips from his movies, you get a sense why he left. The folks who produced this documentary handled it really well but I wish more interviews were done with other past cast members. Please note this documentary and its content were filmed before his unfortunate passing in mid-2009. The documentary is in its entirely, unaltered with the exception of a note of Mr. Hughes being passed away at the end.Definitely a must see for the John Hughes fan who, like me, wondered where he was and why he suddenly disappeared."I miss you very much. I'm tired of talking to you in my mind, I would like to talk to you in person" ~ Judd Nelson