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Post by petrolino on Jul 1, 2017 22:38:13 GMT
‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985) invites viewers to spend a day in detention with five teenagers, each of whom are identified as members of different high school cliques. It could be like watching a play but it’s very much a movie due to all the different audio-visual components at work. “Shermer, Illinois, isn’t a real town, but it might as well be given its place in the pop cultural consciousness. It’s an amalgamation of a lot of Chicago suburbs (really, any suburb anywhere), and it’s the place that so many of John Hughes’ characters called home. The late director left behind a body of work that defined American comedy in the ‘80s, one that told a generation of adolescents and their parents and all those who followed them that it’s okay to be weird and uncertain, that living off the beaten path is sometimes the best way to live.”
- Dominick Mayer, Consequence Of Sound
Saturday, March 24th, 1984, Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois - The Breakfast Club
Cast :
Judd Nelson as John Bender
Molly Ringwald as Claire Standish
Emilio Estevez as Andrew "Andy" Clark
Anthony Michael Hall as Brian Ralph Johnson
Ally Sheedy as Allison Reynolds
Paul Gleason as Assistant Principal Vernon
John Kapelos as Carl Reed
Ron Dean as Mr. Clark
Written & Directed by John Hughes (born February 18, 1950 in Lansing, Michigan)
“These kids were good actors who then became famous.”
- Michael Lehmann, ‘The Most Convenient Definitions : The Origins Of The Brat Pack’
The film opens with slimline yellow stencil titles painted on heavy black blocks, their zesty lemon sticks underscored with the kind of virtuoso bass work that illuminated the 1980s synthesiser pop movement. A block white caption culled from David Bowie’s salutary teen anthem ‘Changes’ (from the 1971 album ‘Hunky Dory’) is emboldened accordingly, a slogan shattered by the piercing sound of breaking glass, all of which is set against the absorbant tonality of drum pads … “you see us as you want to see us; in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions, you see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal.”
‘The Breakfast Club’ should be seen and experienced for its interaction between words and music. It distills the essence of John Hughes’ writing into a lively theatrical event and somehow makes the inaction soar. Its success as a film is partly down to the performers who rehearsed vigorously before being set free to improvise. Another key component is the adventurous cutting of Clevelander Dede Allen who remained one of America’s most innovative editors throughout her working life. Then there’s the intelligent cinematography of renowned camera operator Thomas Del Ruth who brings a level of action specialism that ensures the film never becomes stagebound. But for all these essential factors, still, the enduring appeal of ‘The Breakfast Club’ is mostly due to the exceptional work of its primary creator, writer-director John Hughes. “Outside of the industry itself, very few motion picture editors enjoy any kind of recognition. Of these, Dede Allen is by far the best known. She credits much of this to her association with the great directors she's worked with, many of whom were lionized as auteurs when applications of the theory were just burgeoning in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. But Allen is modest and perhaps somewhat unfair to herself. While what she says of the attention she's received is true, nevertheless she is probably our greatest contemporary editor. Even if she had cut nothing else but ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1967), Allen's place in cinema history would be virtually assured, but her roster of credits also includes ‘Odds Against Tomorrow’ (1959), ‘The Hustler’ (1961), ‘America, America’ (1963), ‘Rachel, Rachel’ (1968), ‘Alice's Restaurant’ (1969), ‘Little Big Man’ (1970), ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ (1972), ‘Serpico’ (1973), ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975), ‘Night Moves’ (1975), ‘The Missouri Breaks’ (1976), ‘Slap Shot’ (1977), ‘Reds’ (1981), ‘Mike's Murder’ (1984), ‘The Breakfast Club’ (1985), ‘The Milagro Beanfield War’ (1988), ‘Henry and June’ (1990); and, most recently, ‘The Addams Family’ (1991). Allen's best collaborations have been with original, independent directors who were secure enough to allow her to fully contribute to their films, directors such as Robert Wise, Robert Rossen, Elia Kazan, Arthur Penn, George Roy Hill, Sidney Lumet, Warren Beatty, and Philip Kaufman. As many of these directors have noted, Allen's diligence, grasp of the medium, and pursuit of excellence inspired them to the most refined articulation of their visions. Penn has remarked on her distinctive sense of visual rhythm and has praised her sensitivity and empathy for character. Hill has noted her bold innovative use of pace and transitions, and Beatty has commented that her use of image and sound in counterpoint both embellish and enlarge the poetic context of the drama. Allen is nothing if not a director's editor.”- Ric Gentry, ‘Dede Allen On Editing’“The editor is the final author of the film.”- David Lean"I have no fear of sound. And sound has always been very important. I don't like to show even the first cut unless it plays, soundwise."- Dede Allen
John Candy, Steve Martin & John Hughes filming 'Planes, Trains & Automobiles' (1987)
‘The Breakfast Club’ has inspired all manner of trends and fashions yet it’s deeply cineliterate itself, referencing classics from James Whale’s ‘The Bride Of Frankenstein’ (1935) to David Lean’s ‘The Bridge On The River Kwai’ (1957). The degree of influence the movie now exerts, over many facets of popular culture, is virtually incalculable. Take this simple exchange, for example, and consider Matt Groening’s cultural cartoon phenomena ‘The Simpsons’ & ‘Futurama’ : Principal Vernon – “You’re not fooling anybody, Bender. The next screw that falls out is gonna be you.”
John Bender – “Eat-my-shorts.”There’s also a respect shown for Universal Pictures who had previously backed ‘Sixteen Candles’ (1984) and ‘Weird Science’ (1985); Hughes would make ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (1986), ‘Pretty In Pink’ (1986), ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful’ (1987) and ‘She’s Having A Baby’ (1988) with Paramount Pictures before returning to Universal for ‘Career Opportunities’ (1990). “For those of us born between the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Bicentennial, the phrase “a John Hughes movie” will instantly conjure a range of images and associations, including the smooth, pale faces of a bevy of young actors. I cringe at the phrase “brat pack,” but there they are: Judd Nelson, Jon Cryer, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy, Anthony Michael Hall. And above all, of course, Molly Ringwald, the ginger-haired teenager who, from 1984 to 1986, was for Mr. Hughes what James Stewart had been for Frank Capra at the end of the Great Depression, and what Anna Karina had been for Jean-Luc Godard in the mid-’60s: an emblem, a muse, a poster child and an alter ego. Especially in “Sixteen Candles” and “Pretty in Pink” (directed by Howard Deutch from Mr. Hughes’s script), she represented his romantic ideal of the artist as misfit, sensitive and misunderstood, aspiring to wider acceptance but reluctant to compromise too much.”- A.O. Scott writing in 2009, The New York Times“The late, great John Hughes was honoured with an Oscars tribute on Sunday night, so a new report suggesting that an unfilmed screenplay by the writer-director is attracting Hollywood interest looks more than a little timely. The Hollywood Reporter says the script, titled ‘Grisbys Go Broke’, has been turned down by Paramount, which worked with Hughes on many of the iconic 80s comedies which made his name, but that doesn't mean it won't eventually find its way into cinemas. The studio recently used a Hughes screenplay as the basis for the rather awkward Owen Wilson comedy ‘Drillbit Taylor’ (a sort of junior ‘Superbad’), and Hughes is said to have produced reams of new material which has never been published in the period between walking away from Hollywood in 1994 and his death last year. ‘Grisbys Go Broke’ is said to be a festive comedy about a wealthy Chicago family that loses everything and is forced to move to the sticks. That sounds a lot closer to later, hokey Hughes material such as ‘Home Alone’ or ‘Beethoven’ (written under a pseudonym) than the films which the writer-director founded his career on, heartfelt and intelligent teen comedies such as ‘Some Kind of Wonderful’, ‘Ferris Bueller's Day Off’, ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Pretty in Pink’.”- Ben Child writing in 2010, The Guardian“Writing was, for Hughes, not so much a profession as a condition of life. The thoughts that germinated in his brain took a direct path to his hands, which filled notebooks, floppy disks, and hard drives with screenplays, stories, sketches, and jokes. When he wasn’t writing creatively, he was writing about how much writing he was doing. A spiral-bound logbook from 1985 finds Hughes keeping track of his progress on Ferris Bueller. The basic story line, he notes, was developed on February 25. It was successfully pitched the following day. And then he was off: “2-26 Night only 10 pages … 2-27 26 pages … 2-28 19 pages … 3-1 9 pages … 3-2 20 pages … 3-3 24 pages.” Wham-bam, script done. All in one week. In recent years, as he withdrew from filmmaking and ceased to maintain any sort of public profile, an air of mystery came to surround Hughes. He had been such a force; what had happened to him? He last directed a movie in 1991—the forgettable Curly Sue—and by the dawn of this century he was no longer sending new screenplays to the studios, though any studio would have been glad to have him. Yet, in his absence, Hughes’s cultural stock only appreciated. His best movies, the teen trilogy in particular, transcended their origins as light 1980s entertainments to become, first, lodestars for such developing talents as Judd Apatow and Wes Anderson, and then, as these pictures proved their durability on TV broadcasts and DVD, outright classics. It was remarkable enough that a baby-boomer born squarely in the middle of the 20th century had somehow laid claim to the title of Teen Laureate of the 1980s; more remarkable still was that his movies turned out to be a renewable resource, with a reach far beyond the generation for which they were originally intended.”- David Kamp writing in 2010, Vanity Fair
Molly Ringwald in 'Spacehunter : Adventures In The Forbidden Zone' (1983)
John Hughes was the Shakespeare of teen cinema; while some commentators have been quick to dismiss his pictures, or to purposefully diminish his talents for this very reason, they’d perhaps do well to remember that we were all teenagers once and some of us still are. I think all teenagers can benefit from seeing ‘The Breakfast Club’. It’s a seminal work like ‘Blackboard Jungle’ (1955), ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ (1955), ‘Over The Edge’ (1979) and ‘Revenge Of The Nerds’ (1984). Allan Moyle (‘Times Square’ – ‘Pump Up The Volume’ – ‘Empire Records’), Amy Heckerling (‘Fast Times At Ridgemont High’ – ‘Clueless’ – ‘Loser’) & Savage Steve Holland (‘Better Off Dead’ – ‘One Crazy Summer’ – ‘How I Got Into College’) made great teen trilogies but Hughes was the creative mind behind a chain of extraordinary films (sometimes in happy conjunction with talented director Howard Deutch). In 2016, 'The Breakfast Club' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The Basket Case, The Princess, The Athlete, The Criminal & The Brain
 “I just don’t feel that there are a lot of filmmakers out there with the same affection for youth culture that John Hughes clearly had.”
Diablo Cody
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Post by petrolino on Jul 2, 2017 0:02:56 GMT
10 Films about growing up in the leafy suburbs and industrial towns of the American Midwest
'Breaking Away' (1979 - Peter Yates) : Indiana 'All The Right Moves' (1983 - Michael Chapman) : Pennsylvania 'Grandview, U.S.A.' (1984 - Randal Kleiser) : Illinois 'Mischief' (1985 - Mel Damski) : Ohio 'Lucas' (1986 - David Seltzer) : Illinois 'For Keeps?' (1988 - John G. Avildsen) : Wisconsin 'Miles From Home' (1988 - Gary Sinise) : Iowa 'Heathers' (1989 - Michael Lehmann : Ohio (artificially recreated in California) 'Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael' (1990 - Jim Abrahams) : Ohio 'Untamed Heart' (1993 - Tony Bill) : Minnesota # Manufacturing overview at 24/7 Wall St.com in 2012Michigan--Manufacturing share of output: 16.5% --Manufacturing output 2012: $66.2 billion (8th highest) --2012 Unemployment rate: 9.1% Each of the "Big Three" U.S. auto manufacturers — Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — is based in Michigan, and car sales are trending upward. This likely will be critical for the state: motor vehicle manufacturing accounted for nearly 5% of the state's total GDP in 2011, far more than any other state. Michigan also led the nation with $18.8 billion in motor vehicle manufacturing output in 2011. The resurgence in the auto industry has not only boosted output, but also led to job growth. Manufacturing employment in Michigan rose 7.9% between the ends of 2010 and 2011, leading all states, and then by an additional 3.9% between the ends of 2011 and 2012, also among the most in the nation. But this did little to help Detroit avoid a bankruptcy filing, since extremely few auto manufacturing jobs exist within the city limits. Iowa--Manufacturing share of output: 16.7% --Manufacturing output 2012: $25.4 billion (25th highest) --2012 Unemployment rate: 5.2% Iowa had the 30th largest state economy in the nation last year. However, relative to its GDP, Iowa is still one of the nation's largest manufacturers. This is especially the case for non-durable goods, which accounted for 8.4% of the state's total output in 2012, the fifth-highest percentage in the nation. In 2011, when non-durable goods manufacturing accounted for 8.3% of Iowa's output, nearly half of this contribution came from food, beverage and tobacco manufacturing. At 4% of state GDP, this was more than any other state except North Carolina. Despite low crop yields due to drought, Iowa was the leading producer of both corn and soybeans in 2012, according to the USDA. Ohio--Manufacturing share of output: 17.1% --Manufacturing output 2012: $87.2 billion (5th highest) --2012 Unemployment rate: 7.2% Ohio is a major manufacturer of a range of products. In 2011, it was one of the largest manufacturers of both primary and fabricated metals products, which together accounted for about 3% of the state's output that year. The state was also the nation's leader in producing plastics and rubber products, which accounted for more than $5.3 billion in output in 2011, or 1.1% of Ohio's total output. Likely contributing to Ohio's high output of manufactured rubber products, the state is home to Goodyear Tire & Rubber, a Fortune 500 company. At the end of 2012, Ohio was one of the top states for manufacturing employment, with roughly 658,000 jobs, trailing only far-larger California and Texas. Wisconsin--Manufacturing share of output: 19.1% --Manufacturing output 2012: $49.98 billion (12th highest) --2012 Unemployment rate: 6.9% Wisconsin led the nation in paper manufacturing in 2011, with nearly $4 billion in output, which was 1.5% of the state's total GDP and the third-greatest portion of total output. In 2012, Wisconsin was a large producer of durable goods, which accounted for 11.3% of its GDP, up from 10.7% the previous year, holding on to its fourth place position. In spite of Wisconsin's high output in the paper industry, the state's Chamber of Commerce has expressed concerns regarding the implementation of government regulations that may ghurt current and future job prospects. Officials in Wisconsin claim the new Boiler MACT regulations, for example, will have a negative economic impact on pulp and paper industry jobs in the state. Indiana--Manufacturing share of output: 28.2% --Manufacturing output 2012: $84.15 billion (6th highest) --2012 Unemployment rate: 8.4% Indiana has added manufacturing jobs at one of the fastest rates in the nation over the past several years, with year-over-year growth in manufacturing at or above 3.7% at the end of each of the past three years. Some of this growth came from companies like Honda expanding their factories and adding thousands of jobs, which made headlines in 2011. Developments like these are critical for the economy of the state, which depends on manufacturing more than anywhere else in the nation. In 2012, Indiana had just the nation's 16th largest economy, while its output from manufacturing exceeded all but a handful of states. In 2010 and 2011, Indiana was one of the leading states in total output from both motor vehicle-related and chemicals manufacturing. Manufacturing of chemical products accounted for 7% of the state's GDP in 2011, at least partly due to the presence of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which has vendors throughout the state.  Railway Man : The Photography of John Sanderson 'The first industrial boom for Illinois came in 1823 when lead was discovered at Galena. Miners flocked there to dig the hills, shipping the mineral down the Mississippi River. Early manufacturing was tied to agriculture. John Deere, a Grand Prairie blacksmith, perfected a steel, self-scouring plow in 1837. He incorporated a business under his name in 1858 and was soon the world's largest plow producer. In 1847 Cyrus McCormick opened a plant in Chicago to manufacture automatic reapers. These two entrepreneurs established Illinois as the center for agricultural products and implements, effectively opening the large open prairies to the west for settlement by thousands of migrating farmers from the East. With the opening of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 and the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad from 1851 to 1856, agricultural produce from Illinois reached eastern and even international markets. Illinois doubled in population from 1850 to 1860, passing the one million mark; Chicago grew from 30,000 to 112,000 people in that decade. The forests of Wisconsin and Michigan were clear-cut as Chicago became a lumber center. Six miles of stacked lumber filled Lake Michigan's city shoreline. An inventive Chicago carpenter devised "balloon houses," an inexpensive and easy framing system for Chicago's many new homes. That technology soon spread westward across the timber-scarce prairies. Meanwhile, Chicago's first large-scale iron works appeared in 1857; the first steel rolled in the United States was produced there in 1865. Peoria grew as a distillery and manufacturing center, while Quincy and Belleville produced stoves and Moline built plows.'
- Illinois Periodicals Online
"Detroit and its environs had a lot to offer the nascent auto industry around the turn of the 20th century. Iron ore was available from the Mesabi Range in Minnesota, and there was ample timber in Michigan itself. (Early car frames were made of wood.) Rail and water routes made it easy to ship cars to Chicago and New York. And Detroit already hosted heavy industry like machine shops and stove works. Toledo, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Buffalo could have made similar claims, yet none of them became Motown. Detroit’s eventual dominance probably had more to do with a couple of historical accidents than any geographic advantage. First, innovators like Henry Ford and Ransom Olds happened to live in Michigan. Second, automotive executives in early-20th-century Detroit behaved a lot like Silicon Valley executives today: They regularly switched companies and launched spinoffs and startups. This culture of cross-pollination spread innovative manufacturing and design ideas among the Detroit manufacturers."
- Brian Palmer, The Slate
'During the 1960s and 1970s, Midwestern and Eastern states, such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, became known as the Rustbelt. During this twenty year period, these states experienced economic and population declines as many businesses moved out of the region to either foreign countries or to the Sunbelt, Southern states like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Arizona, and California, among other states. There were several reasons for this decline. Many people preferred the warmer climate and sunshine of the South, the Sunbelt, than the colder temperatures and snow of the North, the Rustbelt. Mass migration occurred as people moved to more desirable locations. Many businesses moved to new locations partly because workers were moving but also because manufacturing costs skyrocketed during this period. Many businesses sought to move their operations overseas, where they could save dramatically on the wages that they paid to workers. In 1980, the typical Ford Motor Company or General Motors worker in Ohio earned twenty dollars per hour, while in Mexico, workers averaged sixteen dollars per week. Some businesses also moved because of the strength of unions in Ohio. Most manufacturing workers in the state belonged to unions, while workers in the Sunbelt joined such organizations less commonly. The businesses that moved from Ohio were typically manufacturing businesses. These businesses had made Ohio an economic giant in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, but by the 1960s and 1970s, these businesses were suffering. The end result was high unemployment and outwards migration for workers in industrial cities like Youngstown, Cleveland, Toledo, and Akron, Ohio.'
- Ohio History Central
"Indiana remained the nation's leading steel-producing state last year, continuing a 35-year run at top. After automation and foreign trade gutted American's steel industry in the 1970s, Indiana emerged as the leading steelmaking state in 1980. It hasn't relinquished the top spot since. American Iron and Steel Institute Director of Statistics Robert MacDonald said Indiana made 23.2 million tons of steel in 2015, more than any other state. However, that is down about 8 percent compared to the 25.5 million tons Hoosier steelworkers cranked out in 2014. The fall in production came about because of the steel import crisis that afflicted steelmakers around the globe. Indiana has 23,000 steelworkers and nearly a quarter of all steelmaking capacity in the United States. Nucor has a mini-mill in Crawfordsville and Steel Dynamics, the fourth largest producer of steel in the United States, is based in Fort Wayne, but the overwhelming majority of the steel made in Indiana is forged in Lake and Porter counties. More than 18,000 people work in the industry in Northwest Indiana."
- Joseph S. Pete, The Times Of Northwest Indiana
'Cleveland, Ohio' by John Sanderson 'Columbus, Ohio' by John Sanderson
'Marion, Ohio' by John Sanderson
Agriculture & the Lumber Industry
"Minneapolis, Stillwater, and towns along the St. Croix River became beehives of logging activity due to the close proximity of white pine to navigable waterways and newly constructed railways. In just one week in 1875, one railroad company shipped 141 railcars of lumber through Stillwater to points south. In three short years, another railroad company more than doubled its shipment of lumber from 25 million feet to 54 million feet, while log rafts on the Mississippi River annually exceeded 89 million feet. photo: In the heyday of logging, planks had enormous widths. It’s no wonder white pine was in demand. While the volume of harvesting continued to increase each year, the supply was never able to catch up to the incessant demand, both within Minnesota and elsewhere. By 1890 loggers employed more than 20,000 men who worked from sunrise to sunset, felling and limbing trees with an ax. Before the end of the century, Minneapolis was the leading lumber market in the world. Even though its sister city, St Paul, also was in the lumbering business, its volume paled in comparison. By 1900 Minnesota produced 2.3 billion feet of lumber, of which 2.1 billion was listed as white pine. That same year, three of the four largest mills in the United States were located in Minnesota, of which two were in Minneapolis. In addition, 11 other Minnesota mills processed more than 100 million feet annually. This pace could not and did not last. After a hard winter in 1901-02, the state was not able to regain its momentum in lumbering, and production began to fall, albeit slowly at first."
- Mimi Barzen, 'Waterways And Railroads'
'One of Wisconsin's major lumbering districts was the northeastern region around the Wolf River. The Menomineee developed a successful logging business from the river, which ran through the center of their reservation. Menominee men stayed in lumber camps all winter cutting timber and hauling it by sleigh to the riverbank. When the ice broke in spring, the logs were floated downstream to Oshkosh and other mill towns. Wisconsin's other great lumbering region consisted of the watersheds of the Black and Chippewa Rivers in the northwest. Dozens of small companies there combined into a conglomerate led by Frederick Weyerhaeuser. They shipped logs and boards downriver to St. Louis, and created towns such as Eau Claire and Black River Falls. The amount of pine harvested from the Black River Valley alone could have built a boardwalk nine feet wide and four inches thick around the entire world. According to the 1890 U.S. census, more than 23,000 men worked in Wisconsin's logging industry and another 32,000 worked at the sawmills that turned timber into boards. Each winter, the lumberjacks occupied nearly 450 logging camps. In the spring, they drove their timber downstream to more than 1,000 mills. Logging and lumbering employed a quarter of all Wisconsinites working in the 1890s. Railroads transformed Wisconsin's lumber industry at the turn of the 20th century. Transporting lumber by train allowed loggers to work year-round and to cut lumber that was once impossible to float down rivers. Lumber camps were moved into the woods and increased in size. Camps soon featured Bunkhouses, kitchens, dining halls, company stores, blacksmiths and carpentry shops. The soft pine forests of northern and central Wisconsin provided a seemingly endless supply of raw material to urban markets. Wisconsin trees were made into doors, window sashes, furniture, beams and shipping boxes. They were built in lakefront cities such as Sheboygan, Manitowoc and Milwaukee. Wisconsin lumber was used to construct buildings and houses for the Midwest's growing cities.'
- The Wisconsin Historical Society
'In 1892 in the tiny village in Northeast Iowa, John Froelich (1849 -1933) invented the first successful gasoline-powered engine that could be driven backwards and forwards. The word “tractor” wasn’t used in those days, but that’s what it was. At that time, steam-powered engines were used to thresh wheat. John Froelich was familiar with such equipment. In fact, every fall he took a crew of men to Langford, South Dakota to work the fields. He was frustrated with the problems associated with steam engines; they were heavy and bulky, hard to maneuver. They were always threatening to set fire to the grain and stubble in the fields – and on a flat prairie, with a wind blowing, that was serious. Froelich decided he could invent a better way to power the engine. The solution was gasoline. Froelich and his blacksmith Will Mann came up a vertical, one-cylinder engine mounted on the running gear of a steam traction engine – a hybrid of their own making. They designed many new parts to make it all fit together, but it finally was done. A few weeks later Froelich and his crew started for the broad fields of South Dakota with the “tractor” and a new threshing machine. That fall they threshed 72,000 bushels of small grain. It was a success! Later that fall John Froelich shipped his “tractor” to Waterloo, Iowa to show some businessmen. Immediately, the men formed a company to manufacture the “Froelich Tractor.” They named the company The Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company and made John the president. Unfortunately, efforts to sell the practical gasoline-powered tractor failed. Two were sold and shortly returned. The company then decided to manufacture stationary gas engines to provide income while tractor experiments continued.'
- The Froelich Foundation
'Wind power benefits Iowa’s environment, economy and job market, communities, public health and quality of life. For these reasons, broad support for increasing wind energy in Iowa is strong. Iowa is a national leader in wind energy, producing the highest percentage of electricity produced by wind – over 36 percent (2016) – of any state. Iowa is the first state to generate more than 30 percent of its electricity with wind power. Iowa also ranks second nationally in the amount of wind energy installed with 6,952 MW (2016). New wind projects are under consideration or under development that should bring Iowa to over 10,000 MW of wind by 2020. This is a major milestone and will keep Iowa on track to secure its national leadership in the years to come. Iowa’s wind energy leadership provides important benefits. Wind energy is the lowest cost source of new electricity generation, which helps keep utility costs low and stable. Iowa’s wind sector supported between 7,000 and 8,000 jobs in 2016 while providing millions in revenue to landowners that host turbines and to counties in property tax revenue. Iowa companies in the wind energy supply chain are located across the state. While Iowa’s wind leadership should be applauded, significant potential remains. Iowa has the technical potential to meet our electric needs many times over. Iowa can also build and sell wind energy, infrastructure and services to other states, increasing economic development and job opportunities.'
- The Iowa Environmental Council
Lea Thompson (born Lea Katherine Thompson, May 31, 1961 in Rochester, Minnesota)
“Back before Black Widow scissor-kicked her way into our hearts, or Mary Jane upside down kissed Spider-Man, or Storm showed us what happened to a toad struck by lightning, back even before a hemotologist saved a daywalking vampire in Blade, there was an actress helming a major Marvel motion picture. That woman is Lea Thompson, the human star of the abysmal yet compelling Howard the Duck. In a recent Yahoo Movies interview on Facebook Live, Thompson admitted that her near star-burning turn in George Lucas’s first critical flop makes her Marvel movie royalty. “I am the first queen of Marvel,” she said. And let’s be real, she is. It might pain younger fans to know this, but Marvel used to be a massive joke, cinematically speaking. Howard the Duck was the first Marvel property in movie theaters since the Captain America serials in 1944. Sure it flopped, and yes the following Marvel movies (Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher, Roger Corman’s unreleased Fantastic Four, Cannon Group’s direct-to-home video Captain America) were even worse, but whatever. Howard the Duck was, and remains, fun. It’s a tonal nightmare that’s fully supportive of bestiality and relegates Tim Robbins to goofy sidekick. “People love that movie,” Thompson told Yahoo Movies.
Alex Cranz, ‘The First Queen Of Marvel’
“The reviews and box office for the latest Fantastic Four movie have not been good, but at least the franchise has a fantastic backstory. Twentieth Century Fox made the new version and released two other films based on the Marvel superhero team in 2005 and 2007. But the Four with the strangest fate was made more than two decades ago and never released. Three weeks before its scheduled 1994 premiere at Minneapolis' Mall of America, the film was permanently shelved. The first Four had gone into production in 1992 because the movie rights held by Bernd Eichinger's Germany-based Neue Constantin Film would revert to Marvel unless Neue had a film in production before Dec. 31, 1992. Neue couldn't get a big-budget version going with a major studio so the company turned to Roger Corman, who specialized in low-budget, rapidly made films. "They had a script for a film with a $30 million budget but wanted to make it for $1 million," says Corman, 89. "My first thought was 'Now that's a challenge. We might have to trim a few things.' " The film was rushed into production five days before Neue's option ran out. Once it was completed, the German company had 90 days to buy out Corman's distribution rights, which, surprisingly, it did. "I went to lunch with Bernd, who told me he'd sold both the film and the rights to Fox, who was going to make a $60 million version and they didn't want this low-budget movie around," recalls Corman. "I was kind of disappointed because it would have been an interesting challenge to distribute, but I was sitting there with a pretty hefty check." Fox's planned film, with Chris Columbus directing, never went into production. "That the movie was denied its moment in the sun allowed it to become something of cinema legend," says the 1994 film's star Alex Hyde-White, "which it probably would not have attained otherwise." Though the film was said to have been destroyed, it lives on via YouTube and is the subject of the upcoming documentary Doomed: The Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four.”
Bill Higgins, The Hollywood Reporter
“I feel like I have a unique perspective as an artist because I started out as a dancer. I grew up artistically adapting to different styles—from ballet to modern dance—and I felt like that was a mark of a really good artist. You had to be versatile in order to switch from Martha Graham to Marius Petipa choreography. I aspired to have that sort of versatility, and eventually aimed for that as an actress as well as a director.”
Lea Thompson, ‘Emotional Improv’
Winona Ryder (born Winona Laura Horowitz, October 29, 1971 in Winona, Minnesota)
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Post by petrolino on Sept 29, 2017 23:53:06 GMT
# ‘SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL – 30th Anniversary’
In 'Some Kind Of Wonderful' (1987), blue collar mechanic Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz) has been having trouble concentrating at high school ever since he became infatuated with fellow student Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson). Keith confides in his best buddy, tomboy drummer Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), but this only complicates matters further. You see, Watts has a crush on Keith, though everybody at school thinks she's a lesbian. The scene is set for one of cinema's great teen romances ... “John Hughes may be the only grown man in America capable of shaping an entire film, quite seriously, around a question of who will take whom to the prom. In films like ''Sixteen Candles'' and ''The Breakfast Club'' (which he wrote and directed) and ''Pretty in Pink'' (which he wrote and produced), Mr. Hughes's preoccupation with the most microscopic teen-age problems has made him king of an entire genre, however inconsequential and small. But at long last, the John Hughes method has paid off. ''Some Kind of Wonderful,'' produced and written by Mr. Hughes and directed (as ''Pretty in Pink'' was) by Howard Deutch, has a much wider appeal than its predecessors. It has a light touch, a disarming cast, a well-developed sense of humor and a lot of charm. It also shows off, even better than the earlier films have, Mr. Hughes's keen understanding of the world his young characters inhabit and the ways in which they might behave. What would a ninth-grader do if her father poked his head into the classroom one day and said, ''Hi, honey,'' in front of all her friends? That's simple. She'd scream.”
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times
This year, 'Some Kind Of Wonderful' celebrated its 30th anniversary with special screenings and a host of new interviews and articles published about the film. It's my favourite John Hughes movie, my favourite film from director Howard Deutch, and one of my favourite movies in general. I feel like I know every line of dialogue in this movie - Hughes had a rare gift with a pen. "This month marks the 30th anniversaries of both the release of "Some Kind of Wonderful," the last teen movie written by the genres' 1980s svengali John Hughes, and the relationship between the film's director Howard Deutch and star Lea Thompson, who met on set and began dating around the time of the "Wonderful" premiere. Unfairly branded as a gender-reversal retread of "Pretty in Pink," a Hughes/Deutch collaboration from the year before, "Some Kind of Wonderful" was not a box office hit upon its release at the end of February 1987. Yet it endures as a late-arrival classic that holds its own among its better known Hughes siblings from the era, like "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Recent fair-minded portraits of young people and the uncertain boundaries of friendship and love — "Juno," "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," "The Edge of Seventeen" — can legitimately be called its nieces and nephews."
- Kevin Smokler, 'Some Kind of Wonderful At 30 : On The John Hughes Film’s Epic Romances — On- And Off-Camera — That Endure'
“There was the first draft that was sort of like a broader sex comedy, my character was named Keith and she wanted to be male.”
- Mary Stuart Masterson on 'Some Kind Of Wonderful', Entertainment Weekly
“I didn’t want to play second banana, and the Mary Stuart Masterson part was better. I was very jealous. I was so freaked out because 'Howard the Duck' was such a brutal bloodbath. I was so afraid to even look the crew in the eyes. I cried the first day [of shooting]. I was like, I don’t know how to act. I just felt so vulnerable and beaten. In a way, it was like getting on a bicycle after you fall down.”
- Lea Thompson on 'Some Kind Of Wonderful', 'You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried'
"Like many of us, I grew up on John Hughes movies. But while some friends claim Breakfast Club or Sixteen Candles as their favorite Hughesian tale, and others swear by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Pretty in Pink, I have an undeniable soft spot for 1987’s Some Kind of Wonderful. Written by Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch (the same combo that did the previous year’s Pretty in Pink), Some Kind of Wonderful captures a specific flavor of teen love-triangle angst: there’s the sensitive artist, Keith (Eric Stoltz), who lives on the wrong side of the tracks but is hopelessly infatuated with Amanda (Lea Thompson), the pretty popular girl who dates the loathsome rich Hardy (Craig Scheffer). As Keith schemes his way into Amanda’s life, he’s completely oblivious to the feelings of Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), his awesome toughie tomboy best friend, who loves only three things in life: herself, her drums, and him. There’s so much great stuff in this movie: the music (miss you March Violets!), the style (Miley Cyrus’s new ‘do seems downright Watts-like… though she was not alive when this movie came out. Sigh), and the maybe-best-makeout-in-a-garage scene ever."
- Sara Vilkomerson, Entertainment Weekly
Lea Thompson & Craig Sheffer
Craig Sheffer, Meg Tilly & Eric Stoltz
'Dr. Mabuse' - Propaganda
Howard Deutch and John Hughes execute some interesting technical ideas from the off-set with ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful’, beginning by introducing the three main characters via cross-cutting as Watts belts out a rhythm to the music of Propaganda, Keith walks towards a moving train and Amanda assumes her daily disguise. The soundtrack is superb, as is always the case with Hughes’ teen pictures, and this one has a strong gothic slant. The atmospheric music score is co-composed by Stephen Hague of Jules And The Polar Bears (Jules Shear of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania penned Cyndi Lauper’s classic ‘All Through The Night’ and the Bangles gem ‘If She Knew What She Wants’), and John Musser. The character names Keith and Watts are references to rock n roll drummers Keith Moon (The Who) and Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones) – ‘Amanda Jones’ is one of the Stones’ greatest numbers. Some Kind of Wonderful: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Released February 27, 1987 by MCA Records / Length - 36:20
"Do Anything" – Pete Shelley
"Brilliant Mind" – Furniture
"Cry Like This" – Blue Room
"I Go Crazy" – Flesh for Lulu
"She Loves Me" – Stephen Duffy
"The Hardest Walk" – The Jesus and Mary Chain
"The Shyest Time" – The Apartments
"Miss Amanda Jones" – The March Violets
"Can't Help Falling in Love" – Lick the Tins
"Turn to the Sky" – The March Violets
"It wasn't a bomb, but definitely a disappointment. Yet it seems to have a broad base around the world that are really touched by it and quote it. I just asked on Instagram and Twitter about everyone's favorite line from the movie and was amazed how many people have so many different memories of it. I also hear from more men than women who love it, but I can't tell you why. Maybe because it's two girls fighting over a guy? Or because it's about a guy trying to find himself? I also hear from a lot of gay women who love Watts."
- Lea Thompson, Salon
"Some Kind of Wonderful" is yet another film in which Hughes and his team show a special ability to make an entertaining movie about teenagers, which is also about life, about insecurity, about rejection, about learning to grow. I sometimes have the peculiar feeling that the kids in Hughes's movies are more grown up than the adults in most of the other ones.”
- Roger Ebert, The Chicago-Sun Times
"I had only made one other movie up to that point and couldn't cast the role Eric Stoltz ended up playing. Around that time, I ended up on a plane with Brian De Palma, whom I didn't really know. He told me, "If you can't cast it, don't make it." I mentioned this to John Hughes and suggested I do one of his other scripts and ended up in movie jail. Paramount locked the door of my office. Martha Coolidge was brought on to replace me. The script was originally a broad comedy and John made rewrites to take it in the direction of Martha's sensibility, which was darker and more adult. Martha cast Eric. But when she and John had disagreements, I was brought back with a different script, a leading actor. A different movie ... I think 90 percent of directing is casting, then enabling actors to bring the characters to life by way of what feels most true to them. That was what John Hughes was so brilliant at, for a character to be so alive on a page that the actor can already hear and feel the moments of truth in their story. And then to have those characters be so unique, like Duckie, Watts, Ferris, that they endure for years, even decades. When John wrote for teenagers, his movies would typically have a large event that was like the sun and the characters would be planets rotating around that event. In "Ferris" it was a day off school; in "Pretty in Pink" it was the prom. You could say in "Some Kind of Wonderful" it was the date, but it doesn't have to be. And I was worried, with Mary Stuart driving Lea and Eric around on the date and wearing a chauffeur's uniform, that it would come of as silly and the audience would laugh and not take it seriously. But John wrote it as serious. The kiss at the Hollywood Bowl was a very serious moment, both in the movie and for the actors, to have it feel real. Even though this was John's last movie about teenagers; you can already see him turning toward more adult themes."
- Howard Deutch, Salon
“Writer and producer John Hughes once again proves that he understand the vulnerability, pressures, disappointments, and risk-taking adventures of youth. Some Kind of Wonderful is filled with human touches which span the generations from Keith’s earnest father (John Ashton), who is trying to live through his son, to Keith’s younger sister (Maddie Corman), who is overtly image conscious. The film empathetically underscores how feelings of self-worth are the essence of an adolescent’s sense of identity.”
- Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Practice
Howard Deutch & Mary Stuart Masterson
Lea Thompson & Eric Stoltz
'Can't Help Falling In Love' - Lick The Tins
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Post by teleadm on Sept 30, 2017 17:46:23 GMT
I guess I was too old to embrace The Breakfast Club, because it didn't talk to me at all.
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Post by petrolino on Sept 30, 2017 17:55:02 GMT
I guess I was too old to embrace The Breakfast Club, because it didn't talk to me at all. Hi teleadm. Do you enjoy any of John Hughes' other movies? |
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Post by teleadm on Sept 30, 2017 18:20:47 GMT
I guess I was too old to embrace The Breakfast Club, because it didn't talk to me at all. Hi teleadm. Do you enjoy any of John Hughes' other movies? My brother gave me a DVD box of John Hughes movies, maybe 5-10 years ago, that included The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science. I actually enjoyed Sixteen Candles, and parts of Wierd Science. Ferris Bueller's Day Of is another I don't get. I have liked Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Uncle Buck, the first National Lampoon's Vacation and the fist Home Alone movie. With that said, I offcourse don't dislike him, I just think I might have been a generation too wrong to like his movies about youths in his 1980s movies |
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Post by petrolino on Sept 30, 2017 20:04:47 GMT
Hi teleadm. Do you enjoy any of John Hughes' other movies? My brother gave me a DVD box of John Hughes movies, maybe 5-10 years ago, that included The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and Weird Science. I actually enjoyed Sixteen Candles, and parts of Wierd Science. Ferris Bueller's Day Of is another I don't get. I have liked Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Uncle Buck, the first National Lampoon's Vacation and the fist Home Alone movie. With that said, I offcourse don't dislike him, I just think I might have been a generation too wrong to like his movies about youths in his 1980s movies Have you seen 'The Great Outdoors' (1988)? It's Howard Deutch directing Dan Aykroyd and John Candy in a family holiday comedy written by Hughes. Fun movie. |
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Post by teleadm on Sept 30, 2017 20:25:27 GMT
Sorry I didn't make a Hughes connection with this one, The Great Outdoors 1988, yes it's a lot of corny fun. with great cinematography.
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Post by petrolino on Sept 30, 2017 20:36:20 GMT
Sorry I didn't make a Hughes connection with this one, The Great Outdoors 1988, yes it's a lot of corny fun. with great cinematography. ... and talking raccoons lol. |
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Nov 15, 2017 0:01:13 GMT
The Breakfast Club got all the attention at the time, and it is a fine film, but Some Kind of Wonderful seemed "less Hollywood" and more realistic. It had lesser known actors, not one Brat Packer. We could all relate to liking someone who didn't notice you liked them. And the soundtrack was way cooler than the one for The Breakfast Club. Lea Thompson and Mary Stuart Masterson are young and beautiful here, and so talented. I also think Eric Stoltz is an underrated actor.
If you're feeling nostalgic or you've somehow missed this movie, check it out!
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Post by petrolino on Nov 18, 2017 5:37:41 GMT
The Breakfast Club got all the attention at the time, and it is a fine film, but Some Kind of Wonderful seemed "less Hollywood" and more realistic. It had lesser known actors, not one Brat Packer. We could all relate to liking someone who didn't notice you liked them. And the soundtrack was way cooler than the one for The Breakfast Club. Lea Thompson and Mary Stuart Masterson are young and beautiful here, and so talented. I also think Eric Stoltz is an underrated actor. If you're feeling nostalgic or you've somehow missed this movie, check it out! I think it says a lot about John Hughes as a prolific comedy writer that every fan has a different favourite film he was involved with. I see this as testament to the man's extraordinary talent which made him the Preston Sturges of the '80s. For most observers it's probably gonna be a toss-up between 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' among his teen movies, yet it's not that simple, seeing as they all have their unique insights and charms. I'm with you all the way on the brilliant Eric Stoltz: from 'Mask' (1985) to 'The Waterdance' (1992), he's remained a highly emotional performer beloved by indie directors like co-friends Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino. It's often reported that he used to date Jennifer Jason Leigh and Lea Thompson back in the 1980s - lucky guy! |
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Nov 18, 2017 8:32:06 GMT
The Breakfast Club got all the attention at the time, and it is a fine film, but Some Kind of Wonderful seemed "less Hollywood" and more realistic. It had lesser known actors, not one Brat Packer. We could all relate to liking someone who didn't notice you liked them. And the soundtrack was way cooler than the one for The Breakfast Club. Lea Thompson and Mary Stuart Masterson are young and beautiful here, and so talented. I also think Eric Stoltz is an underrated actor. If you're feeling nostalgic or you've somehow missed this movie, check it out! You know, I think it says alot about John Hughes as a prolific comedy writer that everybody now has a different favourite film he was involved with. I see this as testament to the man's extaordordinary talent which made him the Preston Sturges of the '80s. For most observers it's probably gonna be a toss-up between 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' among his teen movies, yet it's not that simple, seeing as they all have their unique insights and charms. Of course, I'm with you all the way on the brilliant Eric Stoltz: from 'Mask' (1985) to 'The Waterdance' (1992), he's remained a highly emotional performer beloved by indie directors like co-friends Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino. It's often reported that he used to date Jennifer Jason Leigh and Lea Thompson back in the 1980s - lucky guy! Stoltz directs a lot of TV now too, multi-talented. |
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Post by petrolino on Nov 19, 2017 4:24:39 GMT
Stoltz directs a lot of TV now too, multi-talented. I wonder if his new movie project 'Confessions Of A Teenage Jesus Jerk' (2017) owes any kind of artistic debt to punk legends Teenage Jesus & The Jerks. I guess time will tell. 'It's a fab-u-lous night - for Oscar - Os-car - Os-car - who can see? ...'
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Post by petrolino on Jan 13, 2018 2:38:46 GMT
Sorry I didn't make a Hughes connection with this one, The Great Outdoors 1988, yes it's a lot of corny fun. with great cinematography. ... and talking raccoons lol. Latest news from Hollywood is there's a remake of 'The Great Outdoors' on the way, being developed as a new vehicle for comedic superstar Kevin Hart. Should be interesting to say the least. |
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