Don’t You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes

If you know what Bender’s dad gave him for Christmas or who paid a buck to see Samantha Baker’s underwear at the dance, this collection of essays—with a foreword by Ally Sheedy—will provide the same nostalgic tonic as watching Sixteen Candles for the umpteenth time. With the barest cinematic analysis and no discussion of Hughes’ non-teen works, these 20 selections trade heavily on autobiographical high-school confessions. Wearing a Ferris Bueller-style vest for most of 12th grade? Blaming a teen crush on Allison in The Breakfast Club for a lasting attraction to mentally ill women? Stalking Michael Schoeffling through Los Angeles nightclubs? As Emilio Estevez once said, “We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.”