Friday, August 07, 2009

Buck Melanoma. Moley Russell's Wart.

Not her wart. Not her wart! I'm...I'm the wart. She's my tumor. My...my growth. My...uh, my pimple. I'm Uncle Wart. Just old Buck "Wart" Russell. That's what they call me. Or Melanoma Head. They'll call me that. "Melanoma Head's coming." I'm...uncle! Maisy Russell's uncle!

Writer and director John Hughes passed away yesterday. When my family talks about "the classics" we're referring to films like Uncle Buck or The Great Outdoors or Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And while it's quite common for my father to forget my name when he's talking to me, he somehow remembers every single line from Christmas Vacation.

My sisters and I grew up watching John Hughes movies on repeat. We memorized entire screenplays just by rewinding funny scenes and playing them over and over. Quoting lines to each other was always a road trip game, or just a guaranteed way to make someone in our family laugh out loud. As we grew older, random quotes from his scripts became code. I've had entire conversations with my sisters using only lines from John Hughes films.

I was talking to Sabrina about it and she agreed that his writing truly shaped so much of what we find funny. And she made an excellent point by saying, "We thought our family was normal because of his movies."

4 comments:

V said...

Dude, I'm celebrating him tonight! I seriously got choked up when I heard the news.

Love n Peace,
Long Duck Dong

Anonymous said...

OMG You guys need to calculate how many trips to Long Island you made since European Vacation was available on VHS, and multiply that by how many times you watched it - I would estimate at least 10-15 per trip!! All I remember is you all laughing your heads off when you would say "Let's watch You're -A - Peein- On - Vacation!!

Jess said...

Ha! That's still funny!
Kim is this you too? Or is this Kel?
And I think you're math is spot on. We obviously watched it at least 300 times.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jess it's me your middle sibling sister!! You're right - it's still funny!! LOL