Are you a John Hughes fan? Do you prefer the old corny stuff, like Rebel Without a Cause? (I know it was't corny to begin with, but it hasn't aged well. I still love that movie, but it's hard to watch with a straight face.)

Bonus round: who was your favorite Tiger Beat boy (or girl) when you were thirteen? Mine was (oh, the shame) C. Thomas Howell. Ponyboy, I'll never forget you, even if you've become the king of B movies.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

Answers

Die hard 'The Breakfast Club' fan -- though I'm not as fond of the other Hughes movies.

Other favorite teen flicks: "Mystic Pizza", "Say Anything", "Seven Minutes in Heaven", "Adventures in Babysitting" -- which kind of crosses the line into kiddie flick, ditto "Goonies"

Oh and all those Catholic Boys' School movies, like "Heaven Help Us"

What's Tiger Beat? No seriously, I don't think I ever read it. I wasn't a very typical teen -- I was to busy reading scifi/fantasy novels to care much about teen rags.

But between the ages of 12 and 15 I did have serious crushes on Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, James Spader, Neil Patrick Harris of Doogie Howser fame and Rick Astley.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

OH! And of course, I forgot one of my favorite movies of all time -- "Real Genius"

Duh. You know every time I go to answer these questions, I immediately start forgetting about all of the answers?

Heh.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

My sister and I used to watch the same movies over and over until we could quote lines from them and have the other answer with the appropriate next line. Our favorites were: Goonies, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Weird Science, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Sorry, Beth, but I still like that one - so quirky) and, the creme de la creme of baaaad high school movies: Just One of the Guys, where the main female character transfers to another school as a guy to get some newspaper job or something. I think we were just thrilled by her moxie when she opened her tux shirt at the end of the movie to show her best guy-buddy (with whom she had fallen in love, of course) that she really IS a girl after all. ANYway...

Tiger Beat? Oh, I used to buy all those silly magazines, and plaster my room with headshots of: Ralph Machio, Michael J. Fox, the Coreys (though they were on the young side for me) and Wham! I had a Wham! folder and kept all my secret crushes in there. I believe my prized possession was a sheet of notebook paper with "I love Steve Speedy" written over and over on it in pink ink (Steve Speedy being a very popular jock in my junior high school). Ugh. I think I had a thing for unattainable guys....

Ironically, the entry I'm reading tomorrow is about Junior High, too, though on a different topic.

By high school I believe I had torn down most of the head shots and had replaced them with dance posters and eventually black-and-white nudes. I'm sure I still had celebrity crushes (sure, still do) but I thankfully never reached that level of obsession and intensity

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

My best friend Michelle and I used to be really into all those John Hughes movies. Michelle had a HUGE crush on Andrew McCarthy...she had pictures of him everywhere and we had to see all of his movies over and over again (I didn't really see the appeal, but went along with it).

Anyway, skip forward a few years...Michelle is now an actress and last year appeared in a play with Andrew at the Hartford Stage! She and her husband got to be good friends with him...I guess she's over her crush now. She said he just rolled his eyes when she told him "your picture used to be all over my locker!"

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

real genius. hands down. brilliant.

"would you be prepared if gravity reversed itself?"

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

Okay, here goes. (Keep in mind that I'm an 80s baby anyhow, so this list is probably a little skewed to what I understand...Or wanted to understand at the time.) I still love these movies, though...

Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Labarynth, Sixteen Candles, and, last but NOT least, The Last Unicorn. I still cry at The Last Unicorn. Don't tell anyone.

-Meghan

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

Beth, I am shocked, *shocked* to hear you call The Breakfast Club lame. I loved that movie. I think I've seen it over a hundred times. Judd Nelson was such a cutie in that (not so much anymore). And Ferris is an absolute classic. Also a big fan of Real Genius and how about them Lost Boys??

Never did buy Tiger Beat but I did have a crumpet picture of Kiefer Sutherland up in my closet. RRRrrow!

-- Anonymous, December 11, 1999

The Last Unicorn and Ferris Beuller's Day Off are among my most-watched movies of all time. Haven't watched either in a while, though. Have watched Princess Bride more recently. Having worn out one tape of that movie, I'm waiting for the DVD.

Say Anything, The Breakfast Club, Real Genius... Love them all. Umm... Willow. One Crazy Summer. I liked Rebel Without a Cause a whole lot the time I saw it. And Casablanca became a dominant movie of high school. But that's not really a teen flick. Um... Hm. If I had to pick a favorite of the 'teen movie' genre, it would probably be Say Anything.

As for tiger beat.. didn't read it. Did read 16, though, and it's basically the same thing. Hmmm... lesse... I like Ethan Hawke and David Arquette, but they were hard to find. I never saw the appeal of Kirk Cameron (who was the dominant one when I was reading those). Christian Slater is probably the only one I'm not mortified about. And of course, Jeremy disowned me when I put up my Shane Conrad pictures.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1999

Something tells me I belong to a slightly different generation-- My all-time favorite high school movies are Heathers and Clueless. They're best, of course, when seen back to back and while playing the accompanying drinking games. Here they are, for anyone who wants to play along: During Heathers, take a drink any time you hear the word "Heather" or see it written on screen. For Clueless, you have two options: Either drink everytime Cher changes outfits, or drink everytime you spot belly or thigh from one of the characters. The two of these in combo will allow you to get quite tipsy, especially if you play, as I do, with people who have the movies memorized and are sticklers for pointing out every possible drinking moment.

My most recent favorite high school flick was 10 Things I Hate About You- you know, the recent teen version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. I saw it in a drive-in, so I couldn't follow it too well, but I developed a monstrous crush on Kat, anyway.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1999

*slight shudder*

i HATE teen flicks. hate 'em. especially john hughes. '80s nostalgia is the most unwarranted, annoying trend since...well...since '70s nostalgia. and as a child of the '80s, i think i know whereof i speak.

i do love the last unicorn. and when i was a freshman in high school, i had a huge crush on balthazar getty. but i never read tiger beat or 16 or any of their trashy identical siblings.

yeah, i'm a total grinch.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1999

Geeeeezzzzz.......my fave is the 'ever annoying' Ferris Bueller's Day Off! I laughed so hard during that movie that all my friends got up and sat elsewhere leaving me to sit all alone... It still makes me laugh so hard the Pop flies right out my nose!

-- Anonymous, December 12, 1999

Okay, how could I forget Heathers? How? I don't understand...

Add it my list, and let's pretend I didn't leave it off, or it'll be mad.

(Clueless came out while I was in high school, but while I liked the movie, it's not one that immediately comes to mind as a teen movie. Don't ask why, I don't know. (maybe I think of the ones that gave me the teen mythos before I was actually that age)

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999

Back to the Future, especially parts 1 and 2. The first one was released when I was 21, and it really made me wonder at the time why we didn't have movies like that when I was a teenager. All we got at the time was Grease, and I never was able to stomach John Travolta!

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999

How can you have a high-school movie list without Say Anything on it?!? It's a travesty. And The Outsiders, too!

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999

The Sound of Music. Beetlejuice. Karate Kid. Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

What?

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999

I was a little old for John Hughes pictures when they came out, though I did see The Breakfast Club and liked it. Cute guys.

When I was an actual 13 year old I read Tiger Beat or some equivalent. I think I would have just been realizing the Monkees were kind of phony (Peter Tork and Davy Jones were my favorites) and would been returning to my long time loves, Brian Jones and Mick Jagger. No movie stars for me - rock and roll was where it's at, baby.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 1999

Well, this is bad. I didn't see the two teen flicks I'm about to mention until way after my teens. I don't *remember* movies from my teens. Two weeks shy of my 37th birthday, and my mind is going.

At any rate... I enjoyed "Taps" and "Dead Poet's Society". I liked parts of "The Breakfast Club".

Tiger Beat boy? Randolph Mantooth, of Emergency! fame.

I grow old, I grow old.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

Randolph Mantooth! Just this Saturday we were flipping around the dial and there was an episode of Emergency! on. I'd forgotten all about my crush on old Randy, but there he was, cute & quirky. My husband thought he seemed sort of British, which could explain my earlier interest in him (I'm a total anglophile.)

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

Yikes. If you were 30 when Sixteen Candles came out, then you were 32 when Labrynth came out. Jennifer Connelly was 15, and as I recall, she was playing a character who was slightly younger than that. No offense, but ... ick.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

You can add "Heathers" and "Back to the Future" to my list too though part of why I left it off initially, is because while it has elements of being a teen movie, I see it more as a scifi/comedy film, not a teen drama.

I guess I was just listing actual teen movies that I liked, as opposed to movies that I liked when I was teen, which is slightly different.

You see, I love the 'The Last Unicorn," but I wouldn't exactly characterize it as a teen movie.

Don't get me wrong, I truly love the film, (and the book even more) and I own the soundtrack, but it's a _fantasy_ film. Not a teen flick.

Ditto, Willow, Labyrinth and Dark Crystal which I also own ...

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

I don't know how old I was when "Say Anything" came out, but I was young enough to think that standing under your girlfriend's window in the rain with a boombox blaring Peter Gabriel was the ne plus ultra of romance. I came away with a lasting appreciation for "In Your Eyes," and I though Ione Skye was delectable.

I still think it's pretty romantic to stand under your girlfriend's window in the rain. Assuming you aren't violating a restraining order or anything.

I just checked and determined that Jennifer Connelly is within four years of my age. I feel much, much less dirty and ashamed.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1999

I always loved Ferris Bueller, and it's fun to see good old Ben Stein plugging away at his tv game show and remembering him..."Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?" The Princess Bride, One Crazy Summer and Better Off Dead were great. An early Val Kilmer movie, Top Secret, is another really silly one. I wonder where Val's sense of humor and one-time good looks went?

-- Anonymous, December 15, 1999

Best - Heathers, Clueless and Ferris Beuller. Seen 'em all several times.

Worst - Breakfast Club. Gag me with a spoon, it was so Lame, but my daughter, who is almost as old as Beth (bless her heart) loved it. What the heck ever happened to Molly Ringwold anyway? I know about Ally Sheedy, who was in that awful, pretentious artsy movie recently which I *hated*, and I know Emilio's career is pretty much in the dumper too, and the rest... but where is Molly? Oh yeah, I think I heard that she moved to Paris and got a life? I just can't keep up with these things.

-- Anonymous, December 15, 1999

Love all John Hughes movies and wanted to be the filling in the Ione Skye / John Cusack sandwich in the backseat. Although John Cusack sorta looked like the boy (also named John) who lived across the street in my old neighborhood and that's like lusting after my own brother. Can't decide if that's incestously titilating or just downright nauseating - somewhere in the queasy middle I guess.

Tiger Beat! Well, I'm REALLY old so, don't get scared, but it was alternately David Cassidy, Davy Jones... that kind of thing. I was never that crazy about Peter Tork, but I did sit at a table and drink carrot juice with him once. I think he was flirting with me, I wasn't really sure, and it made me so uncomfortable I had to leave. He looked so old and I remembered him so young that my brain shorted out.

Which makes me want to spawn a new question back to all of you... Have you had any strange brushes with celebrities? This probably needs a new thread, huh?

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1999

imdb.com shows that Molly Ringwald has been working, though not in anything I've ever heard of. I thought she was yucky when she was a teen actress and my opinion of her hasn't gotten any better over the years.

I don't have a problem with someone in their 30s thinking someone 15 is cute, especially an actress in a movie. Whether that 30-something should get involved with a 15 year old in real life is another question, but in one's fantasy life, anything goes.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1999

I wasn't allowed to go see a lot of the above mentioned shows as a teen, so I experienced them in my twenties. Ferris B., Fast Times, Breakfast Club. Loved 'em! As for Tiger Beat, Oh the shame! Shaun Cassidy and Leaf Garrett. I recall my cousin Bethany and I fighting over who was going to marry Shaun. OH NO!!! I named my firstborn Shaun! You don't suppose... Nah. Coincidence, it's all coincidence. Right?

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1999

Hmmm... no one has mentioned Pretty in Pink. Is this because it was really, really bad and absolutely no one in their right mind will admit to liking it..??

Tum..te..tum

I've never heard of Tiger Beat, but if Andrew McCarthy was in it - he was my favourite.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1999

I've never seen Pretty in Pink, but for some twisted reason I have always thought Jon Cryer was yummy. SSHHH.... Don't tell anyone.

-- Anonymous, December 16, 1999