Every once in a while I like to search for a movie to watch online at Netflix but sometimes it’s tough to find anything worthwhile. That’s why I love InstantWatcher which exposes a ton of streaming movies on Netflix that I never would’ve seen otherwise. That was the case with “Don’t You Forget About Me” which is a documentary about four young filmmakers who travelled to Chicago in search of the reclusive John Hughes (before he passed away in 2009 of course).
What I liked about this movie was the fact that they interviewed a bunch of people from John Hughes’ movies. It was fun seeing what they looked like today. Stars such as Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Annie Potts, Andrew McCarthy, Kelly Lebrock and Mia Sara. It was also very cool to hear all the kind things they had to say about John.
The other thing that I liked a lot were the interviews with current filmmakers such as Kevin Smith, Jason Reitman and the guys who made Napoleon Dynamite. They each shared their personal feelings about how much they loved John’s movies and how much their films were influenced by him. For example, Jason Reitman (Nominated today for an Oscar for Up in the Air) said he loved Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and could never have made it any better.
There were other good segments featuring Chicago film critic Roger Ebert and Jim Kerr from SimpleMinds who shared the story behind the song “Don’t You” from the Breakfast Club. John really loved music and used it well in his movies. The soundtracks were critical to his success.
I’m not going to give away the ending the documentary. I was glad that these young filmmakers didn’t make their movie about them but more about John Hughes. I love that they filmed a great deal of young people that all shared how much John’s movies mean to them, even today, a quarter century later.
If you have a Netflix account you can watch it right now.
Here’s the trailer
Here’s the Simple Minds song just for grins and giggles