tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post4742813772361278487..comments2023-11-05T02:01:53.847-06:00Comments on Antagony & Ecstasy: JOHN HUGHES: UNCLE BUCK (1989)Timhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-41888319848274729112011-11-09T22:50:28.419-06:002011-11-09T22:50:28.419-06:00This is an interesting conversation. The effect of...This is an interesting conversation. The effect of nostalgia is something that is all at once wonderful and irritating. Nostalgia forces things into our culture that need not exist anymore (just look at how the film industry exploits this); however, nostalgia also makes us not become so bitter towards the things we used to love when our palettes were not as refined. <br /><br />I like what you say, The Caustic Ignostic, when you mention that if you were to see <i>Uncle Buck</i> next to something today that is similar, you would no doubt think the modern version horrid and wretched. I think about this often when I get choked up by the end of <i>Planes, Trains, and Automobiles</i> or by the interactions between Candy, Hoffman, and Culkin in <i>Uncle Buck</i>. The latter of which I would no doubt roll my eyes at the sticky-sweet, too-smart-and-clever-for-their-own-good child actors and their interactions with adults in movies...yet, I love it in Hughes' film.Kevin J. Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-21752035780412623352011-11-09T20:21:37.205-06:002011-11-09T20:21:37.205-06:00That is a beautiful way of putting it. When the Hu...That is a beautiful way of putting it. When the Hughes retro is done, I think I shall put together a little essay in response, so this whole conversation doesn't get buried a comment thread.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-5229537066565933982011-11-09T20:15:20.708-06:002011-11-09T20:15:20.708-06:00Tim:
Trenchant sentiments.
I find that the oddes...Tim:<br /><br />Trenchant sentiments.<br /><br />I find that the oddest aspect of this whole nostalgia factor is that its effect seems largely independent of an honest critical assessment. I can talk about all the problems of "Uncle Buck" until the cows come home, and be quite objective about the ways in which it's just not that good. Yet if you laid it alongside another contemporary crude-ish family comedy of pretty much exactly the same cinematic quality, I would choose to watch "Uncle Buck" nine times out of ten, for purely sentimental reasons. That, I think is nostalgia's most slippery effect: It doesn't cause a complete lapse in judgment or critical thinking so much as affect an irrational tug that causes us to favor our objects of nostalgia over any random thing of comparable objective quality.The Caustic Ignostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08573539801150336099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-15042486673048766022011-11-09T17:46:34.850-06:002011-11-09T17:46:34.850-06:00It might even be my favorite Candy performance, at...It might even be my favorite Candy performance, at that - a really tough call between this and <i>PT&A</i>. Certainly, I don't think there's any denying that however good or bad the screenplay is, the actor takes it to a completely different level.<br /><br />Also, you raise a point that I've been thinking about quite a lot through this retrospective: the degree to which people's affection for Hughes is based in their exposure to him in childhood and adolescence. The dark secret I haven't really divulged, though I think it might have been obvious, is that I hadn't seen most of these movies before my 20s, several of them not until the time came for reviewing. Only <i>Ferris Bueller</i> and to a much lesser extent <i>Christmas Vacation</i> were in any way staples of my viewing back in the day.<br /><br />Anyway, it's gotten me to thinking a great deal about the way that tastes developed in one's youth can affect one's critical facilities in adulthood; that is, whether or not a 30-year-old can <i>love</i> a Hughes movie if he didn't <i>love</i> them at 15, and if that actually reflects poorly on Hughes or is simply a function of his work - his storytelling is so inherently nostalgic that it might simply take a similar kind f nostalgia really appreciate what he's doing. These are not coherent thoughts, and I hope to develop them in future reviews, but I've sort of run out of good places to do it.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-22259674396832373612011-11-08T19:50:57.967-06:002011-11-08T19:50:57.967-06:00Tim:
I haven't always agreed with your chill...Tim: <br /><br />I haven't always agreed with your chilly opinion of Hughes' more sentimental, emotional notes. I, for one, think that while The Breakfast Club is clunkier and more problematic than most folks are willing to admit, the sincere turns in Ferris Bueller and Planes, Trains are pretty damn affecting.<br /><br />That said, I have to agree that Uncle Buck's gestures in this direction fall flat, and are handled somewhat clumsily. And yet damn if I don't have a lot of indefensible affection for this film, based almost entirely on fond memories of watching it over and over as a teenager. Of course, there's also Candy's great comic performance. (My wife and I will still occasionally throw a "She's my tumor...My growth... My cyst." into a random conversation for no good reason and cackle like fiends.) I especially like all the little throwaway moments in the script and the way Candy sells them. ("I've just been leaving the toilet seats up.") For all his great work on SCTV and his other films, my best memories of Candy seem to come back to Uncle Buck.The Caustic Ignostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08573539801150336099noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-71883680698409201522011-11-07T20:05:07.012-06:002011-11-07T20:05:07.012-06:00I very much appreciate the support, especially giv...I very much appreciate the support, especially given how close you are to the subject at hand. I wouldn't keep mentioning it, except it seems like a lot of people whose opinions I'm inclined to trust enjoy TBC far more than makes any real sense to me.Timhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09491952893581644049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14812333.post-73299316484072730542011-11-06T20:58:30.310-06:002011-11-06T20:58:30.310-06:00Whereas the dramatic material does not work: Hughe...<i><br />Whereas the dramatic material does not work: Hughes quickly looses the thread of what he's doing - he was never a good with drama, it not suiting his natural inclination to be nice to his characters (that's why only The Breakfast Club has deep-down Serious Moments that come even close to working - and I don't think it works even there, but I know that I am alone - it's his only drama where he can sympathise with every single major onscreen character) - and things become far more rancid than you'd expect from a movie that falls into the broad genre of movies about an adult and an intractable teen quarreling and then making up; it's a miracle, frankly, that Tia doesn't stab Buck in his sleep.</i><br /><br />First of all, that is a hilarious line at the end of this sentence. Secondly, I keep seeing you refer to the fact that you're alone in your feelings towards <i>The Breakfast Club</i> and its serious scenes. I'm with ya, man. But then again, I am really sensitive and picky towards any kind of portrayal of teenagers -- especially marginalized or "at-risk" teenagers -- since I work with them everyday (again, specifically the marginalized and "at risk" teens). So, most stuff like that rings false with me anyway. Like I said in your <i>Great Outdoors</i> piece: it was never Hughes' teen films -- and his perspective on how teenagers live, are treated, and relate to adult figures in their worlds -- that endeared me towards him. <br /><br />You're right about <i>Uncle Buck</i> being a messy movie...but I love it all the same. Candy's rapport with the child actors is not only really damn charming, but makes me miss Candy even more. He was one of my favorite comedians. His cameo in <i>Home Alone</i> is, I would argue, the most memorable thing about the film.Kevin J. Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com