Next up for John Hughes week in #Johnuary is Uncle Buck. I’d never seen this one before and didn’t really know what to expect, but if John Candy’s involved I’m always excited. This is yet another one that is written, directed and produced by Hughes.
- The titles start with “A Hughes Entertainment film”. There seems to have been a few different Hughes company names at the start of some of his films, including Hughes Music I think. I’d be very interested to learn more about how Hughes set everything up.
- I really liked the title sequence. Cool piano track with some nice shots of family arriving
- This was Macaulay Culkin’s first film, one year before Home Alone
- The wife from Field of Dreams and the daughter from Field of Dreams! Coincidence? Both films came out in the same year so there must be some connection there.
- The older sister is quite depressing at the start. In fact I felt the whole movie is filmed in a very understated dull way to begin with. Quite unlike Hughes’ other films.
- I thought this film was a proper straight up comedy, but at the beginning it really isn’t. The mother/daughter relationship is very serious. Hughes really does like to mix up emotions in his films. I like that.
- I find John Candy a little bit hit and miss sometimes in this film, but mostly hit. I actually think he can be a great straight actor when he gets all serious and emotional. I’d love to see him in a non-comedy. I’ll have to check his IMDB to see if he did any! He was also the actor that John Hughes used the most. 7 films in total I believe.
- I love the chemistry between Culkin and Candy. The scene with the consecutive questions is great.
- The actress playing the older daughter is really good. Good at playing a sultry teen but just a good actress in general.
- As expected Uncle Buck earns her respect at the end. Quite obvious perhaps but still nicely done.
- This was the second last movie Hughes directed but actually I would say it’s possibly the worst directorial one of them all. Maybe he had lost his mojo?
I think this will probably rank fairly lowly in my Hughes list at the end of the week but that’s not to say it’s a bad movie. It’s just got very stiff competition.
Images from Blu-Ray.com