Ghoulumbe Better than most people think

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

mhs101 I was never a John Hughes fan having grown up in the 70s and not the 80s. But the heartfelt adoration of these film makers for John Hughes was endearing. I kept rooting for them and hoping beyond hope that they would get their interview with Mr. Hughes. After the movie ended; what happened to John Hughes (in the very end) made the movie into a tragedy. Very well done. Hope these film makers do another one, and hope the ending is not as sad. Standing on its own, the film is a great ending to the body of work left created by John Hughes. It is an epitaph if you will to a film maker adored by many and missed by all. Excellent job.

Mr-Fusion 'Don't You Forget About Me' details the story of four Canadian filmmakers on the road to Illinois for one hopeful interview with John Hughes, a man who has shied from the spotlight since 1999. The film is mostly a collection of interviews with the people he worked with (plenty of familiar Brat Pack faces) and the various directors he inspired (from Jason Reitman to Kevin Smith and so on). This is obviously a documentary for Hughes fans, as there's plenty of adulation.The strength of 'Don't You Forget About Me' is the interviews that showcase just how influential John Hughes was (and still is). One interviewee in particular mentions that with the slamming Hughes took from the critics of the '80s, his work is due for a critical reassessment. And, in effect, this documentary is that reassessment.The film's overall weakness is the screen time devoted to the journey of the four filmmakers, themselves. Much time is spent repeating the words of the people they've interviewed, and the rest is spent bickering on how best to approach Hughes at his home. It does lend a sad ending to the film that Hughes died suddenly before its release. But one tends to wish they'd just stuck with interview footage as opposed to the editorialized "on the road" material.6/10

phaota1 I absolutely love the movies of John Hughes. They are classic, timeless in the emotion, story and character aspects, beautifully written and superbly acted by the then young celebrity kids. As noted in this well-done documentary, and supported by many of the actors and people that worked in the various films (with the exception of a some cast that clearly had too high an ego to take time out for an interview), John's films have and will continue to stand the test of time for their realistic portrayal of teenage life. How any critic could have bad mouthed his movies back in the 80s is amazing to see. I'm looking at you Gene Siskel. Your ugly review of "Ferris Bueller" was uncalled for. That was and still is one of the all-time best John Hughes comedies. No matter how many times I've seen it, the movie always makes me laugh hard.As for the documentary, these Canadian kids went above and beyond to get such great interviews with various actors and people involved with the films, as well as chatting with teenagers of today on their views of John's movies and how teen films of the 90s and now just do not have the realism of teenage life and personalities that they can connect to personally. They are more fantasy, and as one kid said, "T&A". Very true. The editing in this documentary is perfect, especially finding great dialog clips from the various Hughes films that correspond to the discussion segment. You will definitely laugh a lot. My only complaint is the ending. Not for the filmmakers and their job, but at John Hughes himself. I'm not going to saying what happens, but it really made me mad. And now that John is gone, it bugs me more.If you love the films of John Hughes, you owe it to yourself to watch this documentary. It is a wonderful look back at his great films and how they continue to touch peoples lives today, especially teenagers.

DelBongo This film left me genuinely torn, but only with regards to how vicious and spiteful this review was going to be. I've decided to allow the review to precisely reflect the way that the film in question made me feel.For the record, I do fully understand that the filmmakers - having made the unforgivable idiot's error of beginning a documentary without their centrepiece in place - must have felt that they had to do something with the footage that they'd shot. The problem is that all of their footage, without one single exception, is entirely bereft of pop cultural worth.The interviews - which make up for a depressingly slim amount of the total running time - are about as deep and interesting as a puddle of day-old dog urine. It goes without saying that the likes of Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall and Matthew Broderick don't appear here, but the actors who do take part aren't actually asked anything of note. You can envisage this crew of filmmakers putting exactly the same questions to Judd Nelson and Andrew McCarthy that they do to a band of young schoolchildren at one point. "So like, why is John Hughes so great?"Nobody has the answer. The inarticulate buffoons behind the camera try to answer it themselves during one utterly toe-curling sequence (that takes place in a twilight-tinged field) but if that moment of abject horror isn't to your taste, then believe me - every single other interview is quite indescribably boring. John Hughes was a genius. John Hughes meant the world to everyone. John Hughes spoke to teenagers like nobody ever has, before or since. Yes, we get the picture. So what else you got?What else they got is footage of themselves; and an apparently endless supply of it at that. What makes this fact so thoroughly appalling is that the film stops being about John Hughes after about five minutes. This isn't a film about him - it's a film about them. And these people think they're funny. They think they're cute. They think they're wise. Not only are they none of the above, they also collectively believed that eighty-odd minutes of their inane potterings would somehow make for acceptable entertainment for the paying public. I only have three words for them: how dare you.As a fan of John Hughes, the fact that a documentary pertaining to be "about" the great man features such a disarming lack of insight and investigation is absolutely shocking. This is nothing more than a poorly-shot travelogue about a group of deeply uninteresting people making trite and stupid observations for the entirety of the running time.I paid to have the DVD imported, so I'm sure that the ten-watt bulbs who were responsible for this production are probably laughing their heads off right now. But then again, I literally just made my money back via a re-sale on eBay. In a very, very small way, I just bucked a stupid system to make it work for me. John Hughes would have been proud.