The trailer for Some Kind of Wonderful was, quite possibly, meant just for me. A mostly unseen girl drummer (you saw hands with gloves and nail polish...and in the 80s, this was concretely girly) hammers out a beat for about thirty seconds. I was pretty sure, after watching the trailer multiple times (can't even remember what video it was attached to), that this would be the greatest movie of all time.

But it wasn't. The guy behind the movie, John Hughes, had already written and directed the greatest movies of all time for a generation of teens. Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. These four movies sit side by side on my DVD rack.

Many would add Pretty In Pink to this. But I've never cottoned to it. Nonetheless, my band worked "Pretty In Pink" up for the sound check at our gig last Sunday. I didn't see myself as a Duckie back in the 80s, though. And I always liked Ally Sheedy more than Molly Ringwald.

My brothers and I tried to see Sixteen Candles with an older cousin (we crammed into his impossibly impractical Corvette) while our parents were on vacation in Europe. We skipped Scouts, but got there late for a dollar night at the Hilltop Twin. We ended up watching The Natural. Not as good a flick. Eventually we saw it on vacation in Kansas City with our mom at a second run theater. You see, back then movies stayed in theaters for months if they were big money makers. And took years to come out on video or hit the pay cable channels.

There will never be a movie like The Breakfast Club again. Teens today (or tomorrow, for that matter) would never sit still long enough to watch teens sit around talking about their lives. And movie studios wouldn't know how to sell it. But there are so many things from that movie still running through pop culture today. And not just the soundtrack. Or the "Molly Ringwald" dance. The crass robot of "Futurama" is called Bender (as is Judd Nelson's character), and one of Bart Simpson's first catchphrases, "Eat my shorts!", was uttered by the same character.

Weird Science and Ferris Bueller's Day Off were pure teen fantasy plays, but they were magnificent nonetheless. Everyone my age wanted to be able to have such an amazing sick day from school. I have had some great days and nights in my life, but no one can touch Ferris. Or, if you were a guy, wondered what you would do if Kelly LeBrock was, in a sense, your sex slave. In a short play a couple of months back, my brother wore a bra on his head in homage to Weird Science (and geek dreams in general).

John Hughes had many other successes (Home Alone being the big one), and I would point to the original Vacation, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Mr. Mom, Uncle Buck and Career Opportunities. But it was those four mid-80s flicks that made my generation look at themselves in a different way. The empowerment inherent in these movies for teens: they get away with all the crazy shit they do. And are, in fact, smarter than their parents for the most part. Which, of course, we all knew to be true about ourselves.

Sixteen Candles also helped usher in the PG-13 rating (along with the second Indiana Jones movie) because of the naked shower scene and Molly Ringwald's "They fucking forgot my birthday."

And John Hughes loved 80s Brit-pop (New Wave). It's possible that a lot of what people love about 80s music today is directly correlated to their love of his movies. I listened to the Some Kind of Wonderful soundtrack endlessly, and just loved the cover of "Can't Help Falling In Love" by...I don't know, some Scottish band with a girl singer.

I could go further into the disappointment of that movie and subsequent Hughes offerings, but I'd say it was a symptom of growing older. Me getting older. Hughes growing older (and having kids of his own). And all of us moving on with our lives.

Which is why, when I "worked from home" the day after Hughes died, I took those four movies, flipped coins in a little tournament and popped Sixteen Candles into the DVD player. And it was still hilarious and somewhat shocking, even though I've seen it tons of times. A few nights later I watched The Breakfast Club, and it still worked.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Heathers. It is a cinematic rebuke of the classic Hughes high school flicks. Instead of working out their problems, the teens kill each other. And when it came out it made complete sense.

But there would be no Heathers without Hughes. It kinda makes me happy and sad at the same time. Sorta like the best movies about high school.

Matt Worley skipped his 20th high school reunion because it wasn't gonna be anything like watching Ferris Bueller again.