1. Being John Malkovich
2. Say Anything
3. High Fidelity
4. Identity
5. Grosse Point Blank
6. Con Air
7. Serendipity
8. Must Love Dog
9. Pushing Tin
10. America’s Sweethearts.

John Paul Cusack was born on 28 June 1966 in Evanston, Illinois, USA . His mother is a former teacher. His father is a filmmaker and his 4 siblings are all actors. His sister Joan is a comedic film actress who has appeared in several of his movies. In 2000 The Cusack family won the CFCA (Chicago Film Critics Association Awards) “Commitment to Chicago Award”.

While he was still in primary school he joined Chicago’s Piven Theatre Workshop. At the age of 17, he made his film debut in Class (1983). He won the CFCA “Emerging Actor” Award for his performance as Lloyd in the coming-of- age romantic-comedy,  Say Anything (1990).  The image of Llyod serenading his love interst, holding a boom-box above his head became a pop-culture icon. This performance was the highlight of his early career.

He starred co-wrote in High Fidelity (2000)  for which he shared nominations for  the “best adapted screenplay” WGA  and BAFTA awards. His performance as Rob the list-making music-junky,  also earned him a nomination for the  ”best hissy fit”  Teen Choice Award.

He was also a writer on Grosse Point Blank (1997) and War, Inc (2008). Cusack has also been a blogger for the Huffington Post since 2005.

He usually plays complex characters in quirky movies.His performance as a obsessive puppeteer in Being John Malkovich also earned him several award nomination. This is my favourite John Cusack movie.

John Cusack is one of my favourite actors and his movies (on DVD- yay bonus features) are the kind I like to pop into the DVD player often.

Source: IMDB
Picture: Wikipedia Creative Commons

Legendary director, writer and producer, John Hughes passed away last week (6 August 2009). Since a week has now passed, I thought it fitting do a short profile on him. Mr Hughes is best known for his coming of age comedies of the 1980s.

John Hughes was born on 18 February 1950 in Lansing, Michigan, USA.

He graduated from Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois in 1968. Most of his films were set in Illinois. He married Nancy Ludwig, whom he met in high school, in 1970. He had two sons John (1976) and James (1979). He had four grandchildren.

After dropping out from university in 1970 he got a job copy-writing for an advertising company in Chicago.

He wrote a story titled Vacation ‘58, which got him a job with National Lampoon and was the basis of the movie Vacation.

His wrote five episodes for Delta House (1979) and first feature length screenplay was National Lampoon’s: Class Reunion (1982). He also wrote the screenplays for all the movies he directed.

A few of 39 the films he wrote include:

* Sixteen Candles
* Home Alone [1-4]
* Beethoven [1-3]
* Dennis the Menace
* Maid in Manhattan
* Drillbit Taylor

He had his directorial debut with Sixteen Candles (1984) and ended his directorial career with Curly Sue. His director filmography includes:

1. Sixteen candles (1984)
2. Breakfast Club (1985)
3. Weird Science (1985)
4. Ferris Bueller’s Day (1986)
5. Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
6. She’s having a Baby (1988)
7. Uncle Buck (1989)
8. Curly Sue (1991)

Hughes was also the producer on 23 films spanning from The Breakfast Club (1985) to New Port South (2001).

John Hughes died of a heart attack on August 6, 2009 whilst walking in Manhattan. He was buried in Chicago. John Hughes definitely left a mark on the film industry and on the kids of the 1980s. His movies are still as fresh now as they were then. He will be sorely missed.

He’s movies would make a great edition to your DVD collection. If you have some of his DVDs or videos, which you have watched a thousand times, you could probably sell or trade them in the classifieds, but my guess is if you’re a true fan, you’ll hang on to them. Ferris Bueller, Breakfast Club. Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles are legendary.

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He directed as well as wrote the screenplays for six of his films. His feature directorial debut was the indie hit Say Anything (1989), which was well received by critics. Say Anything starred John Cusack.

His next film was Singles (1992) which feautured the then not yet famous band Pearl Jam.

His most famous film is Jerry Maguire (1996) – about a sports agent who decides to leave his job and go it alone – and starred Tom Cruise. Cruise later starred in his film Vanilla Sky (2001).

In his semi-autobiographical film Almost Famous (2000) a teenage boy hangs out with a band and writes articles for Rolling Stone Magazine. Almost Famous earned Crowe the Best Original Screen play Academy Award. The film starred Kate Hudson, Billy Cudrup and Jason Lee. Jason Lee also had a supporting role in Vanilla Sky.

His 2005 film Elizabeth Town, about a failing designer who’s on the brink of committing suicide but then receives a phone call that he has to go to his father’s funeral, received mixed reviews and starred Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom.

Cameron Crowe is a great writer/ director that still manages to make character-driven offbeat yet popular films. I have not seen a film of his that I didn’t like. He is probably my favourite filmmaker and I would definitely add more of his movies to my collection next time I buy DVDs.