And now John Hughes is dead.

Frankly, the Czar never thought much of his pictures, even when he was super-popular in the 1980s. He was pretty good at exploiting pop culture, making his movies worth seeing as little slices of what life was like at the time, but his films were fairly formulaic, dependent on brat packers, and blended fantasy and reality in an often unnerving way. And whatever manufactured slang dialogue he tried to make his synthetically witty characters say, too many teens would repeat incessantly thereafter.

But now he’s dead, so the Czar better say something nice. Well, he did a good job of showing the city of Chicago pretty well, but never could get out of the toity North suburbs, trying to convince folks that Chicagoans generally live as well as Beverly Hills. And they do not.

Mmm. That isn’t exactly nice, either. Well, get ready for the onslaught of his movies, back to back to back, on AMC next week.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.