hughes reminiscence

even without his recent passing, john hughes and his oeuvre had this profound resonance to the landscape of my youth. some kind of wonderful of which hughes wrote the screenplay and was directed by howard deutch, was actually a subject of significant discourse in my high school years. a friend was enamored with the mary stuart-masterson character. i was more into leah thompson's amanda jones. thompson's role wasn't allotted much depth in the film, it was all about watts' (masterson) secret love for his best friend keith (eric stoltz). unlike some high school popular bitches, amanda was actually amiable. i'll have to find time to watch this homage to young romance when i have the time, as having seen this film only once in its entirety twenty years ago. not to mention the poster reminds me of unrequited longing.

as university freshmen, our class was tasked to submit a film in a PSF (personal social formation) course so inconsequential that the requirement was considered beyond absurd. the theme was love, how lame. after a lot of deliberations and food for thoughts, we decided to shoot our personalized version of pretty in pink, again written by hughes and directed by deutch. as one of the ring leaders for the project, i had to watch pretty in pink in betamax over and over. we chose our andie, our blane, our duckie. the finished product wasn't altogether enough of a masterpiece but it saved our butts from such snooty, vainglorious, loudmouth member of the faculty. i craved to see andie and blane shatter the resistance to their union anew. after eighteen years, the movie's sequences are now a bit sketchy in my mind.

my favorite john hughes film is the breakfast club, which i've seen when i was much older during the HBO years in the nineties. the social milieu of teenage life goes through a roulette of labels and stereotypes; the brain, the jock, the basket case, the princess, the criminal. in one saturday of detention, five high school kids of varying predilections learned the substantial aspects of life and belongingness by spending a weekend together dissecting their angsts, pondering their insecurities and forming friendships. a dvd of this brat pack classic would be a terrific addition to our repository shelf.