i hate it when a good writer dies

john hughes RIP
photo from the examiner.com

hindi pa nga ako nakaka-recover much from michael jackson's death--and then yung kay tita cory pa and all--heto na naman ang isang icon ng aking henerasyon na na-chugi kanina. at masama ang loob ko kasi scriptwriter din siyang tulad ko.

get to know john hughes in this new york times obit. nasa IMDB rin siya.

sino ba siya? if you are a cineaste, at least a true and unpretentious one, then you should know his films and the star that carried most of them, si molly ringwald.

SIXTEEN CANDLES was about a girl's 16 year birthday overshadowed by her elder sister's wedding preps. THE BREAKFAST CLUB was the quintessential brat pack "what if" movie (like what if you put diff stereotypes of high school peeps in one afternoon of detention) that really highlighted my generation. these films he directed, if i'm not mistaken, at least the breakfast club. but mostly, he wrote them. sample of others he wrote but not directed is the HOME ALONE series that made macaulay culkin a household name and another favorite, FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF which starred a very young and dapper matthew broderick, pre-sarah jessica days. hm teka siya rin ata direk nun...

and then there was my favorite SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL..

ah, watts...

seeing watts, played by mary stuart masterson, practice playing the drums in the opening sequence of this movie just got to me, solid at swak, and solidified my then burgeoning interest to learn how to play the drums (and i did, because the guitar doesn't love me). it helps ba na tombash-looking ang lola mary stuart ditey? yun ang archetype na gusto ngang i-achieve ng pelikulang ito, na the popular girly-girl doesn't get the boy in the end but the tomboy-looking one does. hehehe. kaloka. although secretly, i never knew then why parang mas excited ako kapag may screen time ang girly-girl na si amanda jones (lea thompson) at si watts hehe. but that's just me. :)

hindi na niya kailangang maging carlo j caparas level in the sense na napakaraming ginawang films pero sabi nga dito ni sir bien, hindi "important" hehehe pero it's the quality that counts. hughes has a clear-cut quality sa mga pelikula niya, dahil parang kakaibang teen flicks lang ang ginawa niya na tumatak sa pop culture forever. teen, but not bopper type, at walang weird music pero sobrang wapak ang mga soundtrack ng mga films niya. at ang gusto ko doon, buo ang characters. tight ang plot. walang loopholes. at nakakatawa na nakaka-touch na nakaka-relate ka kung kaedadan mo ang mga bida sa mga kuwento niya. e yun ako e, kaedad, kaya relate. ayan, naging drummer tomboy tuloy hahahaha!

hindi na siya ganoon ka-active sa showbiz nung late 90s til the time of his death, sa indie scene siya nagsulat mostly. i can understand why. scriptwriters are granted only with such an amount of patience for stoooopid people sa industriya, kaya feel ko kung nadismaya siya. (at wala, walang pinaghuhugutan ito, wala, wala! hehehe)

so to end this short tribute, repost ko yung blog entry go years ago sa isang weird start-up site named i.ph kung saan ako nag-try mag-blog din:

the breakfast club

June 26, 2005

a habit of mine when i’m alone in the house is to fall asleep with the tv on. i set the timer so that the tv will turn itself off in about an hour or hour and a half; enough time for me to sleep. when i’m alone, i don’t like to lie in bed surrounded by silence. i don’t know why; just a quirk, i guess. usually, i turn the set on mtv to get updated by the latest visuals and music as well.

last night, the yearly MTV MOVIE AWARDS was on. it showed a portion where they honored the cast of the film THE BREAKFAST CLUB. my thirtysomething generation surely remembers this film: a bunch of high school students with different personalities locked in detention for one day. marami nang ganitong film dati, hanggang ngayon. in fact, as a scriptwriter, ang dali ng ganitong story set-up ng drama.

i just can’t believe that was 20 years ago as molly ringwald said. siguro kung yung generation ngayon merong angelina jolie at sandra bullock, noong panahon ko, si molly ringwald ang reyna, kasunod lang niya si julia roberts. teen angst and all. sa kanya ka relate. thanks to the films of john hughes, buhay ang teen angst ng dekada ‘80.

so if that was 20 years ago, i was 12 then. that was a crucial period for us filipinos. i was 12 when the first edsa people power revolution happened. my lolo and family were all for marcos so we were draped in red and blue. our neighbors were in yellow. never really knew what that meant but it was okay then.

betamax pa ang mode of viewing films noon in video. i can’t remember if i saw this film on the big screen or in betamax. basta the thing is, napanood ko siya. and young as i was, naka-relate ako sa ilang angst ng mga tao sa pelikulang iyon.

i can’t recall much of what happened in the film. but i remember some of the emotions. i guess that’s what makes it important.