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One of my favorite segments of the annual Academy Awards broadcast is the “In Memoriam” recognition of those notable members of the Hollywood community who passed away over the previous year. Last night was no exception, but what really stood out was the separate special tribute to director John Hughes. His sudden death was far more upsetting, far more meaningful to me than Michael Jackson’s was or ever could be. It still is stunning, all these months later.

Watching the Hughes tribute, I was left with the question: has any other director ever been the voice of a generation in the same manner and to the same extent that John Hughes was to the children of the 1980s?

I would venture to say not.

Although we frequently speak of musicians being the voice of a generation, that terminology is seldom directed to filmmakers in the same manner. Yet if you were in high school when Hughes’s films were released, his movies spoke to the reality of your circumstances in a way that no others did. If you were a few years younger, those same John Hughes movies were the blueprint of your high school years was to come.

As I’m sure many of you remember, this blog tribute became somewhat of a viral sensation right after Hughes died. The post probably had more meaning for me than most readers because I actually knew the specific world that the writer, Alison Byrnes Fields, wrote about, beyond the general universe of high school angst. The line that caught me for a loop was:

And he consoled me when I complained that Mrs. Garstka didn’t appreciate my writing.

I attended Xavier High School, an all-boys Catholic school, in Middletown, Connecticut. Down the street was our sister school, the all-girls Mercy High, where my younger sister would later go to school. We had a Mr. Garstka teaching at Xavier, and I seemed to recall that a Mrs. Garstka worked at Mercy. A couple of Google searches and some cross-referencing later and I was able to connect the dots: Alison Byrnes Fields had attended Mercy, albeit a few years before I went to Xavier.

No two people’s experience are ever the same, of course, but the climates of Mercy and Xavier were pretty much the same, so even separated somewhat in time there was probably a lot with which we could relate. Catholic high school in small-town Connecticut is Catholic high school in small-town Connecticut, after all, especially when the two schools in question are as interconnected as ours were.

But the beauty of John Hughes’s work was that it didn’t matter if you went to the same school as somebody else or the most radically different; the films were still relevant. Every teenager of the 80s and early 90s could relate to his movies in a deeply personal manner. The letter written by the students in The Breakfast Club succinctly summed up Hughes’s own movies perfectly; it didn’t matter if you were the jock, the beauty queen, or the outcast, the trials and tribulations of the American high school experience were, at the core, the same.

Check them out here:

Nate Barlow Interview: http://wholetruthnetwork.org/?p=305
Negrette Article: http://wholetruthnetwork.org/?p=311

Hope you enjoy!

http://www.moviemaker.com/screenwriting/article/script_to_screen_changes_to_a_screenplay_20100106/

According to Variety, the show, which is already in production and has been described as “Survivor” meets “The Office”, has employees at a struggling business choosing for themselves whom among them is to be fired. The person who loses his or her job may receive some small severance package, but that’s it.

I was horrified as I read this article. Honestly, I’d have to say this reality concept disgusts me more than any of the violently shocking, unnecessarily sexually explicit, or pure trash offerings already polluting the airwaves (admittedly, I have a high stomach for explicit or controversial material, while tabloid-type trash is simply something with which I don’t waste my time).

The problem with “Someone’s Gotta Go” is that Fox and Endemol are taking a terrible moment in someone’s life–being laid off in a time on unprecedented economic insecurity–and are turning it into entertainment. And while the televising of an individual’s personal tragedy is by far the worst offense, everyone involved will experience the residual effects. The distrust and animosity generated among the other employees jockeying to save themselves are not likely to dissipate for a long time after the show is shot… if ever.

To make matter worse, bosses and businesses are absolved somewhat of the responsibility of firing one of their employees. It’s not an easy choice, and in these tough economic times it’s something with which many unfortunately struggle. And that’s how it should be. When dealing with someone’s livelihood, the decision should never be easier, the responsibility never lessened–which is exactly what “Someone’s Gotta Go” does.

I wonder what other “considerations” these business receive?

We can only hope that this show fails miserably. Every time we think reality television has finally gone too far, some producer finds a way to lower standards of good taste even further. Fox and Endemol should be ashamed of themselves. Mike Darnell (head of Fox reality) and David Goldberg (head of Endemol North America), I demand you step down!

The big problem is that in the new scoring system now used in gymnastics, there no longer is such a thing as a perfect ten, as we were reminded ad infinitum during the recent Beijing Olympics.  Considering that a majority of the probable intended audience for the show will either be involved with gymnastics or fans of the sport, and assuming ABS Family keeps the name if and when the pilot is picked up to series, the technically invalid title threatens to ring false with viewers before they even sample the show, regardless of the veracity of the drama’s actual content.  Even with all the drivel currently being broadcast, television audiences are often more astute than the networks give them credit for when it comes to a concept’s plausibility.  That doesn’t portend well for the show’s future.

And network executives wonder why shows fail.