It's an old trick used by the film distribution companies to keep a steady flow of cash coming in by re-releasing old films, and each time in a different way, whether it be in the VHS days of suddenly discovering some new footage and releasing longer or directors cuts, or the more modern way of an improved picture and more extras. When a new format come along, like Blu-ray it give a whole new life to old films, just askGeorge Lucas, he's made a mint from the idea.

Studios are now suggesting that with some of the older films it isn't financially viable to re-release them again on Blue-ray, as Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits website writes in his daily “My Two Cents” column on his site.

It seems that the public these days expecting so much from High Definition that the amount of time and money spent on the disk production doesn't justify the return resulting in many a catalogue title maybe never seeing a release in high definition.

I think many of us are in this situation, you bought the VHS version of your favourite film say, The Breakfast Club. That version cant be played with your current hardware (who has a VHS player anymore?) so you bought the DVD version and enjoy it over and over again, the pictures as crisp today as the day it was bought. You now decide to buy an HDTV and Blu-ray player and find the Blu-ray version of the film, but is it really worth another purchase when your current disk will still play in your new player, and maybe even improve it?

It's an old argument, and when it comes to big Hollywood blockbuster a really good HD remastered transfer will make a huge difference, and I as much as anyone else will be lining the pockets of Lucasfilms when the virtually announced Star Wars Blu-ray films are released, but relatively speaking the list of film I need in HD is probably quite small, although my Blu-ray collection is growing at an alarming rate.

With the sad passing of legendary 80's movie director John Hughes this week I find myself for the second time in a couple of months reflecting on my childhood, I grew up watching John Hughes movies as I did listening to Michael Jackson music.

John Hughes was a director and writer who was tapped directly into the teenage angst of the 1980/90, like almost no other writer of the time, he demonstrated on screen and in words exactly what the teens at the time were thinking and trying to tell their parents.

It doesn't matter if it was Ferris Bueller's rebelling against the school and deciding to have a day off in Ferris Buellers Day Off, or 5 kids stuck in detention for the crime of simply growing up in The Breakfast Club, the anguish a young person can go through when the object of their affection fancies someone else in Some Kind Of Wonderful or Pretty in Pink, these movies spoke to us and often spoke for us.

My personal favourite film of his is The Breakfast Club, as with all his films it has what is now considered a typical movies 80s soundtrack, but the moment you see Judd Nelson punch the air and hear Simple Minds chant "hey hey hey" you know it's an iconic figure that will last.

Weird Science and Ferris Buellers Day Off are further examples of classic teen movies much loved by the kids of the generation directed and written by Hughes himself, but it's the films he attached his name to as producer or writer which further show proof of his genuine understanding of the teen psyche.

Although it's been nearly 20 years since his name was really in the spotlight with a big movie his legendary status has survived and he will be sorely missed.