SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984)

I love John Hughes. This and Uncle Buck were always glaring omissions in my exploration of his oeuvre. With regards to his Molly Ringwald team-ups, I prefer Breakfast Club the most, and I absolutely did not care for Pretty in Pink. Sixteen Candles follows Samantha “Sam” Baker (Molly Ringwald) on her sixteenth birthday as she feels forgotten, rejected, and a little boy-curious. The plot oscillated between remarkably simple (high school senior Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) just wants to get to know Sam) and moderately absurd (the entire wedding storyline). The entire movie seemed to want to convince you that Sam was not worth your time; her parents forgot her birthday, her dad thinks that she’s sad about the wedding and not her own problems, every student who talks about her to Jake says that she’s simply okay. She has a good heart and helps out the Geek (aka Ted*?) (Anthony Michael Hall) with his bet, even if she comes to regret helping him out. 

I can’t decide if I love or hate a character pointing out the active issue in a movie, i.e. Jake’s friend reminding him that “Sam is a kid!” because she’s a sophomore, and they’re seniors. Yeah, man. That’s gross! That is weird! It’s even weirder now that you pointed it out directly and now I know that Jake Ryan is aware of this. I can’t tell if I’d have preferred for him to be blissfully cruising through life thinking that seniors and sophomores have a lot of things to talk about (they don’t). Before I saw this movie, I had often heard rumblings and mumblings about Long Duk Dong and how “Jake just gives his girlfriend away.” The use of the gong sound effect every time Long Duk Dong was mentioned was excessive and weird. He seems like the kind of character that’s going to get some sort of Netflix spin-off show about him in the next 5 years where they show his origin story and the producers will be quoted as “excited to have a show where we tackle racism head on” and there will be a stupid Stranger Things easter egg in one season for no real reason. He seemed like the most fun character in the movie. As for Jake Ryan asking Ted (or whatever the fuck his name is) to take his drunk-ass girlfriend home…I guess? Sure Ted made it weird, but that was like his whole M.O. the entire movie. He’d take a mile when you gave him an inch. Jake Ryan’s whole mission to talk to Sam because he read a note she dropped in class saying she’d like to “do it” with him felt extremely high school boy, but is it compelling enough for a movie? I wouldn’t write half of the dumb shit that I did in high school into a movie because it’s pathetic and weird. High school is the time to be that way, and to learn not to be that way, and then you can grow into someone who hates themselves for ever being that way. Like, what was his endgame? Was he just checking out his prospects? The movie was fine but probably not a rewatch for me. 

*He’s only listed as Geek in the credits but the Wikipedia page keeps calling him Ted. Feels weird to just call him “Geek” like he’s Bradley Cooper in Nightmare Alley. Ew.

Food Recommendation: Warmed up confetti cookie from Milk Bar. I love their confetti cookie because it tastes a little like childhood, but I’m also aware it’s not the best. And that’s kind of how this movie felt.