Sixteen Candles

Sixteen Candles is a 1984 American coming of age comedy starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling and Anthony Michael Hall. It was written and directed by John Hughes.  John Hughes also directed The Breakfast Club and Ferris Buller's Day Off.  With the occasion all but overshadowed by her sister's upcoming wedding, teen angst-ridden Samantha (Molly Ringwald) faces her 16th birthday with typical adolescent dread.  She loathes her body, as it isn't like the popular girls, she loathes life, and is pretty much the typical American teen dealing with high school problems.  Samantha pines for studly older boy Jake (Michael Schoeffling), but worries that her chastity will be a turnoff for the popular senior.  She thinks that she is invisible to him, because to her, he's the definition of a god!  Meanwhile, Samantha must constantly rebuff the affections of nerdy Ted (Anthony Michael Hall), the only boy in the school, unfortunately, who seems to take an interest in her.  Which also does not help with her low-esteem and confidence. 

To our dear main character, Samantha, her life is going downhill fast. The soon to be 16-year-old has an impossible crush on the most popular boy in school, and the geekiest boy in school has a crush on her. Her sister's getting married, and with all the excitement the rest of her family forgets her birthday! This just puts the cherry on top of the sundae for her.  She feels even more invisible and unimportant than before.  Add all this to a pair of horrendously embarrassing grandparents who bring a foreign exchange student named Long Duc Dong to her sister's wedding.  He brings a lot of comic relief at different points of the movie, and experiences first hand fast American love and the party life of high school.  Other funny moments helped to make this movie so popular.  My personal favorite was when Sam gives dorky Ted her underwear to help him win a bet at the school dance. 

She attempts to get through all of these unfortunate events.  In the end, Sam has a heart to heart with her father, and in a twist of events, her crush, Jake, picks her up at the end of her sister's wedding to celebrate her birthday.  The movie concludes as they kiss over a cake with 16 candles.  In the end we get a hilarious movie on the journey of one quirky girl to womanhood! This is just a classic you can't pass up. 

Watching More Movies

         I spent my entire summer working as a camp counselor and had no time to watch television or movies. When I had free time at camp, I would often sit with my friends and talk about movies. I soon found it hard to engage in conversation because I realized I hadn't seen many movies. For example, a thirty minute conversation about No Country For Old Men came about and I just sat there awkwardly because I was the only one that hadn't seen the movie. I compiled a list of movies I wanted to see which includes No Country for Old Men, but I never took the time to watch the movies. Some other movies on the list include True Grit, There Will Be Blood, Tree of Life, The Birds, Deer Hunter, Children of Men, Silence of the Lambs, and many others. Recently I watched The Big Lebowski for the first time and thought that everything about the movie was excellent. I'm a big fan of the Coen brothers and the cinematography and writing was excellent. The all star cast made the movie amazing and the absurd characters give you a view into the strange world of bowling. I also saw Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom last week in an indie movie theater near my house. The film was truly amazing in all aspects. Wes Anderson's unique cinematography was unlike any movie I've ever seen and it made me want to go out and film something in a way that has never been done before. Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, and Bill Murray put on a great performance as well. Like The Big Lebowski, the characters in Moonrise Kingdom were absurd and nontraditional by any means. The child actors in the film were amazing and when I searched for some of them on IMDB, I learned that many of the actors hadn't had much past acting experience in movies. Two more movies are off the list and I plan to watch a movie every day after I finish my school work. Over the years, I re-watch movies that I own on DVD but I need to expand my interests and make an effort to watch the classics and learn more about movies. I plan to create a never ending list of movies gradually watch as many movies as possible. In my film analysis class, we watch movies that break the norm and classic movies that every film student should watch. I'm exciting to see those movies and expand my knowledge in the world of cinema. I'm open to any suggestions as well.

-Matthew Clifford Hadley