The Donger Needs Food

I watched the John Hughes movie “Sixteen Candles” last weekend. One of my daughters bought the DVD with some birthday money. I remembered this movie as a nice, teenage rite of passage film with some pretty funny one liners and a few funny situations. It also has the fairy tale princess ending but that was the age when all teenage events ended well.

Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall (a year later both catapult to fame in the Breakfast Club) star as outcasts in high school. Molly is dealing with her parents being so busy with her older sister’s wedding to an “Oily Bow Hunk”, that they forget her 16th birthday. She spends the whole day moping. Anthony Michael Hall plays a freshman with a crush on Molly and makes a real fool of himself in most of the scenes. He gives a first class acting job on how to be an immature geek. Molly (Samantha, Sam) has a crush a senior named Jake who is dating the class beauty queen. The beauty queen provides the only gratuitous nude scene in the movie and she is very healthy. She is also a partier who has a complete disregard for Jake and his property.

The movie starts with both Jake and Samantha is a class together and both trying to stare at the other without being noticed. Both are apprehensive and wonder why the other is staring. After a series of false starts and stops, Anthony Michael Hall ends up with Jake’s girl and Samantha and Jake end up celebrating her 16th birthday together. It is a sweet ending.

The character that steals the movie is a Chinese exchange student named Long Duck Dong that is living with Samantha’s grandparents. Every time someone says his name, a gong sounds in the background. He goes to a dance with Sam and ends up with an American Girlfriend. After the dance they go to a party at Jake’s house (a quiet affair of about 150 kids that destroy his house) and he gets trashed. His girlfriend leaves him, he puts grandpa’s car in Lake Michigan and ends up passed out on Sam’s front yard. The ensuing scene is the real gem of the movie.

If you are looking for something light hearted and frivolous, wade through the old movies and get a cheap rental. Sixteen Candles is not for kids but if you have a teenage daughter, they have seen it before or just close your eyes.

Icool

Cobb