Sixteen Candles (1984)
Directed by John Hughes
With the occasion all but overshadowed by her sister's upcoming wedding, angst-ridden Samantha faces her 16th birthday with typical adolescent dread. Samantha pines for studly older boy Jake, but worries that her chastity will be a turnoff for the popular senior. Meanwhile, she must constantly rebuff the affections of nerdy Ted, who is unfortunately the only boy in school who seems to take an interest in her.
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What critics compared Sixteen Candles to
Those who lived through the decade of Duran Duran will smile at the sly homages to classic '80s flicks like "Sixteen Candles," while those who weren't even twinkles in an eye will enjoy the "rager gone wrong" premise.
How could Pink, for example, not include a reference to "Sixteen Candles" or another of Cusack's memorable '80s movie?
Hot Tub Time Machine was ostensibly directed by Steve Pink, but it was really born from the collective unconscious of the 34-45 demographic—the viewers for whom the movie will deliver the most reliable pleasure, as they tease out the embedded references to Sixteen Candles, Revenge of the Nerds, Better Off Dead.
With the exception of a few movie references?the dialogue and one-sheet from 1984's "Red Dawn" is recalled; a romantic scene is staged to mimic 1984's "Sixteen Candles," and go-to '80s bad guy William Zabka (1984's "The Karate Kid") gets a familiar sort of role?and a handful of time-specific jokes (one girl asks what e-mail is, while a walk-on character carries a cell phone the size of a large brick), "Hot Tub Time Machine" really doesn't take satisfactory advantage of its time-travel storyline.
While there may be laughs to be had for audience members who grew up in the 1980s – “what’s email?” – it’s simply not good enough to just throw in references to Sixteen Candles when they’re not funny.
But they make a good enough duo, and Johnson — who can be a lug in by-the-numbers blockbuster fare such as “San Andreas” — is a riot as a character whose bulging masculinity is softened by his love for unicorns (“I’m big time into ’corns!” he brags, while practically tearing through his unicorn emblazoned T-shirt) and John Hughes’ “Sixteen Candles.”
He prizes hugs and unicorns, his favorite movie is “Sixteen Candles,” and whenever the subject of high school comes up, he looks like he wants to crawl under a desk.
Far too many of the one-liners in “Central Intelligence” contain references to pop culture, from Taylor Swift’s love life to “Road House” to “Sixteen Candles” to Jake Gyllenhaal to Denzel Washington to a thuddingly unfunny moment in which Hart is told he looks like “a black Will Smith.”
The combined effect is a good one, especially because Johnson is particularly amusing, whether he’s reminiscing about the greatness of the film “Sixteen Candles” (“I’ll never be like Molly Ringwald,” he pouts) or giving into physical affection (“I’m a hugger!” he proudly proclaims).
Johnson may be enjoying a comic breather in between his contributions to the “Fast & Furious” franchise, but here he’s playing the rare character you might actually care to see in a sequel — a professional undercover killing machine who, deep down, remains the same shy, sensitive, traumatized, “Sixteen Candles”-obsessed worrywart he was in high school.
Sporting a fanny-pack and jorts, and loving unicorns (“the most lethal animal”), “Road House,” and “Sixteen Candles” in equal measure, Johnson’s delightfully dorky Bob may have bulked up since high school, but he’s still endearingly sweet, even if to a fault.
Chivalry and decency are repeatedly valued and this nostalgic longing hearkens back to plenty of ‘80s teen comedies in the same vein, including Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Say Anything... Olive even name-checks John Hughes directly.
It’s obvious he has a thing for John Hughes/Cameron Crowe ’80s teen comedies (which Olive makes reference to at one point) – and why wouldn’t he? Sixteen Candles and Say Anything are some of the genre’s classics.
It implies that it's putting an Internet-age spin on the old standards by explicitly referencing teen-movie landmarks like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Say Anything — and by "explicitly referencing," I mean it actually splices shots from those movies into the proceedings, a bid for reflexivity that screenwriter Bert V. Royal and director Will Gluck lack the chops to support.
“Easy A’’ has a major crush on ’80s teen movies, so Todd’s basically Michael Schoeffling in “Sixteen Candles’’ until he turns into John Cusack in “Say Anything.’’
Her engaging web-caster Olive Penderghast represents a spunky amalgam of girl power on film, showing hints of the depressed and dateless Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald in “Sixteen Candles”), the wannabe-popular Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan in “Mean Girls”) and the sarcastic-but-knowing Juno (Ellen Page).
With films like The Breakfast Club , Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off , Hughes tapped into the inherent drama of high school with comedy and warmth.
Given that the genre has a pretty good record overall (Sixteen Candles, Clueless, Freaky Friday, Mean Girls), this wouldn't be too shabby.
From what I’ve been told, films like Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles were great representations of the high school experience of that decade.
When Nadine accidentally-on-purpose runs into her crush, Nick, in the tropical fish aisle, the glow is Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and the soundtrack is Spandau Ballet’s “True,” made famous at the school dance in Sixteen Candles.
A terrific teen comedy with the traditional feel of John Hughes’s Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink, The Edge of Seventeen stars Hailee Steinfeld as Nadine, a 17-year-old high-school misfit whose best and only friend starts to date her smug, perfect older brother.
It’s an easy comparison, as “The Edge of Seventeen” was plainly inspired by the iconic ’80s teen comedy “Sixteen Candles.”
For instance, her love interest is her dorky Asian best friend, a role traditionally relegated to the wacky sidekick, like Long Duk Dong in “Sixteen Candles.”
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This helps contribute to the film's overall sense of innocence, which in turn calls back to the inherent sweetness of classic '80s teen films like Say Anything... or Sixteen Candles .
Even more impressive is the feat achieved of keeping the goody-two-shoes heroine sympathetic throughout without making her drop her moral standards, unlike, say, the heroines in Clueless or Mean Girls , two obvious touchstones here along with John Hughes movies such as the namechecked Sixteen Candles .
For instance, the fake couple trades must-see favorite movies, Sixteen Candles for Fight Club, as they shake on their contractual agreement.
Based on Jenny Han’s beloved YA novel by the same name, the movie centers on the life of Lara Jean Covey ( X-Men: Apocalypse ‘s Lana Condor), a shy high school student who’d rather watch Sixteen Candles on a Friday night than try to find her Jake Ryan in real life.
Lara Jean’s devotion to Sixteen Candles (despite the flat-our racist Long-Duk Dong that she rightly calls out) puts the viewer fully into a John Hughes frame of mind, which is a good place to be, because we haven’t had a consistent string of John Hughes movies in quite a while.
Conceived as a kind of “Sixteen Candles” for the Snapchat generation, this endearing Netflix Original offers an honest, unsentimental take on the mating lives of hormone-addled high school students, earning extra points for casting Asian American actress Lana Condor in what would have been the Molly Ringwald role.
The divide between adults and teens is reminiscent of the way adulthood was presented in John Hughes’ teenage movies like Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (at one point the latter is even referenced).
Más que una película de superhéroes, Spider-Man: Homecoming es una historia de madurez que canaliza el cine de John Hughes de la década de los ochenta como The Breakfast Club y Sixteen Candles.
Watts hace un muy buen trabajo al incorporar sutilmente la iconografía de John Hughes ( Sixteen Candles , 1984; Weird Science , 1985), uno de los máximos representantes del cine adolescente de los años ochenta.
The film goes back and forth between superhero action and a John Hughes style teen movie, with with affectionate references to “Ferris Bueller,” “Sixteen Candles,” and “The Breakfast Club.”
The film, though loaded with stupefying action scenes, is in the vein of Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club .
Long ago, in the age of Dustin Hoffman in “The Graduate” and Woody Allen in “Annie Hall,” right up through the farcical social misfits of the 1980s (Anthony Michael Hall in “Sixteen Candles,” etc.), Hollywood’s freaks and geeks had an undertone of self-hatred.
But unlike the mostly-white, suburban enclaves of movies like Sixteen Candles, the students and teachers of Love, Simon feel a little closer to the real thing.
And if the title recalls the British romantic-comedy smash “Love, Actually,” it’s for good reason, although “Love, Simon” has more in common with those cherished but overrated films of the late John Hughes (“Sixteen Candles,” “Pretty in Pink,” “The Breakfast Club”) than those of Richard Curtis.
It’s filled with familiar coming-of-age milestones, developments and emotions, and characters that could’ve easily jumped from Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off into the 21st century.
Love, Simon doesn't quite reach the heights of teen movie classics like Say, Anything..., Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Clueless, Mean Girls or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it comes close enough to be one of the best American romantic teen comedies in recent memory.
All the other “Grease” and “Sixteen Candles” archetypes are here, too: The bullies, jocks and popular kids, the wacky administrator (played oddly over-the-top by Tony Hale), and the no-nonsense drama teacher (Natasha Rothwell, as much of a hilarious standout here as she is on HBO’s “Insecure.”)
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Don't be fooled, this is no censor-baiting Larry Clarke ( Bully , Kids ) or Harmony Korine ( Spring Breakers ) style expose, but rather something more akin to Catherine Hardwick's 2003 tale Thirteen, or the beloved John Hughes movies of the 1980s ( Pretty in Pink , Sixteen Candles ).
There’s a lot of music (as our heroine is perpetually hiding under iPod headphones), but not a lot of humor—in fact, this is sort of like Sixteen Candles with the laughs removed, leaving mostly the unalleviated anxiety and humiliations of being at an “awkward age.”
“Eighth Grade” is ultimately like the “Sixteen Candles” of a new generation, but one more clear-eyed and less fanciful than Hughes’s fairy-tale vision: there’s no handsome prince for Kayla in the end, though there is the suggestion that things can get better if she’ll only put down the phone.
Gerwig upgrades the teen realism of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and John Hughes’s Sixteen Candles .
Instead, those moments in Sixteen Candles , or Weird Science , we'll say, where he seemed to capture something so elementally correct about the human teen condition -- its churning chaos, and everyone's desperate bid to try and match a series of feelings and predilections to an actual identity -- it was if he were writing seated at a den filled with his angst-ridden protagonists as they wailed and laughed and sobbed their stories out to him.
“Sixteen Candles” (1984) and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012)).