The Girl Behind the Red Door's Day Off

I've just finished watching Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off which I've been meaning to watch even before summer started. I meant to watch my John Hughes collection as a marathon but I just didn't get the chance to do so. It's all because of summer semester, you see. I've gotten the chance to see The Breakfast Club in our two-week break but nothing else, unfortunately. The two John Hughes films I've seen today counts as numbers 2 and 3, and I still have lots more to go.


I am a big fan of John Hughes who directed the films I've mentioned above and more 1980's coming-of-age/teen films. He is a legend! He's got this amazing way of making sense of teenagers whom adults readily dismiss as troublemakers. Well, we are, but John Hughes delves more into who the teenagers are. It's kind of like Skins except set in the 1980's and less grave.




Sixteen Candles brought back feelings similar to that of watching Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides. See, her parents were too wrapped up with Samantha's older sister Jenny's wedding that they forgot about Sam's 16th birthday which is totally a big deal. Of all the birthdays parents could forget, why her 16th? A whole day passed and not one person in her family remembered. Not her parents, not her younger siblings, not her stuck-up older sister Jenny, not her grandparents--paternal and maternal. None. To add salt to the injury, loads of crap happened to her all day. But, of course, all's good in the end, but I'm not telling you how. You've got to see it for yourself.


I have to admit that I was waiting for Jon Cryer to appear for half of the movie until I realized that he's in Pretty in Pink, not Sixteen Candles. Oops. My bad. Wrong Molly Ringwald film. I also have to admit that although this is the type of movie I'd fall in love with in a heartbeat, I felt that the ending of the film was too cliché. But then again, it was the 80's and it might have been the first of it's kind. Still, I was hoping for a different ending and it gave me what I expected. I loved it but it's not going on my all-time favorites list.


Sixteen Candles stars Molly Ringwald (also in Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club; now in The Secret Life of the American Teenager), Michael Schoeffling, Anthony Michael Hall (also in The Breakfast Club, more recently in The Dark Knight), and John (2012) and Joan Cusack (My Sister's Keeper) with minor roles.




I particularly fell in love with Ferris Bueller's Day Off the moment Ferris jumped onto the German float and sang Danke Schoen and The Beatles' Twist and Shout. It has to be the most fun movie I've ever seen! Everyone has to see this movie. It's about this guy, Ferris Bueller, whom everybody loves. He fakes sick so he can ditch school. He goes around Chicago with his girlfriend, Sloane, and best friend, Cameron, as a last big hurrah before he and Cameron graduates. I really don't want to spoil things to those who haven't seen it so I'm leaving it to that. It's a real treat to watch and Ferris' charisma will surely get to you. I'm adding this to my favorite films of all time right after I post this blog entry.


Ferris Bueller's Day Off stars a teenage Matthew Broderick (Yes, SJP's husband who, might I say, looked quite fine in this film), Alan Ruck (GREEK's Dean Bowman), Mia Sara (Tinseltown) and a cameo from Charlie Sheen (Two and a Half Men).




I have to say that the 1980's and 1990's teen films genre are my favorites. I just can't get enough of it. The hint of vintage and the entertaining storyline are just what I need to satisfy my cinephilia. Which reminds me, I have to get my hands on the rest of the non-John Hughes Brat Pack films.


Here's me making the most of my three-day day off!