Bang A Gong

By KELLY CLARKE

Sixteen Candles

doesn't get the respect it deserves. Of all the films in John Hughes' lauded '80s teen-flick canon, the epic saga of Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald)—who gives her polka-dot undies to a geek and pines away for senior Jake Ryan (and his red Porsche 944) while her family forgets her birthday—always gets shrugged off in favor of Hughes' more serious films, especially

The Breakfast Club

and

Pretty in Pink

. But

Candles

is an incredibly enjoyable farce in its own right, from its crushing catalog of familial embarrassments and finely drawn high-school social strata to the cringingly amazing Asian exchange-student stereotype Long Duk Dong. It's silly and dirty and goofy—and that's exactly what makes it a classic. Academy.


  1. Best paired with: Double Mountain India Red Ale.
  2. Also showing: Rope (Laurelhurst). 

WWeek 2015

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