Being John Malkovich (1999)
VERDICT:
9/10 Head Trips
Even though he’s only done two movies, in honor of my being beyond psyched that Where the Wild Things Are is coming out this Friday, I’m declaring this week “Spike Jonze Week” and gettin’ this party started by going over his best movie so far.
Celebrate good times. Come on!
Being John Malkovich is about an out-of-work puppeteer in a fledgling marriage that takes a job as a file clerk at a company that does Godknowswhat. One day while on the job, our puppeteer discovers a secret door in the office, he crawls through the door down a dark tunnel, gets transported into the mind of actor John Malkovich for a couple minutes, then gets spat out onto the New Jersey Turnpike. So he dusts himself off, hitchhikes home, tries to capitalize on the unique discovery, and, naturally, things get complicated.
Sounds like screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s been smokin’ the doobies.
There’s a laundry list of reasons of why I’m crazy about this movie, but let’s start with the story, because the story is really what makes this thing so damn good. I can imagine some people might read that synopsis and dismiss it as beyond strange, but you know what, movies in general are lacking in a good dose of strange. But it’s also extremely original and very endearing. Might not sound like something that would draw you in and get you to care about its characters right off the bat, but it really does all while managing to hit a lot of surprisingly humane notes.
It’s also just a wild ride, primarily because of how it blends fact and fiction by actually incorporating John Malkovich, the real-life actor, into a plot that could never, ever happen in real life. Yes, it’s trippy and damn is it fun.
Now let’s talk about the guy behind the story, Charlie Kaufman. For those who don’t know him, Charlie Kaufman is one of the best working screenwriters out there today and this is where he started to get some well-deserved attention. “Why is he one of the best working screenwriters out there today?” one might ask. Well, that’s because no one else in their right mind would think to write up a two-hour script called Being John Malkovich, let alone write a great script called Being John Malkovich. Kaufman’s imagination is something to behold and appreciate for all its weirdness, his sense of humor is equally strange and outright hilarious, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s got Spike Jonze to help him bring it all to life. He’s just a great writer on all fronts with a resume’ that anyone in Hollywood would kill for.
Now for Spike Jonze, the man of the hour. I think there’s something to be said for film directors who got their start making AWESOME MUSIC VIDEOS before making the leap to awesome movies, because Michel Gondry, Mark Romanek, and Jonathan Glazer (to name a few) all seem to have their shit quite figured out as well. I don’t know what it is about Spike Jonze though, he doesn’t really have a visual style that sets him apart, but the guy is just good at telling good stories and, like Kaufman, is great at letting his imagination go wild. It’s great when directors remind you that making movies and watching movies should be fun; that’s what Jonze does best and that’s what he does here.
The acting here is also really good. John Cusack is very, very believable as the insecure puppeteer, and so is a totally unrecognizable Cameron Diaz as his wife. But let’s not kid ourselves, the star of the show is my man John Malkovich. The best parts in the movie all revolve around stepping into Malkovich’s shoes, watching him react to the bizarro circumstances he’s placed in, and it doesn’t hurt that he is one of the more interesting individuals in the world that you could possibly imagine making a movie about. This is the guy who played the batshit crazy psychos from In The Line of Fire and Con Air, the guy whose face you recognize but can’t quite remember what movies he’s been in, and…for God’s sake, it’s Malkovich! He plays the role great, mainly because he’s just playing himself, and since he’s awesome to begin with, it works out beautifully.
Fun fact: I actually ran into him in an airport in Zurich, Switzerland. Pretty cool, huh?
Anyway, go watch Being John Malkovich. It’s hard to describe how wonderful this movie is without seeing it yourself. There are so many unique and fresh little quirks and gags that are riddled throughout this thing that you really can’t do it justice through text or even try to cover it all without experiencing it for yourself. There’s just nothing else like Malkovich, it’s an absolute riot, and it’s a perfect introduction to Jonze, Kaufman, and Malkovich himself. Might be one of the best movies of the past ten years.
SIDE NOTE:
Why not brighten up your day and go watch the “Praise You” video again. One of my favorite music videos of all time and if this doesn’t get you pumped for Spike Jonze week then I don’t know what will.
Sexy Beast (2000)
VERDICT:
7/10 Overstayed Welcomes
Marks the moment in my life when I realized that Ben Kingsley is a god among men.
Sexy Beast is about a British thug mobster that is given the task of convincing a former safecracker to come back and do one last job, only the said safecracker doesn’t want to do it. This upsets the British thug mobster. He then proceeds to make the safecracker’s life a living hell. It is quite entertaining.
So this is the feature debut of director Jonathan Glazer, one of those guys who started out directing some awesome music videos like this one before turning to film. It’s too bad that he hasn’t really done much worth noting since this came out because he’s got a really cool, collected style that feels kinda like a mix between Michael Mann (Collateral, Heat) and David Fincher (Se7en, The Game, Zodiac). Don’t know what he’s up to now, but dude needs to get back on the bandwagon.
Anyway, there’s a couple things about this movie that certainly do kick a fine amount of ass. Like I said, the look and feel of it, very cool and very sleek. The script is also really, really sharp, as any movie about gangsters berating gangsters should be. Kinda hard to catch everything that’s being said because of the cockney accents, but since you can more or less read a phone book with a cockney accent and it’ll sound cool, this is hardly a complaint.
Man, I don’t know why I’m beating around the bush right now. There’s really only one reason to see this movie: Ben-fucking-Kingsley. He plays the British thug mobster who’s sent in to persuade the safecracker, and I don’t know who had the great idea to cast Kingsley here, but my hat is off to that guy. I don’t think many producers would jive to the idea of letting Gandhi play the most intense and foul-mouthed scumbag bastard in the movie, but that just makes the role that much better. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’d recommend this movie to the teeth if only for Ben Kingsley. I don’t know how he didn’t snag the Oscar for this ’cause he freakin’ earned it.
But alas, the main drawback about the script and main reason this movie didn’t quite get an 8 out of 10 is its story. Despite everything it does right, there’s just something about the story that seems pretty uninteresting whenever Kingsley isn’t on-screen. It just kind of drags after a while and can’t match the cool factor of its cast. I don’t know, I just didn’t find myself really caring about what was gonna happen next in the plot, you just end up wanting to see what Sir Ben is up to.
Alright, I’ll shut up about Ben Kingsley already, this is getting ridiculous. As a whole, Sexy Beast could have been better, but nonetheless, it’s still pretty effin awesome. Ray Winstone also plays the safecracker and the under-appreciated Ian McShane has a bit role as Kingsley’s boss, and since they’re both due to be acknowledged for how badass they are, I’m giving them the shout-out they deserve. This is one in-your-face movie filled with a gratuitous amount of swearing, but I think I’ve made it pretty damn clear as to why you should go see this: Evil Gandhi.
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
VERDICT:
8/10 Regrettable Chaperoning Gigs
Right up there with The Proposition and Open Range as one of the best Westerns of the past ten years.
3:10 to Yuma is about a morally sound and financially broke individual in the old West who signs up to escort a morally unsound notorious criminal from point A to point B so that he can make the train that’ll bring him to be tried in a court of law. In return, the said escort gets $200.
What a gyp.
I actually didn’t have much interest to see this when it first came out, but since my good buddy Fred had to go see it for one of his college courses as extra credit (how cool is that?), I naturally tagged along. I wasn’t expecting much, but that always makes good movies better anyway.
Without trying to sound redundant, this is an old-timey Western. This is some High Noon shit about a good guy standing up to do the right thing because everyone else would rather save their own hides than bother themselves with justice. This is a good thing, that’s what the best Westerns are all about. And while the story is simple enough, what makes 3:10 to Yuma stand out are the surprisingly complex and outrageously badass characters.
Let’s go down the list, shall we?
For starters, we’ve got Christian Bale as the good guy, Dan Evans. Even though Christian Bale’s cool factor is kind of waning for me, mostly because he got completely overshadowed in The Dark Knight and since Terminator: Salvation was a fucking joke, he’s still a pretty cool dude and he does a good job here.
Next up we have Russell Crowe as the bad guy, Ben Wade. Normally, Russell Crowe doesn’t really do it for me, but he is the freakin’ man here. The difference between Bale and Crowe’s characters is that Dan Evans is more of a straight shooter and he really doesn’t falter all that much from who he is at the movie’s start. Ben Wade on the other hand is one of those guys who’ll play with your head, smile while you spit in his face, then murder your ass while you’re sleeping like it’s no big thing. It’s a great character with a whole lot of depth to him and Crowe totally rocks it. He doesn’t have to do a whole lot but smile, act natural, and read off his great lines from his great script, but that’s something Crowe doesn’t do enough of. This is the best thing he’s done since L.A. Confidential (nope, not Gladiator) and an unexpected selling point of the movie for me.
Peter Fonda is also in it as one of Bale’s fellow escorts, and even though he’s not around for very long, Peter Fonda is one cool bastard and thus earns himself a mention.
But the best part of 3:10 to Yuma more than the story, the writing, the directing, and all the aforementioned actors is newcomer to the game, Ben Foster. I don’t know where this kid came from, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in anything else, but after seeing him in this movie, I am sold. He plays the leader of Crowe’s gang that’s trying to track him down before he reaches his train to Ye Olde People’s Court, and what a performance does he put on. Easily the coldest, meanest mofo in the movie and he absolutely lights up the screen. You wait until the credits roll and believe me, all you will be talking about after is “Who the hell is Ben Foster?” Keeping an eye out for this kid, he’s on a short list of some of the best up-and-coming actors around right now.
All in all, if you’re into Westerns or just like a good, gritty action movie riddled with great characters and an intense plotline, 3:10 to Yuma won’t steer you wrong. Only complaint is a morally muddled scene at the very end of the movie that kind of makes or breaks the outcome of everything, but still, something you can probablyoverlook in relation to everything else it does right.
Who knew James Mangold made such boss movies? Keep up the good work, man. Well done.
Hey now!
Looks like I’m officially the newest LAMB entry. Pretty psyched and glad to be a part of it. You can check out their site here and thanks for reading, everyone!
Aiden R.
Memento (2000)
VERDICT:
10/10 Brain Farts
I feel like this movie has gone from cutting edge to overrated over the past nine years, but I don’t care. This might be in my Top 5 and it’s not moving anytime soon.
Memento is about a guy named Leonard who’s searching for John G. – the man who raped and murdered his wife. Only Leonard has a problem. The night his wife was killed he got knocked around in the process trying to help her, and ever since then he hasn’t been able to form new memories; he remembers everything about his life before that night, but everything after that just kinda goes blank at various times throughout the day, forcing him to start from scratch to figure out what’s going on. To keep things straight, he tattoos important information all over his body, carries around a Polaroid camera at all times, and goes off the testimonies of others that are either helping him or manipulating him or both.
It’s actually pretty hard to describe the whole memory thing without seeing it action, but trust me, it’s a completely fresh and intriguing twist on the thriller genre and it is just freakin’ brilliant.
Now, maybe I’m just rolling with the wrong crowd, but it seems like whenever I talk to people about this movie they don’t always share the same kind of enthusiasm for it as I do. The main reason for this actually always goes back to how the story is told in that it goes back and forth from chronological (the start of the story) to reverse chronological order (the end of the story) with each new scene and at the end of the two hours, it all comes together at the story’s center. The resulting effect is that every scene there’s a new reveal about the plot, the characters, and what’s going on so that you’re figuring out everything out very much in the same way Leonard does. You’re starting from scratch, you think you know what’s going on, but then again, life is tough when you can’t remember where and what you were doing five seconds ago.
I was talking about this with one of my old teachers a while back and he said that there’s a feature on the limited edition DVD (or something like that) where you can watch the movie from start to finish all in good old chronological order without having to rack your brain trying to tie everything together. He said that when the movie loses the whole back and forth element, it ends up being just an unspectacular, meh thriller.
Though I’ve never seen Memento like this, and while it’s something I should probably get around to doing one of these days, this movie is not meant to be seen that way. The biggest reason being that the intended ending of the movie rolls around an hour into the movie in this case and I can only imagine that the last hour after that must be pretty dull.
Anyway.
I can understand how some may write off the back and forth as a gimmick, but whatever, gimmick or not, it’s never been done before and it’s a hallmark of storytelling in film. It almost sounds like the way Pulp Fiction was put together, and while the influence is there, Memento‘s plot structure is very much its own. And just because you have a gimmick doesn’t mean you have a good movie. On top of it all, the story is fantastic, the gimmick itself just makes you want to keep watching it, and by the time the ending rolls around, you’ll probably want to go and watch it all over again.
Look, Christopher Nolan is one of the best working directors out there today and even though I still think this is his best movie, everything the guy touches is a stroke of brilliance. The acting is also pretty solid, Leonard is played by Guy Pearce, and I think he’s pretty darn good here, though this was before I started realizing he kinda plays the same character in every movie. The writing is sharp and incredibly smart, and it’s just an all-around great movie to watch, enjoy, and marvel at.
The point is, otnemeM ees oG. There’s only a handful of movies I’ve willingly watched more times than I care to remember and hell yeah this is one of them.
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
VERDICT:
5/10 Reasons I Don’t Trust Public Transportation
To answer your question, no, I haven’t started reviewing porn. Just happens to be the worst title of all time for a halfway decent horror movie.
The Midnight Meat Train is a lonely woman whose cable isn’t working, so she puts on her bikini and calls up the hot, studly cable guy to fix it for her…only she wants more than just cable, if you know what I’m sayin’. Oh, SNAP!
Alright, alright. I swear it’s not a porno, just couldn’t help myself.
The Midnight Meat Train is really about a struggling photographer trying to capture the heart of New York City when he accidentally stumbles upon a guy in the subway system that’s brutally murdering late-night train passengers. Naturally, the said serial killer isn’t a big fan of getting his picture taken, so the photographer ends up getting pulled in to the whole thing and his life gets pretty complicated.
It’s not doing wonders for New York tourism, but whatever, we New Yorkers are tough. We can handle the Midnight Meat Train. Fuggedaboutit.
The first time I saw the trailer for this was when I went to see Rambo. No one in the theater had heard of this movie and you could tell by the eerie silence that everyone was surprised at how kickass it looked, what with all the blood and murdering and such. Captions like, “From the mind of horror legend Clive Barker” and “From visionary director Ryuhei Kitamura” started popping on-screen and we were hooked. Then the narrator announced the title with the voice of a man who’s been smoking Cubans right out the womb, and the theater erupted in a combination of laughter and “What the fuck?”s.
But somehow the legitimacy was still there for me. Being that Clive Barker is one crazy dude, and that I had read the short story this movie was based off of, and the movie was free to watch through some loophole in my Time Warner cable service, I figured “Why not? As long as it isn’t horror porn.”
As far as horror movies go, The Midnight Meat Train is okay but pretty forgettable. The dead giveaway for me, aside from the title, should have been that whenever you hear someone called a “visionary director” it means that they’ve never done anything else you’d give a shit about or have never directed anything else whatsoever. As a result, it feels like an amateur effort of sorts in that there’s nothing all that special about it that would compel you to recommend it to others at the risk of being openly laughed at.
Bradley Cooper is in it as the photographer and he’s fine. Again, nothing special. The story is there but it’s not going to make anyone think twice about swiping their MetroCard, and it’s not all that scary either. It’s pretty gory and violent, but since it’s not all that believable, it doesn’t really carry the desired effect of making you cringe. More just makes you smirk and think, “Well, that was gross.”
But the highlight here is good ol’ Vinnie Jones as Mahogany, the meat train serial killer. The dude only has one line in the entire movie, but since he’s Vinnie Jones, all he really needs to do as look at you sideways to remind you that he’s one mean lookin’ mofo. Along with Clive Barker being behind it, Mahogany is probably the biggest selling point to The Midnight Meat Train. I really don’t understand how his career didn’t take off the way Jason Statham’s did after Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, I’m shocked he hasn’t really hit it big since then. Eh, what can you do.
So, yeah, if for some reason you come across The Midnight Meat Train on TV or have a Clive Barker jones going at the moment, I’d say give it a look. Otherwise, just move it along, folks. Go check out Hellraiser instead.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007)
VERDICT:
9/10 1-Ups
One of the best movies of ’07 and arguably the best video game movie of all time, too. Yes, it’s even better than Tron.
The King of Kong is about two guys – Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. This is Billy Mitchell, after spending a lifetime setting crap-load of high score records on a crap-load of old school video games, he and his mullet have become legendary figures in the world of people who still play games that are mere myth to anyone born after 1990. And this is Steve Wiebe, an otherwise normal, genuinely good guy who decides he’s going to break Billy Mitchell’s long-held Donkey Kong high score because he just got laid off and has oodles of time on his hands. Billy Mitchell thus throws down his hypothetical gauntlet in response, combs some pomade through his power mullet, and it. is. ON!
I can understand how some of you might not be jumping out of your seats in excitement by now, but you know what, that’s okay, video games aren’t for everyone. And there in part lies the beauty of The King of Kong, that like all great documentaries, it doesn’t matter whether you immediately connect with what the movie’s about or could honestly give a rat’s ass about grown men playing video games, you can’t help but get sucked in.
I mentioned this back in my American Movie review, but the first time I saw this I dragged my mom along for the ride, my mom who has never played a video game in her life, although I’m pretty sure she knew what Donkey Kong was, which is pretty cool. But like I said, she ended up being just as into this movie as I was and she wasn’t just playing along to be the good mom that she is; like me, she’s gone on record as hailing this as one of her favorite movies of ’07. So yeah, my mom rocks.
Anyway, there are a couple reasons why this movie is nothing short of enthralling. In a really obscure way, this is a David and Goliath story, this is Rocky vs. Apollo Creed we’re talkin’ about. As you can imagine, Billy Mitchell plays the Goliath role, a man who revels in his own glory as King of 1982 and dresses the part, bottles up the sweet scent of his own shit and calls it hot sauce, and will stoop to the lowest, juvenile levels of sportsmanship to defend his reputation. And then there’s Steve Wiebe, a guy with more heart than you can imagine, a godsend of normalcy and grace to the gaming community who picked up Donkey Kong for fun and ended up becoming just as passionate about it as he is with everything else in life, and no matter how hard he tries, he always ends up in second place. You quickly grow to love Steve, you really want to see him succeed, you start to care about Donkey Kong like he does, and every unfair obstacle that gets in his way comes off as utterly devastating.
It’s amazing that the director, Seth Gordon, managed to be there to film this when he did and capture so much of it as it was happening. He doesn’t have to manipulate the drama because every single person in this movie is so out there and eccentric that he couldn’t have written better characters if he tried. More than anything, The King of Kong is a fantastically entertaining and heartfelt underdog story and it’s one strange-ass look into one of the more bizarre subcultures in America that pretty much everyone watching this movie would have no reason to discover on their own accord.
It’s human, it’s absolutely hilarious, and it’ll give you a whole lot of respect for the amount of skill it actually takes to play Donkey Kong, because it is one hell of a hard game. You might not believe me now, but really, give The King of Kong a shot. You’ll be chalking it up to everyone you know just as much as I am right now.
Might not be the best game-to-movie adaption (because there is none), but it’s the best movie about video games ever made.
Once again, nerd power.
Dune (1984)
VERDICT:
1/10 Translation Abominations
Man, I give myself a pat on the back for making it through this one. This must be what it feels like to be a film critic, forcing yourself to sit through movies that would otherwise make you want to drive your head through the TV screen. What the hell am I getting myself into?
Dune is about a teenager and his regal family that move from their sweet digs on their H2O-rich home world of Caladan to the hot, depressing, desert-covered planet of Arrakis (aka: Dune!). So they arrive, and, as expected, the planet sucks; but it turns out that the said teenager, Paul Atreides, might just be the savior of legend that is said to bring peace to their world, which is pretty nice. There’s a whole lot of political intrigue and double-crossing and whatnot going on at the same time, but without getting overly complicated, the Paul Atreides thing is the main gist of the story.
I figured I’d give this movie a watch after just finishing the book (which was pretty good), and, wow, it’s pretty amazing how much better the source material got after having to sit through over two hours of this shitty mess. I’d heard this was bad going into it, but no amount of self-delusion that Dune was merely a cult classic misunderstood could have prepared me for the reality of the situation.
Since most of this review is going to be me taking a big ol’ crap on this movie, let’s start with how it managed to even get that one measly point out of ten. There’s not much here to salvage, but if there’s any aspect worth noting it’s the scale of the movie. You can tell that some suits out there put a lot of money into this, because the set pieces are all very ornate, the sandworms are impressive to watch for the most part, and there’s something about it that just made believe director David Lynch was really trying to make this a good movie. But that’s about it.
So I don’t know how David Lynch got roped into directing this project, let alone having to write the entire script as well, but the poor guy was doomed from the start. It’s not that Dune is unfilmable, it’s just impossible to do the novel justice within a two-hour time frame. I was thanking my lucky stars that I had read the book beforehand, because I would have been beyond lost within the first ten minutes. The book is just so damn intricate and complex on so many levels that, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised in the least that so many characters and plot lines ended up being either completely butchered or left out entirely.
Nor does help that a lot of the acting here is nothing short of horrific. Kyle Maclachlan is totally miscast as Paul Atreides, for some reason Sting is in it as villain of sorts who strikes fear into the hearts of others by dressing as a Troll doll, and Patrick Stewart is cast as one of the better characters in the book, but that doesn’t matter either because his whole back story is more or less written out along with everyone else’s.
But the top contender here for worst acting of the ’80s goes to this guy, Kenneth McMillan, as the Atreides family arch-nemesis, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Not only does he look ten times more revolting than I envisioned him, but instead of being the calculating and devious villain he should have been, he’s degraded to one of the most annoying bastards in movie history that specializes in laughing and barking all the time (for reasons unexplained) and spitting on chicks’ faces. Big surprise I’ve never heard of Kenneth McMillan since. Talk about fuckin’ torture.
The special effects are also god awful, but all special effects during the ’80s were pretty awful. No points deducted there. Just more points deducted from the ’80s.
Geez. This movie sucked. I guess the only reason you might want to go seek this out is if you read the book, but trust me, it’s not worth it. I’m all for David Lynch, I think he’s awesome, and I don’t blame him for how this movie turned out. This isn’t a David Lynch movie, this is…I don’t know what this is, actually, and I really don’t care to spend any more time trying to figure it out. All I know is this is no representation of what he does best.
Just read the book and call it a day. Easy peasy Japanesy.
And can anyone tell me what the fuck this thing is? Don’t remember that in the book.
And the best John Hughes movie is…
FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF!
Thought it was gonna go to Breakfast Club, but hey, who doesn’t love Ferris Bueller. If skipping school was always this awesome, I would have dropped out in a heartbeat.
Well played, dear readers.
RESULTS:
Sixteen Candles: 1 vote
The Breakfast Club: 6 votes
Weird Science: 4 votes
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: 9 votes
Planes, Trains and Automobiles: 5 votes
Uncle Buck: 1 vote
How can you knock the movie that gave us Ben Stein? Rhetorical question. It’s impossible.
Sixteen Candles (1984)
VERDICT:
8/10 “Sexy Giiirlfrieeends!“
Might not be the best John Hughes movie of all time, but then again, this is the one that started it all.
Sixteen Candles is about a Sophomore in High School named Samantha Baker whose parents forget about her sixteenth birthday because they’re too caught up in her older sister’s wedding. And like many a sixteen-year-old girl, all she wants is go steady with Jake Ryan – the hunky Senior who’s dating the prom queen and has a secret crush on Samantha – but she thinks he doesn’t even know she exists.
Oh, the drama. That Jake Ryan is such a tease.
It’d been a while since I’d seen this, but after giving it another look for the first time in years the other night I was pleasantly reminded that Sixteen Candles really is one funny movie. This eye-opening experience along with this whole weekly poll jazz is making me want to revisit the entire John Hughes collection because I’m pretty sure I’ll be having the same reaction to Ferris Bueller and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, both of which I haven’t seen in ages. I don’t know, these are the kinds of movies that are worth revisiting every once in a while because they’re always going to ring true no matter what age you are and because they’re just really damn funny.
And the main reason this movies is still good and don’t feel dated 25 years later goes right back to John Hughes himself. I think I mentioned this in my Breakfast Club review, but I can’t think of any other screenwriter that’s ever really managed to capture the voice and mindset of youth and teenage angst in such a witty, Salingerian way as Hughes.
The other reason Sixteen Candles works is the cast. Even though they could all cure cancer and still be remembered as “The Brat Pack”, they’re all freakin’ great here. Molly Ringwald is totally believable as Samantha Baker, the role of “The Geek” is probably the best contribution Anthony Michael-Hall will ever make to this world, the unappreciated Paul Dooley always plays a great Dad (check out Breaking Away if you have no idea who I’m talking about), and if Gedde Watanabe hasn’t legally changed his name to Long Duk Dong by now, he should really get that taken care of.
But these are just a handful of standouts in amidst a cast filled with hilarious, eccentric performances of people we all remember from High School.
The other thing I like about this is that it’s way, way, way less lovey-dovey than Pretty in Pink and is a way, way, way more enjoyable date movie for both the ladies and fellas. Maybe it’s just me, but Pink just didn’t do it for me, and no, Ducky didn’t do it for me either. I know Hughes didn’t direct it, but come on, like everyone doesn’t associate Sixteen Candles with Pretty in Pink.
There’s also a great ’80s soundtrack here, and considering some of the hits of decade, that’s an accomplishment worth noting.
But like I said, it’s still not the best John Hughes movie. You can kind of tell it’s his debut effort as there’s a lot going on at once and the emotional oomph isn’t as prevalent as it is in, say, The Breakfast Club, but whatever, small complaints. This is a classic for good reason.
So be the good boyfriend and add this sucker to Netflix. Everybody wins with Sixteen Candles.
And thanks, John Hughes. You were the man.
Cut The Crap Movie Reviews 
