Showing posts with label Sixteen Candles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sixteen Candles. Show all posts

Friday, March 27, 2020

Film Buff Friday: Sixteen Candles


They don't make em' like this anymore... 

In his debut film as writer-director, John Hughes immediately cemented himself as the king of teen cinema with Sixteen Candles, and in the process also introduced one of the most iconic faces of '80s Americana: Molly Ringwald. For high schooler Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald), her 16th birthday might be the worst day of her life. Her entire family has forgotten about it due to her older sister's impending wedding; her biggest crush, high school hunk Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) has discovered an embarrassing "sex quiz" filled out by Sam in which she details how she is saving herself for him; and to make matters worse, she is hounded by a relentless nerd (Anthony Michael Hall) who won't take no for an answer. But Sam's sweet sixteen isn't over yet, and before the end of the night, all her birthday wishes could still come true... Taking the rude and crude humor of the teen sex comedies that came before it and placing it within the intimately portrayed perspective of a girl's mid-teenage-life crisis, Sixteen Candles is a bombshell of 80s pop culture that continues to be debated and beloved over three decades after its release.

Bonus Materials

  • New restoration by Arrow Films from a 4K scan of the original negative
  • High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray™ presentation of the Theatrical Version of the film (92 mins), plus Blu-ray™ premiere Extended Version (94 mins), featuring the additional “cafeteria” scene newly remastered in high definition
  • Original lossless mono audio, plus 5.1 DTS-HD MA surround option
  • Original English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Alternate “home video” soundtrack prepared for VHS and laserdisc releases
  • Option to watch additional scene from the Extended Version separately
  • Casting ‘Sixteen Candles’, an all-new audio interview with casting director Jackie Burch
  • When Gedde Met Deborah, a newly filmed conversation between actors Gedde Watanabe and Deborah Pollack
  • Rudy the Bohunk, a newly filmed interview with supporting actor John Kapelos
  • The In-Between, a newly filmed interview with camera operator Gary Kibbe
  • The New Wave Nerd, a newly filmed interview with filmmaker Adam Rifkin, who shadowed John Hughes while working as an extra on set
  • Music for Geeks, a newly filmed interview with composer Ira Newborn
  • A Very Eighties Fairytale, an all-new video essay written and narrated by writer Soraya Roberts, looking at the film from a contemporary feminist perspective
  • Celebrating Sixteen Candles, an archive documentary featuring interviews with cast, crew and admirers, including stars Anthony Michael Hall, Paul Dooley, Justin Henry, Haviland Morris and Gedde Watanabe
  • Theatrical trailers, TV spots and radio spots
  • Image galleries
  • BD-ROM: PDF of the original shooting script
  • Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck
  • FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Nikki Baughan and Bryan Reesman

Order Here:

Friday, March 8, 2019

Film Buff Friday: Teen Movie Hell


Go Teen, Or Go Home!!!

Born in the drive-in theater backseats of the 1970s, the demonic visions of Teen Movie Hell  fueled the VCR, cable TV, and shopping mall multiplex booms of the 1980s before collapsing in the 1990s in a pixelated pile of cable dissipation and Internet indulgences. Between George Lucas's American Graffiti in 1973 and Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused twenty years later, lust-driven laugh riots on the order of Animal House, Porky's, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Revenge of the Nerds boomed at the box office and conquered pop culture by celebrating adolescent misbehavior run amok.

Puberty-powered comedy classics including Meatballs, Caddyshack, Valley Girl, and The Last American Virgin fused hormonal overloads with anti-authority abandon and below-the-belt slapstick to create a genre that also unleashed the anarchic, sex-mad likes of The Swinging Cheerleaders, H.O.T.S., Hardbodies, Private School, Joysticks, Spring Break, and Zapped! as well as the mainstream variations Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Pretty in Pink.

In more than 350 reviews, all-seeing author Mike "McBeardo" McPadden (Heavy Metal Movies) passes righteous judgment over the entire genre, one boobs-and-boner opus at a time. The book also features contributions by Eddie Deezen (Grease, Midnight Madness, Zapped!), Kat Ellinger (Diabolique), Wendy McClure (The Wilder Life), Katie Rife (The Onion AV Club), Samm Deighan (Diabolique), and Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women), plus guest reviews by Lisa Carver (Rollerderby), Heather Drain (Video Watchdog), Christina Ward (Feral House), Rachel McPadden, and Liz Mason (Quimby's).

Tap the keg, tailor your toga, and belly flop hard into the exploitation inferno of bikinis beaches, locker rooms, summer camps, study halls, wayward teachers, cool camp counselors, wet-T-shirts, custom vans, sexy ESP, shower peepholes, and other overlooked penal code violations!

For more photos and info, and to pre-order, go