Day 78: Sixteen Candles

In typical teenage fashion, Sam (Molly Ringwald) fancies one of the most popular guys in school and she thinks he doesn’t know she exists. But Jake (Michael Schoeffling) definitely does know she exists and he spends the whole film trying to talk to her.

During class, Sam is filling in a ‘sex test’ she got from a friend that asks her various questions, one of them being ‘Have you ever done it?’ and she answers with ‘I don’t think so’. Right, what? How can that not be something you are sure of? She probably just didn’t want to put ‘no’ but still, I have heard people say they didn’t know if they’d had sex or not before. I don't mean in a 'I was so drunk, I don't know if we did' way, they were aware of what was happening. Odd. Another question asks who she’d want to have sex with if she could and she puts down Jake’s name, and goes to hand the note over to her friend. But obviously the note ends up with Jake. I immediately thought this was going to result in her being laughed at by all the popular people but it turns out he actually likes her too, so that was completely unexpected. He’s talking to his friend about maybe wanting to be with her and his friend goes “She’s too young to party serious.” Man, I love how people talked in the ‘80s. Think I was born in the wrong time, I can see me talking like that.

Ted (Anthony Michael Hall) originally likes Sam but she keeps knocking him back. She tells him she likes Jake and that she doesn’t know what to do, so Ted tells her to just go for it. Despite him repeatedly being a total creep, I really liked that he did that. He ends up with Jake’s girlfriend, Caroline (Haviland Morris) anyway, in some strange turn of events. Caroline and Jake aren’t getting along at the dance because he can’t stop thinking about Sam so she says to him “Just remember one thing. I can name 20 guys who would kill to love me.” That’s quite impressive. Must be so hectic knowing that all these people like you, how does she get anything done, I don’t know.

I was really expecting to love this film but it was kind of disappointing. Definitely wasn’t as good as some other John Hughes films but it was alright.

6/10

Day 40: Hairspray

Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) wants to be a dancer on The Corny Collins Show more than anything but has a little difficulty as she is discriminated against because of her size. However, after realising that’s not the most important thing and that there is a serious race divide, she decides to take on the lack of integration within the show.

I really don’t like Tracy. First of all, she is a morning person. I don’t get you people, how can you just wake up and be all bouncy and ready to face the day? Ugh. That’s as good as you’re gonna feel all day, you can’t start off like that or it’ll all just go downhill. Another thing, the focus seems to be on her far too much. I know she’s trying to help and all but surely the focus should be on Maybelle (Queen Latifah) or Seaweed (Elijah Kelley)? And she completely ruins their march by hitting a police officer and then running away, leaving everybody else to get arrested. It just seems that there were a whole host of characters who could’ve had more focus.

The main one being Maybelle, obviously. Queen Latifah is such a babe in everything, I love her so much. My notes for whenever she was on screen are all very similar (“QUEEN LATIFAAAH. BE IN MORE THINGS.”) I think I’d much prefer the film to just be The Queen Latifah Show. It doesn’t even have to be about anything, she can just sing and be brilliant. Anyway, I’ve got sidetracked. Her song ‘Big, Blonde and Beautiful’ is my favourite. She seems like the only normal character while all the rest of them are overacting like crazy. Babe.

Link (Zac Efron) bothers me in this film and I’m never sure why. He’s so useless though, so that could be it. In one scene he went from telling Tracy that knowing her would be an adventure to telling her that the adventure would be too big for him. Quickest cop out ever, well done, Sir. And he’s usually so attractive but in this film he looks the strangest. It must be the ridiculous hair he’s got going on. And the fact he keeps winking all the time. Nobody should wink seriously, it is only to be done for laughs. Only men with hairy chests and gold medallions get to wink like that.

Despite all my problems with the film, I still like it. The songs are catchy and Queen Latifah is in it, what’s not to like?

7/10