High school is hell, especially for geeks Gary & Wyatt. Tired of being bullied and not being able to get a girl Gary & Wyatt decide to do the most outlandish thing they can think of – make a girlfriend ala Frankenstein, using Wyatt’s computer. Enter Lisa, their creation; she’s everything the boys want and makes them the envy of their high school and their bullies, but there’s on problem – Lisa isn’t content to be their dream girl, she wants to pop them out of their shell and make them the boys she wants them to be.
John Hughes has made a lot of movies and to my experience so far Weird Science is the strangest. I’ve never seen Hughes dabble in science fiction before but I have to say his take on Frankenstein was entertaining.
As always Hughes has incredible characters. Gary and Wyatt are fun, entertaining teens to watch that never leave you wondering why they are the center of the film. They have a bond that is second only to the ladies in Sex & the City; they finish each others sentences, spend all their time together and admire the opposite sex as their greatest hobby. However, Hughes does what he does best and somehow infuses these crazy, hair-brained teen boys with a human heart and soul.
What I honestly forgot about Weird Science is that Robert Downey Jr. plays one of the bullies. Man was he young, but even then he commanded the screen. Also sharing the screen was Bill Paxton as Wyatt’s older brother and what was funny to see was that he has looked exactly the same for his entire career – even then you can see the influences that will later make great characters like Hudson in Aliens.
Weird Science is a quintessential teen movie that has to be seen by a Hughes fan or anyone that still remembers the horrors of being a teenager. So pop in the DVD, get loaded up on sugar and remember what it was like to be in high school.
Director & Writer: John Hughes
Gary Wallace: Anthony Michael Hall
Lisa: Kelly LeBrock
Wyatt Donnelly: IIan Michael-Smith
Chet Donnelly: Bill Paxton
Ian: Robert Downey Jr.
Wyatt: Gary?... By the way, why are we wearing bras on our heads?
Garry: Ceremonial.
Showing posts with label anthony michael hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anthony michael hall. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Sixteen Candles
The first time I watched Sixteen Candles was on VHS; I was about 16 myself and my TV was dying so the entire film appeared to be shades of purple. I didn’t care. I watched the whole thing.
Again, this should have been one of the many tip-off’s to me that movies weren’t just a fun activity, they are my life. But even then, if I didn’t have that passion for movies that I now realize I have, I would have watched Sixteen Candles to the very end. Why? John Hughes has the amazing talent to create a world, to create characters that perfectly capture all of us at one point in our lives; in the case of a Hughes movie this typically means our adolescence.
The part that I cannot wrap my head around is how this man who is older than my father somehow manages in the case of Sixteen Candles to perfectly capture what it was like to be a sixteen year old girl.
Samantha Baker was me when I was sixteen, staring into the mirror and telling your best friend that you knew there wasn’t going to be a physical change, but the birthday felt like it should be such a momentous occasion that something was going to change, or that you had spent years imagining what it was going to be like to finally be sixteen. As an adult I look back on this line of thinking and know the error of my thoughts, but that doesn’t make them any less real. I was a teenage girl who thought life, romance and popularity would begin at sixteen. It’s a part of who I am and somehow, fourteen years before I was going to be sixteen John Hughes created a character that knew what it was like to be me.
Sixteen Candles is still popular today because Hughes was able to not just capture the pop culture alive and well in 1984, but something much more basic; Hughes caputured the plight of the American teenager, specifically the teenage girl. In doing this he does not demean the teenage plot, but uses his unique blend of comedy and drama to create a world that we all seem to remember as being our adolescence – whether we are male or female.
I am a fan of John Hughes, in fact I think he spawned the dozens of teen comedies that still invade our cinemas today. But none of those films will ever be as good as a Hughes film; these imitators forget the central point that Hughes so clearly uses his characters to illustrate: these are not just hormonal teenagers, they are human too.
Written & Directed: John Hughes
Samantha Baker: Molly Ringwald
Jake Ryan: Michael Schoeffling
Farmer Ted/The Geek: Anthony Michael Hall
Long Duck Dong: Gedde Watanabe
The Geek: You know, I'm getting input here that I'm reading as relatively hostile.
Samantha: Go to hell.
The Geek: VERY hostile.
Jim Baker: That's why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they'd call them something else.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)