Sixteen Candles

Tonight I was flipping through the channels and came across Sixteen Candles, John Hughes directorial debut.  When certain movies are on, I have almost a compulsion to watch them.  It was a lot stronger pre-Lilly because let's face it...Sixteen Candles in not exactly appropriate for a 3 year old.  But this was long after Lilly was asleep and my husband was also conked out upstairs.  I fulfilled my John Hughes guilty pleasure. 

Long before I knew about John Hughes I was drawn to his movies.  Some of my favorite movies of all time were directed by him: Ferris Beuller's Day Off; Sixteen Candles; The Breakfast Club; Pretty in Pink; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; the Home Alone movies; the National lampoon Vacation movies among many, many more.  I always wondered how these movies were timeless, yet spoke to me in whatever place I was in at the time. 

Obviously movies like the Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink would speak to the teenage and even college-aged me.  Why do they still draw me in?  I don't believe it is because I am just reminiscing about high school.  There is a timelessness about a movie like Sixteen Candles.  Who hasn't, at different points in their life, felt like the dork or the girl whose birthday was forgotten or the cool kid who wants someone to like him for himself, not because he is cool and has money? 

I know that I am completely doing a disservice to this movie and its director by writing just this short paragraph about it.  Whole college classes have been dedicated to his movies and I am positive that there are hundreds, if not thousands of blog posts out there that have been written about John Hughes films.  I felt compelled to write my own little tribute anyway.

Thank you John Hughes...