Posts Tagged ‘Sixteen Candles’

Oak Park Arms presents its popular series “You Be the Critic” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, May 10, at the Oak Park Arms, 408 S. Oak Park Ave. The 1984 film “Sixteen Candles” will be viewed and reviewed with radio announcer Dan Kane.

John Hughes wrote and directed this coming-of-age comedy starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling and Anthony Michael Hall.

Samantha “Sam” Baker (Ringwald) is plagued with one embarrassment after another right before her 16th birthday. Not only does she have a crush on Jake, (Schoeffling) the cutest boy in school, while the biggest nerd Ted (Hall) has a crush on her. But in the flurry of her older sister’s upcoming wedding, her family forgets her birthday.

Adding to the chaos are all four of her grandparents staying at the Bakers house for the wedding, one of which brings along a bizarre foreign exchange student – Long Duk Dong – who Sam is forced to take with her to a school dance. Surprisingly, Dong finds a girlfriend fairly quickly leaving Sam to find herself alone with Ted in the school auto shop where she confesses her love for Jake and Ted admits Jake has been asking about her.

The dance after-party ends up at Jake’s house, where he convinces Ted to drive his drunk girlfriend home. When Ted and the girlfriend are caught making out, Jake has an excuse to break up with her. Newly single, he finds Sam on the church steps after her sister’s wedding the next day, and the movie concludes with them sharing their first kiss over a birthday cake with 16 candles.

Filming primarily happened in Skokie, Highland Park and Glencoe, IL. Most of the exterior scenes (and some of the interior) took place at Niles East High School. Niles North High School was home to a few other scenes, and the Baker house is located in Evanston.

The film was considered by many to be one of the best films of 1984 but was only a moderate success at the box office, grossing $23,686,027. It ranked number 49 on Entertainment Weekly’s list of “The 50 Best High School Movies” in 2008. Although the character of Long Duk Dong was criticized for being racially insensitive and offensive to Asians, the role was defended by Roger Ebert.

Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall both won Young Artist Awards as “Best Young Actress/Actor in a Motion Picture,” becoming the first and only juvenile performers in the history of the Young Artist Awards to win the Best Leading Actress/Actor awards for the same film.

The Oak Park Arms is a rental retirement community which provides independent and assisted living apartments and a full schedule of activities and services. Furnished apartments are also available for a short-term stay – a weekend, a week, a month or longer.

The event is free and open to the public. Call Jill Wagner at 708-386-4040.