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Film · Universal · 1984

Pass it on

Sixteen Candles

26Leave it.

The forgotten birthday still hurts. The exchange-student joke is the part you do not pass on.

Take controlThis scores 26. Sixteen Candles cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

Her family forgets her sixteenth birthday because a sister's wedding ate the week. There is a crush, a note, a party. The missed day is a small true hurt. On that narrow ground the movie knows something: a house can look past the child who is not the event.

Then it uses a foreign-exchange student as a joke, and that joke has not aged into innocence. The film never pays the laugh back. I would not make this a birthday tradition. If a teen wants it, watch the gag beside them and say the laugh failed. Talk about a girl the house overlooked. Do not keep the student as a bit.

Journal

Keep Sixteen Candles in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 26. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Men in Black

38 instead of 26

Men in Black is still a comedy film, and it scores 38 instead of 26. What you gain is industry: It is a workplace movie.

The eight

2
Industry
Nobody's work matters. A wedding schedule is the only labor, and it erases a birthday.
5
Household
A family forgets a daughter's sixteenth. The sister's wedding is the life they notice.
2
Piety
Nobody is stopped by conscience, least of all over the student used as a joke.
3
Courage
She gets through a missed birthday. Little is risked that she would truly lose.
2
Republic
A foreign student is the neighbor the film will not treat as a neighbor.
2
Temperance
The party and the cruel joke both train the room to want the next laugh.
3
Truth
The forgotten birthday is true. The joke about the student is a laugh the film never pays.
2
Stewardship
What it leaves is a party and a gag that soured. A student was spent for the bit.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · Sixteen Candles · 26IMDb

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Film · MGM · 1958

Pass it on

Gigi

26Leave it.

A best picture. The training is the rot, and the marriage at the end does not redeem the school.

Take controlThis scores 26. Gigi cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it

The review

It won the best picture of its year, and the award does not change the curriculum. A grandmother and an aunt are training a young woman in Paris to be the mistress of a rich man: how to choose jewels, how to behave at the table, how to be expensive. The young man who has been wandering through other such arrangements decides he wants this one, and the happy ending is that he marries her instead. The film expects the marriage to retire the question.

It does not. The school was the story, and the school is a preparation of a girl for a man's use. The songs are lovely and the loveliness is the danger, because loveliness is how the curriculum gets past a room. I would not put it on for a young woman as a charming antique. If adults watch it as history, say what the aunt was actually teaching before the last waltz. The last waltz is not a pardon.

Journal

Keep Gigi in the record.