MY (UN)SUPER SWEET 16

Although we never need a reason to pull out the John Hughes collection, his untimely death this year sure made us appreciate, yet again, his poignant voice on the trials and tribulations of teen life. Hughes’s formula (take an awkward beauty, a nerd, and a jock; put them together, and see what happens) began with his directorial debut Sixteen Candles, starring his muse, ’80s starlet Molly Ringwald. The combination of Hughes’s brilliant writing and Ringwald’s excellent acting is even more apparent in this film, about a forgotten birthday gone horribly right, than in any other of their collaborations. The perfect chemistry probably had something to do with the fact that Ringwald was actually 16 at the time, and the on-film clash between her and her co-star Anthony Michael Hall was rumored to have been real—until Hughes made them see their similar taste in music. Aw.

Oct. 10-11, midnight, 2009