Some Kind of Wonderful - 15th May 2011
Some Kind of Wonderful, though, coming hot on the tail of immersing myself in the latter stages of the Halloween franchise is odd to say the least.
Ok, so first things first, could they not have at least tried to smile for the poster? I mean come on guys! Stoltz, I know I can't get you to smile you big ginger crazeball but Thompson, Masterson... come on! you're killin' me here!
Looking at this poster, well it looks like the most depressing 80s film ever made. It looks like a heroin addicts day-trip to the abattoir where they all sit around and read a lot of dense Norweigan literature about the meaning of death. So, right off the bat, you're not expecting dance numbers or balloons.
As a fan of John Hughes and his particular brand of high school observations growing up I wasn't opposed to watching this when the wife suggested it. It was not one of the ones that had crossed my path when I was younger, it was one of the later high school things he did after all. In fact by the time this came around I was probably more into his next film Planes, Trains & Automobiles.
Which may seem weird because obviously I was really a lot younger when these films actually came out in 1987 but, for whatever reason, I actually watched a lot of these films in order, starting of course with the Breakfast Club, just about 5-7 years later than when they first were made.
Anyway, Some Kind of Wonderful (really I can't get over how that does NOT apply to the poster) passed me by. I am, here and now, going to blame The Stoltz and why not.
The film itself isn't bad and is littered with Hughes' brand of witty humour and keen observations of stereotypes, with the obligatory annoying as all hell sister and precocious youngest child. It suffers a bit from the whole actors pushing 30 playing high school kid syndrome and from not having a distinct point or focus, so it's hardly a must see or one of his best, but it's ok.
Elias Koteas is brilliant in it, Craig Scheffer as the rich bully is so eminently punchable it is unbelievable and the two leading ladies do good work with their roles, even if Masterson's tom boy is a little too boyish and 80s for today's taste. I think she was probably too tom boy for 1987 really but anyway...
As for Stoltz... well Eric Stoltz, I don't know quite what it is about The Stoltz that I have such a hard time with. I know that I find his name one of the funniest names to say, not sure why, it's completely inexplicable but it just makes me chuckle, it's right up there with Lou Diamond Phillips and Louis Gosset Jnr, their names just represent a certain something in my brain that is humourous.
Apart from that I think it maybe that he takes himself just so seriously and tries to be all intense but he talks in a soft silly voice and looks ridiculous, the two images, the one he has tried to create and the one that is an actual reality are just so disparate it's hilarious. Can you really be intense with red hair, freckles and a chin like a bum?
He was known on set of this film, for example, as being very difficult and walking around demanding to be called by the name of the character and trying to be an aggressive tortured artist, like the character; Maybe that would be all very well for Brando in Apocalypse Now but he's Stoltz in Some Kind of Wonderful, he should've been a lot less pretentious and just done what the director told him to do.
Sadly he also doesn't have the acting chops or charisma to turn this film into a Say Anything, which is probably the film closest to this in subject matter but far superior, deeper and with a heap more charm and talent.
The only other problem I had with this otherwise, forgettable and harmless film is about the questionable ending.
Just as the Stoltz and Thompson date is ending, where he has shown her a picture he painted of her hung in a gallery, given her earrings bought with his entire college fund and kissed her romantically on the stage of the Hollywood bowl, all in front of a pining and upset Masterson, he comes out of the bully's house, realises in a split second, "doh! wait no I really love the boyish girl next door who dresses like an Australian Madonna impersonator" takes the earrings back from Thompson, runs after Masterson, they kiss, she takes the earrings, they joke and it all ends happily.
Now I understand everyone watching wanted them to get together but I am not sure any woman could really go for this after sitting through a night like that not unless they had no self esteem or were very stupid.
I guess, though, Hughes, as good as could be, was also responsible for the ending of The Breakfast Club. A film that is all about being an individual and respecting that, ending with the prom queen tarting up the nutcase with a bunch of make up and making all her problems go away...
6 out of 10 average tasting ginger biscuits soggy from being dunked in weak tea.
Easy A - 2nd October 2010
She is able to be hip, cool and desirable whilst being kooky, awkward and physically funny like a young Diane Keaton, she is able to pull off intelligent and witty dialogue or be hard and sarcastic like a Candice Bergen, she can do happy abandon, charm, laughter and has great emotional chops like a Julia Roberts and even has the husky, smokes 3 packs a day, voice of Demi Moore. In Zombieland she showed she might even make a half-decent action chick like Sigourney Weaver and if, in the future, she shows the ability to improvise like she must've had to do on the set of Superbad then there might even be a streak of Jane Lynch in there also.
That's not to say that she is fully matured into anything like these people yet and she still hasn't found a movie vehicle that would show all of these talents off properly but there is great potential there, I think.
It is certainly a good sign that after a while of playing second or third fiddle, that she has finally been given a leading role in something, it's just a shame that, in terms of story-line at least, Easy A feels like a bit of a step back. Basically, like the film all but admits, it attempts to be a John Hughes tinged, 80s alike high school comedy. Which is what it should've been without heralding its homages or references like a fog horn strapped to fire siren.
If the people watching it don't understand the bit where the male romantic interest stands on top of a lawn mower, holding speakers above his head which are blaring Simple Minds hit "Don't you forget about me" then they've either been under a rock for the last 30 years or they are too young to care.
However, despite the annoying habit of the script to go "oh look I made a Ferris Bueller reference" it is actually fairly funny, smart in places and well directed.
Apart from Emma Stone, who wanders through the movie hitting all the right notes but also hinting at being a little bit above it all at this point, the rest of the high school kids are fairly anonymous and seem to be divided into religious right-leaning, loony hypocrites or tartish gossip-mongers who are really judgmental prudes. I am not sure how realistic any of this is and neither do I particularly care, I don't have to go back to high school and deal with these annoying brats. The point is, unlike a John Hughes or a Cameron Crowe movie, it doesn't feel realistic in the slightest and while an 80s high school film by either of the two aforementioned directors may have no more real substance to it than Easy A, they always felt like a very realistic slice of American teen life because of the diversity and recognisability of the characters.
I am too old, of course, to make any judgements on any of this.
The only other characters in the kids camp that we get brief glimpses at are the sorry sad sacks who pay Miss Stone's character, with crappy store vouchers, to say that they had some form of sexual relation with her. This apparently increases their popularity but slowly corrodes hers, again, I am not sure if that makes any actual sense. These kids in question are the typical cliche list of movie losers, a gay, a fatty, a spotty, an indian and so on. If we spent any more screen time with any of them it might not seem so, well, old fashioned and cringy.
Also, in the light of the recent furor over the bullying of gays in school to the point of suicide, in some cases, that has just hit the states, I am surprised there haven't been more comments about the character in this film who pleads that because he's routinely bullied for being gay, the best thing for him to do is pretend to be a sexually active hetrosexual. Despite the highly depressing underlying truth to that, is that a message to put out there?
Ok, so I got a little serious there for a moment and I apologise.
To the adult characters now and it seems, from the supporting cast, like the studio panicked, weren't sure if Emma Stone could pull this off all by herself (she could probably do it in her sleep actually), and so surrounded her with every sort of quirky B list character actor doing their clever b list quirky thing. We get Stanley 'I am secretly in every movie made in the last 6 years' Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as the wisecracking, carefree, sexually open, liberal parents, Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow as the requisite understanding, yet flawed, dead pan teachers in a failing marriage, Fred 'what am I doing here' Armisen (from SNL) as a rubbish priest and bizarrely, rounding it all out, Malcolm Mcdowell, in a 'what were they thinking?' cameo as a stern, weird headmaster.
Out of this odd bunch of misfits, it is, of course, Tucci that comes off best, reprising the role of 'Hey I am laid back comedy man' Stanley Tucci that he has played in 9 of his last 10 films. Someone please get him and Oliver Platt back together for another film like The Impostors before they become repetitive caricatures of their former selves (too late!?!)
Overall then it's a bit of a mess. The morals are all over the place, the reactions of people, to the lies she's telling, are strange and over-the-top, the fact that there'd be so many losers in one place to the point where she would be branded such a slut is a little hard to swallow, the weird veering between happy go lucky high school sex comedy to scenes where a guidance councilor admits to sex with a pupil, albeit an old one, that leads to a divorce and a scene where a guy misses the point and tries to force himself on Emma Stone in a parking lot, seems not to be handled so smoothly and fairly out of place and, finally, with its tacked on, the guy I've always liked suddenly notices me romantic sub-plot, I was wandering at the end what the point in any of it was.
All that said, mind you, the jokes came thick and fast, I was trying to follow it all the way, I stayed awake, the acting, where it counted, was good, the director competent and if you are 18 and with a good sense of humour, while this will never be your Sixteen Candles or your Say Anything, it's still worth a look in.
If not, stay home and rent The Breakfast Club instead, you won't regret it.
6.5 out of 10 veggie burgers
Points from The Misses 8 out of 10 veggie burgers
Points from The Misses 8 out of 10 veggie burgers