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.
Howard The Duck - 1st May 2011
Socrates, that old beardy weirdy, once said that the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Well if this is the case then let us hope that, with hindsight, the audiences and critics of 1986 have realised their mistake and become amongst the smartest people in history because clearly when they made Howard the Duck a flop, they knew absolutely nothing.
I am not going to necessarily wax rhapsodic about how this is the greatest movie of all time but one of the worst? How can it be? Tyler Perry (or Ashton Kutcher) is nowhere to be seen!
This is just your basic fish out of water (or maybe that's duck out of water) story about an alien, who also happens to be an anthropomorphic duck, who comes to earth and ends up saving the planet from large, super-imposed, stop-motion beasties all for the love of a good, very large haired, rock chick.
What I fail to understand is how audiences but mostly critics seemed to have an inability to suspend disbelief. This is just a film, a fantasy kids film, featuring a wise cracking talking duck no less and yet it seems they reviewed it like it was meant to be 2001: A Space Odyssey or worst still like the film was so offensive it might well have featured Howard being anally raped by a nazi as he flips off the pope! Are they crazy? Did they all have their humor glands removed at birth?
It's also ridiculous that they now heap praise on the likes of Batman, Spiderman and XMen when, if we are all honest with ourselves, these modern comic adaptations offer about as much in the way of message or storyline. Tarting it up with a fancy score, ominous tracking shots, A-List actors and up-to-date CGI doesn't stop the fact you are making a film about a crazy person who wears a costume going up against a crazier person who wears a costume and hoping that you shift a few more units of the varied merchandise.
Now, is the film silly? Yes very and is it embarrassing watching Tim Robbins and Lea Thompson goof and flounder around like poorly paid, end of the pier, balloon animal making entertainers? of course but is it also a good old adventure film with some fairly impressive set pieces and it's tongue wedged firmly in its cheek? Yes it is and it's almost more enjoyable now as an adult than it was when I was a kid because now I get to marvel at all the hysterical yet completely inappropriate sexual humor.
In fact I would applaud the writer director for having the balls to try and make Howard the Duck a little edgier, a little adult whilst being able to move it along at such a pace you don't realise you've gone from a seedy dive bar brawl to a jolly cops versus Ultralight plane chase in broad daylight.
It also has all the sheen and professional quality of a George Lucas production so it looks and sounds great too.
The film also has one ace in its sleeve and that is Jeffrey Jones.
Now before I go on, I do know that, very sadly, he is currently on the sex offenders registry for taking pictures of a 14 year old boy back in 2002 and I in no way condone that, I talk now purely of the man's ability as an actor and with a body of work that contains Ferris Bueller, Amadeus, Without a Clue, Beetlejuice and Who's Harry Crumb? to name just a few, he has always been and remains one of my favourite performers.
His work in Howard the Duck is incredible going from a quizzical and mild mannered scientist to a Dark Overlord in gradual and more and more comically dark ways.
My favourite being a scene where he is driving a truck and comes to a traffic jam where he bumps into the cars to get them out of the way because he has to get to the laboratory in a hurry and a state trooper comes up and says "Hey! I need to see your license, Jack!"
and in full scary, deteriorating make-up, with an eerie croaky voice and with a dead straight face Jeffrey Jones says
"I have no license… and I am not… Jack."
A lot has been made of the implied love affair between Beverley, Lea Thompson's character and Howard (what with this, her own son in Back to the Future, Andrew Dice Clay in Casual Sex and Tom fucking Cruise in all the Right Moves, Thompson has had some unfortunate screen pairings!) but again, suspend disbelief, it's all part of the fun of the movie and for what it's worth, they have fantastic chemistry better than, dare I say it, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks for example.
So what if he sort of walks and talks like Danny DeVito and has the face of Macaulay Culkin, he's a better actor than Culkin and can play the guitar as mean as Michael J Fox, no wonder the woman loves herself some Duck!
As do I and I won't apologise for it.
7.5 out of 10 cheese and quackers
Points from the Wife - 7 out of 10
This review, I am very proud and happy to say, will be appearing, in an edited form, in the New York based film 'Zine 'I Love Bad Movies' issue #4 out in June 2011. You can buy it here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ksen?ref=seller_info