O.K., I’m sure everyone out there has been wondering where the heck this follow up has been hiding and why it’s taken me so long to get to. Let’s see, what have I been doing since round 1...
Completed all my course work for my Masters degree (so it’s not like I haven’t been writing)
Did all the lettering on what used to be my first comic book and is now my first graphic novel...in software development we call that “scope creep”
Oh, met a girl, we clicked, she ran away, I ran away, we both travelled to far and distant lands to do some soul searching, and we both came back, got engaged and got my own wedding! (but there’s a WHOLE nother web site devoted to that...you can find it HERE)
Hopefully I’ve said enough to engender some sympathy on the part of you, my loyal and patient audience. It seems somewhat appropriate coming on the heels of that great tribute to Hughes at the Academy Awards. May I say, that I always admired and respected John Hughes for moving back to Chicago to have a normal life, and it’s amazing how he really did manage to keep his private life private and out of the magazines and craziness of the Hollywood scene. On a side note, of the actors participating in the tribute to Hughes, I’ve actually met three of them personally. One I haven’t met, Ally Sheedy, paraphrased her character’s line in the BREAKFAST CLUB who’s says that when you grow old your heart dies. I think even Hughes himself would go on to try to refute his own words just a couple of years later with PLANES, TRAINS and AUTOMOBILES - which I think very much makes a stand that the heart never really dies, but it can go into a coma on life support and people NEED other people to bring it back to life.
SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL would be Hughes’ unofficial farewell to setting his stories among teen agers (note I didn’t say teen genre, because as Hughes himself mentioned, they aren’t teens, they are human beings who happen to be just discovering themselves, their feelings, their place in the world - which may actually make their stories inherently interesting ). I say unofficial because he did not direct this one (though he wrote and produced it). Hughes was already directing what many would consider to be his film about leaving high school behind, FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, so he didn’t have time to take the reigns of this one. Contrary to popular belief, John Hughes did not actually write this to be PRETTY IN PINK in reverse, which is unfortunately what many people thought this movie would be and criminally overlooked it. Hughes wrote both scripts at the same time, and after the success of PIP offered the “rich pretty girl” role to Molly Ringwald, and Ringwald turned it down, which would pretty much end their working relationship (as Ringwald has alluded to as much in recent interviews). So Lea Thompson was added to the cast, and throws a heart shaped monkey wrench into the proceedings to boot...
Thompson would meet her future husband (NOT Crispin Glover) on the set of SKOW....that would be the director, Howard Deutch. Howard and Lea must have really hit it off, because they are still married to this day (again, a rarity in Hollywood). You can see the heart that Lea brings to her role in the story. Though she is initially a female Blaine, a character you want to think is just a pretty superficial fluff girl, and she may in fact be that at the beginning, Lea really sells you on the changes she makes as the story arcs. Though not quite as drastic as when Fry stole Ferris’ own movie from him, she still manages something that is almost as impossible.
Although impossible would probably apply to being the “outsider” in this three way cast. Eric Stoltz had been nominated for a Golden Globe just the previous year for MASK....Lea was just coming off BACK TO THE FUTURE and HOWARD THE DUCK (stop laughing, it wasn’t that bad! And talk about ironic, Eric Stoltz actually was the original pick for Marty McFly and actually shot with him for two weeks before they decided he just was too reserved for the role and not funny enough...a tough break, but hey who got the Golden Globe nom?) For the lucky lady number two in our reverse triangle...Mary Stuart Masterson! “Who???” went the collective late 80’s minds in the theater lobbies.
Surely you remember her from those hands playing drums in the trailer for SKOW that was shown before Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? No? Oh wait, that wasn’t Masterson, that was (and I think to this date still stands) as the first ever long before teaser trailer for a film that dealt with teen agers minus the giant robots. It would almost ten full months before SKOW would actually get to theaters after FBDO. Still, it was an enigmatic teaser and a direct lead into the opening sequence of the film.
And what an opening, completely different than anything that John Hughes had done before, and certainly a different “vibe” right off the bat from PIP. That, I believe, is in large part to Howard Deutch feeling like he knew his way around the camera and actors this time. PIP was a big success, but it was Deutch’s first film, and even if Hughes wasn’t hanging around set all the time, Deutch was probably feeling pressure to follow in his footsteps and make the film as “Hughesian” as possible. Obviously, this kind of worked as the movie does feel like it was co-directed by Hughes, but has an edgier tone to it and is a little uneven in places. Not so with SKOW. Deutch really took command and made this his film from the get go (he alludes to as much in the director commentary).
While the alternative cool music in the opening is not new to Hughes (he even went so far as to establishing his own label after he’d had so much success launching “fringe” acts and then had so much trouble trying to get the studio to negotiate rights to them that there was never a soundtrack issued for FFBDO - inconceivable!) Anyway, the opener is a driving force that seems to launch the audience into the three way collision these people are on. And note, we get introduced to all three leads (and the villain) right off the bat...again not something that was done in PIP.
The opening is also, ironically, the only time we see Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson’s character) actually drumming (and figure out it was her that the teaser almost a year previous was highlighting). Though she carries the drumsticks with her everywhere...and oh does she know how to use them.
Watts, like Duckie, has the main responsibility for carrying the comedy in much of the film, but she does share it with Keith’s sister, Laura, and the high school “skinhead” Duncan.
I just want to point out, that though PIP also had some top notch talent in their supporting cast (James Spader, Harry Dean Stanton, Annie Potts) and not to detract anything from their performances, the actual impact they had on the main story was a little more tangental than what goes in play with SKOW. Every person, though they are all part of the Hughes cast of high school family and friend characters, actually plays a fairly significant part in moving the story forward, and each becomes a plot point. What’s interesting, is that they never SEEM like plot devices. This is difficult to do and speaks well I think to Hughes ability to actually juggle a LOT of characters and make them all seem like real people you can get to know and make them all important to the story (think of SIXTEEN CANDLES or CHRISTMAS VACATION). However, Deutch goes for more understated than wacky (with once exception being kid sister’s Laura’s scream scene which definitely foreshadows what would make millions in HOME ALONE).
Though again a little off topic, it’s something that I found quite touching. The girl who plays the annoying kid sister (and yes even she who picks on her older brother the whole film, ultimately becomes key in warning him of the fact that the whole date with Amanda is a joke and she doesn’t want to see him hurt) is Maddie Corman. She was about 15 or 16 at the time and had seen that teaser trailer with her parents at Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (yes they shot the teaser before they had finished casting the film) and she got an audition for the movie! Then her mother was diagnosed with cancer...and the production people wanted her for a call back. When she returned to the hospital to see her mother, who was fading, her mom asked if she got the role, and Maddie actually lied to her saying she had gotten it to make her mother happy. She did pass away quickly after that, but Maddie did get the part, and I think she did an amazing job considering what she must of being going through at the time.
John Ashton as Cliff, the dad also plays a big role in the film. While he part seems a little cliche (working class dad wants his kid to get into business college and not art) it is his big argument with Keith at the end of the film over what he did with his college money. It’s important because before that challenge I’m not sure even Keith new what he really was going after with this big date and it became clear to him as he had a chance to explain and defend his actions. It also is the one moment in the film where we get to see Eric Stoltz really get emotional on top (rather than the quieter understated performance he had been delivering - which don’t get me wrong I think was just right for his character) but wow when those two let loose on each other I really felt the frustration, anger AND the love they felt as father and son. Don’t underestimate this small moment as those types of scenes are really tough for a parent to play the “adult” and a human being that maybe the teens could actually communicate with. Again, it’s a counterpoint to Andie’s heartfelt breakdown asking her father to let her mother go...a great scene that explains backstory but I don’t know that it was really moving PIP forward, and it places Andie in the parent role, in SKOW Cliff never stops being the Dad, but he also sees why this means so much to his son.
That leads me to another thought. When the BREAKFAST CLUB came out, one critic treated it very derisively, actually referring to it as a bunch of winy angst ridden teen agers who don’t know what REAL problems are. This critic completely missed the point of the film. These peer fueled pressure situations / parental relationship issues ARE huge problems in their lives. And, like BACK TO THE FUTURE pointed out, how you navigate in this critical era, may well define you for the rest of it. For Keith, if he doesn’t face down the rich, arrogant, controlling, manipulating jerks now, then WHEN will he? He can put the money back...and that is a good point. I’m not going to advocate being financially irresponsible, however as a good friend of mine commented....”time is NOT money, time is MORE important than money. You can always re get more money, but you can’t BUY time.”
I don’t know what YOUR cause is (yes each of you reading this), but when, like Keith, you know in your heart what it is you are supposed to do, the mountain you have to climb, the purpose you are where you are in when you are - when you know that ONE thing (What is it? That’s what you gotta figure out...*). If you don’t take that leap, or that step, or grab onto that ladder and hang on tight with both hands**, you risk losing it forever. Don’t risk losing forever.
O.K., now you may all be getting a sense of why SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL is such a good film to me. Perhaps it’s because it’s guy centric (I mean, Andie’s decision to go to prom alone was also a similar moment) but for some reason the blow up between Keith and Cliff just brought it home so much stronger for me. You also probably have figured out that I’ve barely touched on the original purpose of this blog, and that was to compare the main characters and actors and their roles as well as the endings to the films. I actually think they BOTH work pretty well, but one evolved more naturally as the other. PIP - was forced into a semi awkward switch at the last moment that, while a better crowd pleaser than the original ending, is still a bit jarring.
SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL also had a last minute surprise switch at the ending! But I’ll bet you never noticed it.... I’ll get to that next time (which I promise will be before Mother’s Day, 2010) because for right now, I think I need to cut this particular entry to it’s own unexpected...to be continued....
(now aren’t you all happy I only bust these BLOGs out 3 or 4 times a year?)
Oh yeah, movie references for the eagle eyed
*City Slickers
**The Last Starfighter
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment