Some Kind of Wonderful
For someone whose entire career only lasted about 14 years, John Hughes left an aggressive filmography behind. I've written over 200 of these VHS of the Week entries over the last 5 years and I want to say Hughes has been mentioned in about half of them! (Actual count: 4 reviews). Between directing, writing, and producing, dude was absolutely omnipresent in the 1980’s. He was the Robert Pollard of 80’s flicks! And if you understand that reference please take out your phone and Venmo yourself $10. Legend had it that Hughes could hammer out original screenplays in under two weeks or some crazy bullshit. Nowhere was this hyper productivity on more vivid display than between the years of 1986-1987....where the following things happened: first, Hughes directed and released both Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Planes Trains and Automobiles, the latter of which is the greatest film ever made. Second: Pretty in Pink, a film that he wrote but did not direct, was released in January of 1986. Those of y’all who are down with the Pink surely know that the flick’s ending, where our heroine Andie (Molly Ringwald) rejects her long-suffering, hard-crushing BFF Duckie (Jon Cryer) in favor of the loathsome preppie Blane (Andy McCarthy), is one of the most divisive endings in film history. Growing up, I was firmly on Team Duckie. When I was in my early teens, I explained my PIP-related allegiances to my late Aunt Lorie and got the following response: “Dude, fuck Duckie. Why would she want to be with a guy who is annoying as shit?? Besides–Andrew McCarthy is HOT, dude!” Really made me think! You know who else was on team Ducky? John Hughes! His original ending, in which Andie and Duckie end up together, tested in the shitter so Paramount gently forced him to reshoot an alternate ending where Andie ends up with the star of Weekend and Bernie’s 1 & 2. Pretty in Pink opened to solid reviews, did brisk business at the box office, and is widely recognized as a quintessential 1980’s teen comedy. All’s well that ends well, eh? Not if your name is/was John Hughes. According to Wikipedia (where all of the information in this paragraph was lifted from wholesale), Hughes was so cheesed off that he had to change the ending of Pretty in Pink, he decided to rewrite the film, swapping around gender roles, just to give himself the ending he originally wanted. That’s right–John Hughes was so prolific, and has such immense clout in the mid 80’s, that he wrote an entirely new movie as a giant fuck you to his OWN MOVIE, hired the SAME GUY to direct it (Howie Deutch), and had it in theaters 13 months after Pretty in Pink.
This Pretty in Pink reboot is called Some Kind of Wonderful and we’re gonna spend some time talking about it here today. What happens is this: the opening credits of this movie are PREGNANT with info!! There’s so much character development in these little snatches of action that we already know the entire setup by the time the “Directed By'' credit crosses the screen. First we meet our “hero” Keith (a pancake makeup encrusted Eric Stoltz), who works in a gas station and seems like a generally morose motherfucker. We know this because he has a habit of almost walking into oncoming trains in his spare time. Then there’s Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), who wears overalls and has short hair and who will be referred to as a “tomboy” about 17 times before the end of the movie. Watts is shown playing drums over the opening credits, right, but it’s total bullshit ‘cuz whatever song she’s playing along to has electronic drums and she’s totally playing an analog kit. Every time she cracks her ride cymbal we hear this ungodly computerized GUZZSH! Drum-related authenticity matters, OK!? And then there’s Amanda Jones (Howard the Duck’s Lea Thompson), who mostly skulks around the high school sucking the face of Hardy Jenns (Craig Sheffer), who doesn’t look a day younger than 35. You may have noticed that I just mentioned high school. The reason for this is that all of these characters are supposed to be in high school. You know I’m always jaggin’ on flicks for casting mad old heads as high school students but dude…ALL of the main actors in this movie are 26 years old (Note: MSM is much younger…but still old enough to buy you a sixer). Also–in case you weren’t following, the 3 main characters (Keith, Watts, and Jones) were named as such in a tribute to The Rolling Stones (I mean–I wasn’t following either. I stole it for Wikipedia…like the rest of this article). In fact, “Amanda Jones” is actually the name of a Stones tune…their 236th most popular! They couldn’t have at least cast a hamster in this movie and named it Mick Taylor?? That motherfucker never gets any respect!
Anyway, Keith is from a blue collar family whose patriarch, Cliff, is totally the dude who played Taggert in Beverly Hills Cop. Despite his current position as auto mechanic, Keith is showing a real flair for the artistic. And Pops boasts that Keith is destined to go to college and become “the first member of the family who doesn’t have to wash his hands after a day’s work.” Ummm…dude, you should ALWAYS be washing your friggin’ hands no matter how you spend your days! Has Covid taught you nothing?? Keith mostly hangs out in his room sulking, listening to his General Public 45’s… when he isn’t beating the shit out of his younger sister Laura (movie-stealing Ford Fairlane star Maddy Corman). Seems like a real zero, this Keith. Somehow, he manages to maintain a best friendship with Watts, even though she’s a tomboy from the wrong side of the tracks who was raised by two imaginary brothers. They roll into school together almost every day. Watts carries a set of drumsticks with her at all times, in case someone holds her up and forces her to play Rush’s YYZ at gunpoint. When they arrive at school, they’re confronted by the leather-clad bully Duncan (Elias Koteas…looking every single one of his 26 years). He calls Watts a lesbian…which points to this movie’s extemely unfortunate plot device. I know it was the 80’s and the only well known queer woman on the planet was Sandra Behrhard…but this flick tries to play it up like Watts is gay. Big time. Like I’m watching it for the first time since probably 1987 and I can already foresee the scene where Watts gets an Ally Sheedy/Breakfast Club-style makeover and becomes “hot.” If that happens I’m gonna smash my VCR. You’ve been warned! Anyway, Duncan calls Keith and Watts a bunch of homophpic slurs and Keith calls Duncan a wimp (shiver) but the principal intervenes before any violence goes down. The principal shakes Duncan down and comes up with a pack of cigs, a fifth of scotch, and a deck of naked lady playing cards cuz kid is THAT nasty! What does he do to him? Sends him to detention. Lax!
Keith wanders the halls of Wherever High casually stalking Amanda Jones and waiting for opportunities to watch her play tonsil hockey with her boyfriend. Keith sees Amanda and Hardy making out…but he also sees Hardy locking lips with a different girl. And OH SHIT! Amanda sees it too! Hardy tries to play it off like “ummm….I was just trying to help my buddy’s little sister with her long division!” Amanda gives him a pass cuz this is a gross movie. Later, Keith tells Watts that he’s in love…ACTUAL LOVE….with Amanda and asks Watts what she thinks of her. She tells Keith not to be a slave to the male sex drive and not to “go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs.” I bet Hughes gave himself a high five after he wrote that line. So…we already get it: Watts is not actually gay but in love with Keith. Duly noted! Later that night, while Keith is working his shift at the Sunoco, Hardy and Amanda roll in for a tank full of unleaded. Hardy goes out of his way to humiliate Keith. He’s all “check my tire pressure! Squeegee the windshield, bitch!” When Keith casts a sideways glance at Amanda, Hardy tells him to keep his eyes off of “my property.” My property!? MY PROPERTY!?? If I could kill this movie…I would. The next day at school, Amanda’s tennis coach catches her sneaking off with Hardy and gives her two weeks’ detention. Jesus Christ, man–two weeks?? How much did the other dude get for showing up to school shitfaced on Christian Brothers?? Keith hears about this and somehow gets himself detention too (honestly—I have NO IDEA why. And I was sober when I watched this movie. Maybe I was temporarily distracted by one of my cats. They’re SO CUTE!). Keith shows up to detention to find Duncan, a black guy, Ian Astbury from The Cult, and some other dude doin’ bumps off of a machete. You know who isn’t in detention? Amanda Jones. See she went to the principal and said “surely you won’t let a pretty lady like me sit in detention with an all male cast of deadbeat hooligans” and the principal agrees to let her serve out her detentions in his private office…which is way creepier than anything going on in actual detention!
Speaking of creepy! Later that day or whenever, Amanda heads to the locker room, cranks up the smoke machine, and does her tennis stretches in her bra and panties. Watts looks on from behind a row of lockers and drools all over herself. I mean…who wouldn’t!? I know the director of this film was peepin’ because he promptly married Lea Thompson and is still married to her as of this writing, some 35 years later. According to Keith’s sister Laura, Amanda IS sex. I mean…is she?? This character reads like Tawny Kitean. Don’t get me wrong….I LOVE Lea Thompson and have since I was 8 damn years-old…but zero things about her scream “heartless sex bomb.” Nevertheless, Keith is twisted up over her for reasons that are not, and cannot be explained. They never even converse! He just follows her out to a club one night and asks her out on a date. And since she’s had enough of dickhead Hardy, she reluctantly agrees. To make matters as awkward as possible, he asks her out in front of Watts, who sits on the hood of her car and not so silently stews, tapping out triplets with her Pearl drumsticks. Watts decides to hire a guy to publicly hit on her in front of Keith to try to make him jealous…but numb nuts is oblivious and asks Watts to borrow her car so he can give Amanda a ride home from school. Ice cold! When Watts’ car won’t start, Keith ends up catching a lift from Amanda in her pal’s dank Suzuki sidekick, sending Hardy into a jealous rage. I’m not sure what homeboy is worried about ‘cuz Amanda and Keith have less than zero chemistry. Seriously, Even Amanda’s friend is like “yo, why don’t you tell that loser that you don’t want to go out with him??” Why indeed.
Hardy confronts Keith in the art room and tells him that it’s no big shakes. That he’s happy to have someone take his “property” off of his hands. He even invites Keith to his upcoming rich white people mansion party just to show that there’s no bad blood. Ahhh but then Hardy goes bombing into the ladies locker room and tells Amanda that he’s gonna pound Keith’s ass at said party. When the gym teacher asks this chooch what he’s doing in the ladies’ locker room, he replies that there’s “nothing in here I haven’t seen before” and then calls the teacher a bitch. Man, how many detentions is THAT!? Laura overhears this convo and tries to warn her big bro that the entire date is a big setup designed to bring violence upon him but dude is undeterred. He tries to firm up his date plans with Amanda but they can’t even make it through a conversation without sneering at each other. He’s all “when you wanna go out?” and she’s all “I don’t” and he’s all “fine, 7:30 then?” and she’s all “fine, FUCK YOU!!” Keith enlists Watts in his date preparation plans, which mostly involve her telling him that Amanda does not like him in any way…which is glaringly obvious to everyone who is not named Keith. Watts and Keith make a trip to the bank, where he withdraws his ENTIRE college tuition savings and proceeds to spend it on a pair of diamond earrings for Amanda. Man, I think all of that pancake makeup this kid is wearing is seeping into his bloodstream and fucking with his brain. After their shopping spree, Watts cautions Keith that he better be up on his kissing game as Amanda has “battle scars.” GAH! Watts suggests that Keith should make out with HER so he won’t be out of practice…which is nothing that ever happened between anyone ever! So they start going at it, like, hard! Watts is like “nice…no show me how you do cunnilingus!” I kid…I kid–this is a PG-13 flick!
While Keith is showering up for the big event, his pops flies into the bathroom all “DUDE…fuck happened to your college tuition money!??” Keith is super nonplussed about his dad’s boiling, white hot rage. He says that he has a tough life ‘cuz he’s an art kid with a tomboy friend and that he just wants to show Amanda that he’s “as good as anyone else.” I’m not sure how much 4 years of college cost in 1987. Maybe $50k?? That’s a lot of cheddar to drop on one date with someone who openly hates you! I mean–did he think about how he was gonna pay for a SECOND date??
So now it’s time for the big event and, to make things as inexplicable as possible, Keith makes Watts chauffeur them all over town. Oh come ahhhhnnn!!! They have reservations at Spago or some shit and Keith orders the chef’s tasting menu with the add on Osetra Caviar. Does this improve relations or impress Amanda? It does not…no. She calls him a loser with no friends. He tells her to eat another crostini and pretend he’s dead. “I wish,” she says. I WISH!!! Holy shit, dudes. After dinner, Keith arranges a private tour of the LA County Museum of Art (did I mention that this movie takes place in Los Angeles and not Chicago? Well…it does). I guess the bully Duncan was tight with the night time security guard and helped arrange for Keith to take a private after hours tour. OH! And he somehow let Keith hang his own painting of Amanda on the museum’s wall!! They better take that shit down before the museum opens for business the following morning. People be all like “why is the mom from Back to the Future hanging on the wall?” Then…THEN…he brings her to the Hollywood Bowl…the actual Hollywood Bowl…where he has unrestricted access to the entire joint! They get to just roam around on the stage. Amanda is like “this is cool and all but you think you coulda brought me here when INXS was playin??” He tells her that he knows that she used him to make Hardy jealous…and that he’s about to get his clock cleaned at that party. Amanda says “we used each other.” Does he still give her the $25000 earrings? Yes he does. Then they hold hands and kiss with all the warmth of a million Siberian winters. While all of this is happening, Watts sits alone in the 20th row, glowering at the stage like a Tom Petty fan who didn’t get to hear “American Girl.”
Keith decides they should still go to Hardy’s party (heh) because this movie needs to end somewhere somehow. When they arrive, Hardy tells Keith that he’s just glad that he’s getting Amanda “used.” Soooo much slut shaming in this friggin’ movie. Keith attacks Hardy, whose goons are agitating for a battle royale…but Hardy demurs. Says he’s hosting and has scallops wrapped in bacon to pass around. Keith is clearly outmatched but then Duncan shows up with the entire detention class and offers to wipe the floor with Hardy’s ass. Ass floor. Gross. Turns out Duncan isn’t such a bad guy after all, casual homophobia aside. Hardy tells Amanda he’ll take her back if she begs but she’s all set. She slaps him in the face and peaces out. Outside the party, Amanda returns those expensive ass earrings, telling Keith that she knows he really wants to give them to someone else. I mean…does he?? There’s like one minute left in this movie and I still have no idea what makes this kid tick! Also–I could be wrong here but I don’t think Amanda and Watts have spoken a single word to each other in this entire movie! I’m pretty sure she only knows Watts as the Uber driver from earlier.
Keith catches up to Watts and slides her the earrings, dickishly saying “you knew you’d get these.” He just spent his life savings on ONE date with this other gal…HOW/WHY would she suspect Keith would give her the earrings!? She’s probably seen Pretty in Pink and knows that the best friend gets ditched in the end! But nope…Watts says “I had a feeling.” They kiss. Keith says “my future looks good on you.” BARF! So what? She’s your property now?? So they live happily ever after and you know what song isn’t in this movie? Some Kind of Wonderful! Ain’t that some shit!? The end.