Adjusting to our new, sedentary lifestyles these days is a challenge. I’m somehow simultaneously keeping up with work that is due later and procrastinating on work that is due sooner. My newly shortened commute of four feet from bed to desk is one that has presented more of a challenge than I supposed it would, but I’m hanging in there. I hope you are, too!
One thing that has resulted from quarantine is that I am watching a lot more TV and movies than usual. I’m trying to get time in for a bit of everything—homework, a walk, reading, writing, coloring, at least a few minutes on Headspace—but movies tend to take over when I’m tired, and being stuck inside almost all of the time manages to exhaust me. So, my USB DVD player is working overtime as of late. One of the movies I watched recently was Some Kind of Wonderful. For all of the shut-ins out there keeping yourselves and others safe, here’s the Bitchin’ Bio. You can find the trailer here.
Release Date: February 27, 1987
Synopsis: High school senior Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz) doesn’t fit in. He’s a working-class artist with a job at a gas station—not exactly the way to make friends in a school full of judging rich kids. As he begins to pursue the beautiful Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), a poor girl who has apparently successfully ingratiated herself with the wealthy students, he is oblivious to his best friend Watts’s (Mary Stuart Masterson) feelings toward him.
How I Watched It: Hulu
Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 1. The Bacon-Hughes connection reigns again.
Come For: A reworked gender-swap of Pretty in Pink (1986), again directed by Howard Deutch and written/produced by John Hughes, for anyone disappointed by the earlier film’s ending (as Hughes himself was).
Stay For: A John Hughes movie set in…. Los Angeles? Incredibly charming performances by Stoltz (Were the rich girls in school really so blind?) and Masterson, including “the kiss that kills.”
Had I Seen It? Once, a few years ago, and parts of it since. I thought it was just “ok” when I first watched it.
Do I Like It? Very much. I don’t know what I was thinking before, because this movie is completely lovely. First, I believe it is more adept at naturally presenting the conflict of class differences than its predecessor. When Amanda is shut out by her so-called best friend for agreeing to go out with Keith, the scene where she is ignored as if invisible is heartbreaking.
Second, I love that the film does not shy away from the fact that though Amanda used Keith (to get away from her cheating, verbally abusive boyfriend, so I don’t blame her), he certainly used her to try to build his own image.
Lastly, the ending is satisfying. Amanda finally choosing to “be alone for the right reasons” shows that she has grown as a character since the film’s start. She is going to find herself without a guy trying to control her in any way, as opposed to Duckie’s ending in Pretty in Pink, in which he immediately has eyes for another girl after Andie. Also, Keith and Watts are adorable together—the line “You look good wearing my future” may seem a bit cheesy, but there’s a reason it is so resilient.
Join me next week for the best ‘80s entertainment to binge-watch when you’re self-isolating!
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