Review of Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) by Chad F — 17 Apr 2008

I had never even heard of this movie until last night when I was looking through my girlfriend's DVD collection. When I first flipped it over, I though to myself, "What is THIS? The L Word or something? A total dyke movie???" At first glance, I thought it was 3 butch looking women, until I gave it a minute to sink in, and saw that Eric Stoltz was a man, a pretty good looking one at the time, and that this was a John Hughes movie! Then my girlfriend added, "That's my favorite movie of all time!". I was interested...

Movie kicks off to a great start immediately with a bad ass new wave song over Mary Masterson rocking out on her drums with a big heart on her snare head! You can already tell this movie is going to be pretty serious, and some sort of a period piece. And it is! Eric Stoltz character introduction is amazing...walking right up to a train, playing chicken on his own, and you can tell he is 100% not scared or threatened. He casually walks to the side of it just before it hits him, what a bad ass! Lea Thompson does her job, accurately, as the popular girl who wants to give this random nobody kid a chance because her last boyfriend was an asshole. And by the way, Lea Thompson's super 80's rico suave ken doll of a boyfriend is one of the best characters in the movie! He is a douchebag to the extreme! The only other character who matches him in awesomeness is DUNCAN, the rebel punk rocker of the school, spending every day in detention, played by whoever that dude is that plays CASEY JONES in the Ninja Turtles movie! I'm sorry I'm talking about the characters so much but this movie is ALL in the characters. Mary Stuart as WATTS is the most adorable character in the movie! I haven't seen many people pull off the "teen angst"y, super-critical, talk shit about everyone personality like she does! It's so believable but it's so cute! And when she's sad you'll want to cry with her like a puppy.

Solid direction and soundtrack. Plenty of interesting plot twists and turns to keep you intensely excited. And like I said, AMAZING characters! You even get to see Candace Cameron at about age 6 as the bookworm little sister! She's so smart. Definitely check this out if you like John Hughes, love stories, teen dramas, 80's era stuff, or if you just like straight up good movies!