Movie of the Day: "Some Kind of Wonderful" (1987)

So we conclude John Hughes week tonight with another Howard Deutch directed entry, and it's essentially the reverse of Pretty in Pink, but with the appropriate ending this time. Eric Stoltz is the working class Keith, who's in love with the rich and popular Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), and oblivious to the fact that his tomboy best pal Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) is in love with him. Lea Thompson is in the same league with Andrew McCarthy's Blane as far as charisma goes, so thankfully in this one our hero makes the right choice in the triangle. This is the least celebrated of the Hughes high school canon (probably even Weird Science is better known), but the best part of this movie is the really strong chemistry between Keith and Watts. Whereas you could never really see Andie winding up with Duckie either in Pretty in Pink, in this one there's no doubt these two belong together. A sweet romance to cap off John Hughes week in Back to School Month.

Trailer from 1987: 

Movie of the Day: "Sixteen Candles" (1984)

The movie that gave us Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall and director John Hughes. A sweet and funny coming-of-age comedy that to be honest, is probably the most dated of the high school movies this week (some of the Long Duck Dong stuff is cringeworthy now), but it's still pretty funny in most of the other spots. Anthony Michael Hall, especially, is great in his quintessential role as the "Geek." Poor, mopey Samantha is bummed when her whole family forgets her birthday, but all is right with the world when she finally gets noticed by Jake, the most popular guy in school (let's just pretend Michael Schoeffling doesn't look about twenty years older than 15-year-old Molly Ringwald here). One of the most memorable freeze-frame endings in the movies.

Trailer from 1984: 

TRAILER #2: "Blue is the Warmest Color"

The first U.S. trailer for the Palme D'Or winner has no dialogue, which bugs me. I don't know why they always do that for foreign language films here- are they trying to trick people?  Or do they think people who watch trailers are too lazy to even read subtitles for 10 seconds? The critically acclaimed movie is coming out on October 25th, and as I mentioned before, it got slapped with the NC-17 rating, so we'll see how many theaters will actually play it.

 

Movie of the Day: "Pretty in Pink" (1986)

John Hughes week continues in Back to School month, with this third teen classic that was actually not directed by him (Howard Deutch did the honors here), just written and produced, but his fingerprints were all over it nonetheless. His third collaboration with Molly Ringwald, the teen queen of the 80's, was about a girl from the wrong side of the tracks (literally in this case), who falls for pasty rich boy Blane (ugh). I never liked Andrew McCarthy in that role, and always wanted Ringwald's Andie to end up with Duckie (Jon Cryer), no matter how much of dork he was. But the best reason to see this is for James Spader, who casually steals every single scene as Blane's best friend Steff, with that smug Spader superiority fully in place. He's unintentionally hilarious, which just makes the movie better. (One more thing about this film- the clothes are particularly out of control here, it's almost like an 80's parody movie even though it came out in '86. People seriously dressed like this? Yikes).

Original Trailer from 1986: 

TRAILER: "Great Expectations"

This is a new version of one of my favorite novels, and it's from English director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). My favorite version of this story is David Lean's film from 1946 (you should really check that one out if you haven't seen it, it's great), but I'm sure I'll see this one too when it comes around. Out in limited release Nov 8th.

Leonardo Dicaprio to play Woodrow Wilson?

THR reports that Leo Dicaprio is set to produce and star in a biopic (he sure does a lot of those) about our 28th president, based on the new biography by Scott Berg. Woodrow Wilson was one of our most controversial presidents, whose terms left us the Federal Reserve and the League of Nations, but he was very weak on things like civil rights and civil liberties. He was also the only president to marry in the White House, after his first wife died in 1914. His life provides movie material as good as any other, but I don't know if I can see Leo playing him. For some reason I think of him as more suited to somebody like Teddy Roosevelt. What do you think?

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Movie of the Day: "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986)

Probably my second favorite John Hughes movie (I seem to be going in descending order), I can never get tired of Ferris's antics, no matter how dated they might now seem (would any high school principal be that obsessed over one kid missing 9 days in a semester? And how many has Cameron missed anyway? It's got to be at least that many). Matthew Broderick shines in the title role, as the cocky rich kid who gets away with everything, but has a good heart at his core and does it all for his miserable pal. It's the most lightweight of the John Hughes high school movie canon, but also the most fun. Plus, there's a young Charlie Sheen in a bit part that turned out to be kind of an eerily prophetic role.

Trailer from 1986: 

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935)

This cult classic is finally out on blu-ray this week, and it still stands up as one of the nuttiest, most subversive comedies ever to pass as a horror movie. Directed by James Whale, who'd done the 1931 original in a fairly straightforward fashion and decided to go all out with the sequel, tossing in double entendres and camp characters, all of which went unnoticed by the oblivious public at the time. The transformation scene is still awe-inspiring.

Original trailer from 1935: