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SHOW NOTES: Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

Some Kind of Wonderful

Synopsis

  • Some Kind of Wonderful: Blue-collar teen Keith goes out with the popular Amanda, a girl he has always dreamed of dating. Her ex-boyfriend plots revenge on him, while Keith’s tomboy best friend Watts realizes she has feelings for Keith. 

Actors & Crew

  • Eric Stoltz born 9/30/1961 in Whittier, CA and raised in Santa Barbara. He dropped out of USC studying drama his junior year and moved to NYC in 1981 and studied acting to pursue film and television roles. Director Cameron Crowe and Stoltz became friends when the latter appeared in his first feature film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Stoltz was cast in each of Crowe’s next four films, The Wild Life (1984), Say Anything… (1989), Singles (1992) and  Jerry Maguire(1996). Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. His view of the movie clashed, however, with that of the director, Robert Zemeckis. While the film was to become a sci-fi comedy (and box office smash hit), Stoltz had read the script from a more serious angle, apparently focusing on the tragic consequences of going back to live a life that was not one’s own. Five weeks into shooting, Zemeckis replaced Stoltz with Michael J. Fox. Stoltz appeared in Pulp Fiction, and went on to produce 3 films. He then appeared on and off Broadway and was nominated for a Tony award for Featured Actor for his performance as George Gibbs in the 1989 Broadway revival of Thornton Wilder‘s Our Town.
    • He went on in the 90’s to have a recurring role in “Mad About You” and “Chicago Hope” and was a regular director for the show “Glee”
    • Stoltz has been married since 2005 to singer Bernadatte Moley
    • He was 25 at the time of filming
  • Mary Stuart Masterson born 6/28/66 in LA. As a teenager, she attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York with actors Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Cryer. Later, she attended schools in New York, including eight months studying anthropology at New York University. 
    • Masterson’s first film appearance was in The Stepford Wives (1975) at the age of eight, playing a daughter to her real-life father.
    • Masterson was in Some Kind of Wonderful, Fried Green Tomatoes,  What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and Bed of Roses.
    • Masterson appeared in Broadway theater productions and in 2020, she appeared in a starring role in the first season of the legal drama “For Life”. In 2023, she appeared in Five Nights at Freddy’s.
    • She has been married 3 times and has 4 children.
    • She was 20 at the time of filming
  • Lea Thompson born 5/31/61 in Minnesota. Thompson’s most famous role is that of Lorraine Baines McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy, with the first film released in 1985. In 1986, Thompson starred in SpaceCamp and Howard the Duck. Rounding out film appearances in the late 1980s, Thompson starred in Some Kind of Wonderful, Casual Sex?, and The Wizard of Loneliness. Thompson found moderate critical and popular success as the star of the NBC sitcom Caroline in the City from 1995 to 1999. In 1988, Lea Thompson won the Young Artist Award for “Best Young Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama” for her performance in the film.
    • She studied ballet as a child (as did her older brother Andrew) and was dancing professionally by age 14, winning scholarships to the San Francisco Ballet, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre. At 20, Thompson was dancing with American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company, then known as ABT II. Mikhail Baryshnikov, who was the artistic director at the time, told her, “You’re a lovely dancer, but you’re too stocky.”She said it was “my epiphany when I decided to stop dancing and not be a ballet dancer.”
    • We will meet her husband in a minute.
    • Thompson was 25 at filming this movie.
  • Craig Sheffer born 4/23/60 in York, PA. He attended East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania for two years on a sports scholarship, playing baseball and football, until sustaining a knee injury. He dropped out in 1980 to pursue his acting career. He is known for his starring roles as Hardy Jenns in Some Kind of Wonderful(1987), Aaron “Cabal” Boone in Nightbreed (1990), Norman Maclean in A River Runs Through It (1992), Joe Kane in The Program (1993), Joseph in Bliss (1997), and as Keith Scott on the television seriesOne Tree Hill
    • He was 26 at filming.
  • John Ashton born 2/22/48. Passed away 9/26/24 at 76. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, Ashton attended Defiance College in Ohio and was a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Theatre and Dance. Ashton starred as Detective Sergeant John Taggart in the first two installments of the Beverly Hills Cop series, alongside Eddie Murphy and Judge Reinhold. He appeared as Eric Stoltz‘s character’s father in the 1987 John Hughes-penned comedy-drama Some Kind of Wonderful, and worked with Hughes again in She’s Having a Baby in 1988. He had some co-starring roles and then he appeared in 2024’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. He passed away 2 months after the premiere.
    • He was 39 at filming
  • Also cameos by Candace Cameron Burre and Chyna Phillips
  • Howard Deutch (director) born 9/14/1950. He was born in NYC and attended Ohio State University (WITH DAD???)
    • Directed Pretty In Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful with John Hughes. Also directed Grumpier Old Men, The Odd Couple II, and The Whole Ten Yards. He went on to direct television productions including “Getting on” and “True Blood”.  
    • Deutch teaches the Saturday advanced acting and directing class at the Beverly Hills Playhouse.
    • Deutch and Lea Thompson started dating after filming of Some Kind of Wonderful was completed, and they got married in 1989 and are still married today with two daughters.
  • John Hughes (writer)
  • Sidenote: Deutch and Hughes were not happy with the ending of their previous collaboration Pretty in Pink (1986); in the script and the original cut of the film Andy (Molly Ringwald) wound up with her best friend Duckie (Jon Cryer). Test audiences disliked that ending, however, so a new ending was shot where Andy wound up with Blane (Andrew McCarthy).
    • With Some Kind of Wonderful, Hughes decided to re-tell the story, but with the sexes of the main characters switched. Hughes named the three main protagonists—Keith, Watts, and Amanda Jones—as an inside-joke tribute to the Rolling Stones (Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and the Stones’ song “Miss Amanda Jones”, respectively). Hughes wanted Ringwald to play the female lead role of Watts, but she declined in order to pursue more adult roles; she also thought the character of Amanda seemed too similar to the character she played in The Breakfast Club. Hughes took this refusal personally, and it led to the end of Hughes’s and Ringwald’s working relationship.

Budget & Locations

Filming began on August 11, 1986 and ended October of 1986

Released February 27, 1987

Budget:  no official budget recorded, but said to be in single digit millions.

Grossed: $18.9mil

This film was shot in Los Angeles in the summer of 1986. Locations include San Pedro High School, Hancock Park, and the Hollywood Bowl.

Rewatch verdict and Cringe Meter

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film, giving it 3 stars out of four and wrote how he admired its clever re-examination of a common film trope: the film “is not about whether the hero will get the girl. It is about whether the hero should get the girl, and when was the last time you saw a movie that even knew that could be the question?”

Janet Maslin of The New York Times stated that Some Kind of Wonderful is the “much-improved, recycled version of the Pretty in Pink story”.

Richard Schickel of Time criticized the film for being unrealistic. Masterson’s look and performance were singled out for praise by several critics.

Cringe Meter

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