Wonder Boys

Rating:
Summary: Strangely original. One of the 10 BEST of 2000
Review: Michael Douglas delivers a most wonderful performance in this strange, but powerfully original comedy.
Curtis Hanson is back (and in such a way!) with a movie than no one should miss. The Academy Award-Winning Co-writer of L.A. Confidential gathers some really great actors, performing a screenplay that leaves nothing without an end; fascinating!
Well, definitely, this movie has, mainly, two aspects that should, and were awarded in some ceremonies: 'Things Have Changed' by Bob Dylan (the award-winning song), and the most marvelous cinematography of the year.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Movie of 2000
Review: As really good movies are becoming fewer and farther between, we get excellence like this. The best of the year.

Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: This is one of those films that's not really about much, but has plenty of strange incidentals. In it we follow Tripp, who seems to be permanently unlucky, who gets himself into endless amounts of trouble along with dark student James and his editor Crabtree. What really makes the film so compelling is its outstanding performances, particularly from Maguire and McDormand. Also impressive is the way in which the film itself is narrated by Douglas, making the whole thing seem like a real novel. Of course at the end that's precisely what it is, and that explains why all the ends are so neatly tied up at the end. You'll like this film, but you won't know why.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best films of Year 2000!
Review: "Wonder Boys" is both funny and original, with characters that are nicely developed. I was surprised at just how much I empathized with all of them. Michael Douglas gives the best performance in the ensemble cast, and I love the running joke that has him looking progressively worse and worse as his troubles pile up. It's also one of the best films on academia I've ever seen. I think it really captured that mixture of angst (gotta publish) and ennui (these articles I'm publishing is ...!) that professors often feel. Shame about the last 5 minutes of the film though.

Rating:
Summary: IT GROWS ON YOU
Review: I saw this movie in the theatre and didn't like it. I ended up seeing it again once it came on video and loved it. All the things that i didn't like about the movie seemed to make sense. Example:Why didn't Michael Douglas's character just bring the stupid coat back as soon as he noticed it was in the book bag. Things like this didn't seem to bother me the second time around. I really enjoyed the movie and thought more deeply about the characters and the things they encounter. So if you didn't like it, give it another chance, you might be surprised.

Rating:
Summary: POOR ADAPTATION OF A GOOD BOOK
Review: This is definitely a poor adaptation of whatever novel this film is based on. You don't have to have read the book to know that stuff has been lost in the screenplay adaptation when characters we know nothing about waltz on the stage and make references to events that weren't even mentioned in film. From what I have gathered of the book the film is based on, the novel is about current and has been geniuses in the literary world. The film, on the other hand, is a self-indulging piece about the glamor of writing. There is a famous refrain about aspiring authors not wanting to actually write, but having written. Meaning that most people do not actually want to labor on a manuscript, rather they would like to bask in the money and the glory of having written a bestseller and struck it big.
The film capitalizes exactly on that. None of the late and future literary greats are actually working or agonizing or failing, instead they play with each others' manuscripts and reap the accolades. I haven't read the book and so I am not sure how accurately the novel treats the subject of writing, but the film is set in an idealized world, where creative writing students are not wasting their lives working on copycat pop cliches that will never be published and an aging pothead of a professor is being chased by a nubile young genius rather than vice versa. In real life, professors tend to push their neuroses and other forms of madness on their students, in this cinematic wonder, the students are as mature as professor and all are equally able to objectively view their creative labors. What merit the book might have had is lost in this film that takes itself way too seriously
to be a comedy that it's meant. The film takes no artistic risks or explores no genuine issues other than making an obligatory bow to political correctness by making a couple of characters gay and giving Eddie Izzard a cameo appearance.
Perhaps one of the reasons that this film is so horrible is that it is a mainstream Hollywood product trying to represent the avant-garde while making it so innocuous that it won'tg offend anyone. Small irony, that this screenplay, probably written by professional studio screeqriters is a slap in the face to anybody who has ever struggled to write or faced a 100% rejection rate. The portrayal of a man who has everything and suffers from a writers block while churning out a 3000 page novel is a self indulgent fantasy not unlike gangsta rap. There are no real issues facing troubled writers; not economic hardships, not peer pressure, instead we have a comfortable rich boy genius whose only problem is that his stiff upper lip parents don't give him enough love and understanding. The professor, who suppsedly loses everything in the end, loses nothing, gets a girl of his dreams and continues in his fairy tale existance. This is the ultimate of the film's commercialism since the picture was being touted as a film about a mid-life crisis. If the film is about writing, then it hasn't got an ounce of reality in it. The twists and plots and conflicts that make the dramatic tension in this film are so contrived and sophomoric, that you have to wonder if the whole thing wasn't written by a creative writing class as a term project. The issues and conflicts raised by the film are so innocuous, it would have been allowed to be screened in Maoist China. The film's only saving grace that I give it three (!!!) stars is that the actors manage to portray cool and engaging people despite the mediocrity of the script and the ridiculousness of the scenes they have to act out one can only wonder how they kept a straight face.

Rating:
Summary: Modern Classic
Review: Michael Douglas demonstrates that he is one of the truely great actors of this time. He plays a college professor who has retreated into constant use of pot to compensate for his inability to produce a follow up to a previous best selling book. Tobey Maguire is his gifted but totally morose student who clings to him as an alternative to his less than attentive parents (real or "imagined") in a wildy improbable but extremely funny weekend. Robert Downey Jr., a sometimes gay publisher, pops in for the weekend to push his author, Douglas, along in finishing his next book in order to salvage his employment with the publishing firm. Frances McDormand is his married lover who announces to Douglas that she is pregnant with his child just as his latest wife has left him. Katie Holmes, another student and wannabe lover, takes time out from her lusting to offer some meaningful insight to Douglas. Throw in a murdered dog, the theft of a Marilyn Monroe artifact, a houseparty, a "crazy" hood jumping man, a great sound track, mixed with humor, an incredible amount of absurdity and even a little pathos and you get "Wonder Boys." If it all sounds a little confusing and a little off center, it is and that, with both a brilliant script and great acting by everyone in the movie, is what makes this a Modern Classic.

Rating:
Summary: not the best of its kind, but a funny film none the less
Review: WONDER BOYS is a smart and funny film, which, after some initial struggle to find the proper balance between comedy and drama, delivers memorable performances by all members of the cast, great music (with a few new songs by Bob Dylan), great photography and lighting, strong dialogue and great directing. One of the things that I find to be the most important part of a film is its characters, and WONDER BOYS has a wide variety of fascinating people in it. Toby Maguire stars as the almost suicidal and compulsive liar, James Leer. We've got Michael Douglas as the weed-smoking professor, Grady Tripp. Robert Downey Jr. (who's just a brilliant actor) plays the gay editor, Terry Crabtree, who becomes fascinated with James Leer, and last ' but by no means least ' there's the two women, Frances McDormand and Katie Holmes, who do their best to tackle a weekend with the 'wonder boys'. But the character that got the most sympathy out of me was not one of the leading roles, it was instead Walter Gaskell (played by Richard Thomas), who during the film, without the fault of his own, ends up with his dog shot and killed, his favourite memorabilia (a Marilyn Monroe jacket) stolen and finally, to top it all of, his wife leaves him: See the film and you'll understand.

Rating:
Summary: Great Film
Review: WOW! I rented this on a fluke (nothing else on the shelf) - but it was so great I ran out and bought it. This is one of the funniest, smartest movies I've seen in a long time. It also shows a whole new side of Michael Douglas - which was a welcome change to me! Would definately advise on getting this gem.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Boys
Review: Wonder Boys is easily one of the most overlooked films of 2000. Michael Douglas gives an awesome performance, as do Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr. The true-to life dramedy explores what happens when you don't trust yourself, or don't have the ability to break free of your mind's own limitations.