Wonder Boys

I watched this film today for the first time and I love it it's one of my favorite movies Wonder Boys is in my top 5 of all time.

This is not so much a review but to know what you guys thought of the movie all around.

Here's some of the things that I loved about Wonder Boys the snow and rain basically that think called atmosphere also the whole cast was extrodinary and played perfect the dialogue was exquisite & beautiful the Cinemtography I thought should have won at the academies in my opinion.

please tell me everything you loved or disliked about Wonder Boys it would be super cool thanks guys & gals.
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Pattaya Heights Condos

I love Wonder Boys. It's smart and witty and funny and true. It's a real feel-good experience for me that cleanses my soul a bit. I got hooked on it when it was released in February of 2000. I saw it four times in like five days. I couldn't get enough of it. Wound up seeing it six times before it vanished (too quickly) from the theaters. Obviously I connected with it in a big way.

In many ways it's like a Screwball Comedy from the '30s (structurally for sure), but with a decidedly modern spin and a serious subtext, all from the perspective of a hopeful cynic, a man finally experiencing a true awakening of life's importance during one crazy weekend when his world as he knew it crumbles around him. The humor is often hysterical, but also subtle and carefully underplayed.

The cast is perfect. I'm not usually that much of a Michael Douglas fan, but this is easily the best work he's ever done, a very nuanced and resonant performance. Tobey Maguire was likewise perfect for the depressed and on the verge of blooming James Leer. It's too bad Robert Downey Jr. is so troubled in his real life, because he is a dynamic and effortless presence on screen. Frances McDormand is wonderful, as always, and adds layers of reality to her character. Katie Holmes is beyond cute, galloping quickly toward sexy as all Hell. And Rip Torn makes me smile with every word out of his mouth.

Curtis Hanson's direction is so self-assured and confident. It would have been so easy to accidentally turn this novel into a dumb farce or a pretentious borefest. The delicate tone and the layered ideas he sets out to capture are acheived flawlessly. Steve Kloves' screenplay is a spot-on adaptation. The cinematography from Dante Spinotti, who lensed Hanson's L.A. Confidential as well as Michael Mann's Heat, Last of the Mohicans, Manhunter and The Insider, captures a realistic wintery Pittsburgh that is also magically otherworldy at times.

And then there's the music. The tracks from the likes of Neil Young and John Lennon and Leonard Cohen are the perfect soundtrack for this burned-out artist. The original song under the opening credits by Bob Dylan, "Things Have Changed", rightly won the Oscar for Best Song.

Stunningly "Things Have Changed" was one of only three Wonder Boys nominations (and the only win), the other two being Best Editing (Dede Allen) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Kloves). In a year when movies like Gladiator and Chocolat got multiple nominations, a wonderful and intelligent adult comedy like Wonder Boys went all but unnoticed. Oh well, the Academy's loss I guess.

It doesn't fill me with quite as much joy as Rushmore or Amelie, but it's close.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I agree with you 100 percent Holden beautifully said I'm also hook on this movie I've thought about Wonder Boys the whole day since I've watched it thanks Holden for telling me what you thought about it and I loved reading every minute of it what you had to say about this great film thanks again.

Gladiator I thought was ok good entertainment but Wonder boys is so much better to Gladiator in my opinion I don't get the academy they don't make sense to me I don't get it. The car scene in Wonder Boys with Toby and Michael with the back screen projection was so amazingly done by Dante like I said before he should have won an oscar for this film.

I loved this movie when I finally got around to watching it. Something about the ad campaign turned me off, and I didn't go see the movie when it was in theaters (despite having read and enjoyed the book when it was first published).

Well after the Academy Awards, I decided to rent the video, and I wasn't disappointed. The cast really was spot-on. I was surprised with Douglas' performance. After seeing him do the Gordon Gekko thing over and over again, I was beginning to think he was incapable of doing anything else anymore. I was also impressed with Tobey Maguire (who I was not all that familiar with prior to WonderBoys) as well as with Robert Downey, Jr.

One of my favorites of 2000 (well, 2001 for me since I didn't see it until this year).

i haven't seen it. Heard mixed feelings on it, but other than that, just haven't been in the mood for it. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

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"I was walking down the street with my friend and he said, "I hear music", as if there is any other way you can take it in. You're not special, that's how I receive it too. I tried to taste it but it did not work." - Mitch Hedberg

Lemmie know how you liked it. It doesn't strike me as something you would like...could be wrong.

havent seen it because my parents hated it, but i guess i will now

LB u should change your top ten then

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"Who comes at 12:00 on a Sunday night to rent Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid?"
-Hollywood Video rental guy to me

Do you remember what your parents said, Mecurdius, what they didn't like about Wonder Boys?

hmmm.. cant remember and neither can she, but i thinks its something like how my mom hates micheal douglas, and how my dad has horrible taste in movies. It was in my pre-movie obsession days.

Well, if you liked American Beauty, I think you'll find much to like about Wonder Boys too. Different tones, and this isn't quite as 'dark' overall as American Beauty, but it is a similar kind of thing, and both main characters go through a sort of personal awakening about their lives.

Of the two, Wonder Boys is much more my style, because though I loved Spacey's performance I thought American Beauty was kind of obvious and overrated - but I know I'm in the minority on that one. Anyway, I don't think you'll HATE Wonder Boys. It might not rocket to the top of your all-time faves, but I don't think you'll pop it out of the machine and throw it across the room in frustration either.

*cringe* I'd rather not debate this, but at least you recognize you're the minority on that one.
Woder Boys delivers on all counts...direction...acting( especially Toby McGuire)...and content of story. All around enjoyable, just don't expect fast paced drama, it's not exactly slow, but it's not quick.

Yeah I usually fix my top 100 when I get a whole bunch to work on which are going to go in and which aren't going to go in like every 2 weeks to a month but it's getting harder and harder all the time I also have these others that I'm thinking about putting in my top 100 as well plus Wonder boys directed by Hanson

Le Denner Combat - Directed by Besson

Say Anything - Directed by Crowe

Memento - Directed by Nolan

Breaking Away - Directed by Yates

Carnel Knowledge - Directed by Mike Nicoles

Hurlyburly - Directed by Anthony Drazan

Requiem for a Dream - Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Pi - Directed by Darren Aronofsky
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Park Lane Jomtien Resort Condos

I absolutely adore this film and watch it regularly.

A perfect script full of wit and intelligence, featuring multi dimensional charecters is the driving force behind my love for this brilliant film.

All the cast are in top form Micheal Douglas looses the ego and adopts a slouch, Frances McDormand is brilliant as usual and Robert Downey Jnr proves once again he is a brave and talented actor.

Tobey Maguire is perfectly cast as James the misunderstood child who forces Douglas to confront life while experiencing it for the first time himself.

The film truly engages the mind and entertains. Curtis Hanson's direction is perfectly under stated through out. Every scene is a treasure unto itself and has so much to say.

What more can I say other than the filmis perfectly shot and stands tall above just about any competition form that year.

everyone must see.

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******"The Majority Is Always Wrong" Steve Mcqueen in Enemy Of The People******

I really love this film too. It's funny because I saw Traffic where Douglas plays this guy who fights drugs and the next thing I saw was Wonder Boys where he's this pot-smoking slob. Talk about different kinds of characters.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

Wonder Boys is a wonderful film, and Kong agrees with all of the positvie things you folks have said about it.

The author of the novel, Michael Chabon, is adapting the book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genuis (by Dave Eggers) for the screen. Kong is very interested to see the results. Anybody else read Chabon's book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? It's really good, and Chabon has already finished the screenplay for it, but it seems too large and dense to be trimmed into a two hour film.

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Kong's Reviews:
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Haven't read the book, Kong, but I have two Chabon books here on my dresser -- and on my ever-growing list of books-I-should-read-next (Wonder Boys and Mysteries of Pittsburgh).

I adored Wonder Boys, even beyond being able to say during half the scenes, "Hey, I've been there" or "That's really a bowling alley." They used Pittsburgh well in this movie, and yes, we've had times where it's snowing one day and raining and turning it all to slush the next. The weather is a great element in this movie and really adds to the background feeling throughout.

Acting is superb (I actually like Douglas in most things, but this was such a stretch from his usual that I'm still amazed at how natural he was for the part -- his best work). Settings are great. Story is hilarious without being slapstick about it. (It could easily have lost its balance but didn't.) The growing troubles that build around Tripp as the movie goes on never get to the point where they seem unrealistic. And I drive by the place where they filmed the "flying manuscript" scene a couple times a week and it makes me chuckle every single time.

It's one of those movies that, every time I see it come onto HBO, I end up putting it on and watching it all the way through, even if I don't really have the time. (And I even own the DVD, but still end up watching it when it comes on.)

Good movie, under-appreciated.

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I love Wonder Boys. Unfortunately I don't own the DVD yet. But in time.

I have to ask those of you who have read the book. Is the ending the same in the film as in the book? Me and a friend watched it some weeks ago and he mentioned that, even though he just like me loved the film, he thought the ending felt a little influenced by company bosses' demands for a feel-good ending, if you know what I mean. So, Kong or anybody else, what is it?