Please don't spend money on this.

Critics,are you kidding us

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Wonder Boys (2000): Dir: Curtis Hanson / Cast: Michael Douglas, Tobey Mcguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes, Robert Downey Jr.: Intelligent comedy about brilliant individuals overwhelmed with dread. Michael Douglas plays a professor with writer's block. Tobey Maguire plays a burned out student whom Douglas allows vacancy until his parents are located. Interesting concept that contains a couple unnecessary subplots involving a stolen Marilyn Monroe jacket or the dead dog. Directed by Curtis Hanson as an excellent followup to his masterpiece L.A. Confidential. Douglas struggles with work and commitment as he cannot seem to finish his novel yet distracted by infidelity and his social surroundings. Maguire is superb as a student caught up in theft and drugs but through the care of others, finds redemption. Frances McDormand plays Douglas's infidelity partner whom is pregnant. One wonders whether her final decision is the right one. Katie Holmes plays a student with an obvious attraction to Douglas but fortunately doesn't act upon it. Robert Downey Jr steals moments as Douglas's editor but he is more or less curious as to whether anything is worth publishing. Grand scale screenplay full of detail about inner brilliance within unlawful nature. It shows just what a mess life can become before being torn in all directions like the pages of his new book scattering through the air and into the unknown. Score: 9 / 10

Coming-of- age is not limited to the transition from adolescence to adulthood. A coming-of-age emotionally can occur at any time in one's life. Winner of the AFI award for Movie of the Year in 2001, Wonder Boys features a commanding performance by Michael Douglas as Grady Tripp, a once great novelist who is now a burned out, pot-smoking English Professor at a college in Pittsburgh. Tripp has been working on a massive novel that has grown to 2611 pages for the last seven years, but who has lost the inspiration to complete it.Set on the college campus, Professor Tripp is not having a good day. His wife has just left him, his lover (Frances McDormand), wife of the University Chancellor (Richard Thomas), tells him that she's pregnant, his flamboyant gay editor Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.) is coming from New York for the college's annual writer's festival, and one of his most promising students, James Leer (Tobey McGuire), a brilliant but suicidal young writer, has attached himself to Tripp.Out of these many and varied crises comes a comedy of wit and intelligence that includes such bizarre circumstances as the theft of Marilyn Monroe's fur coat, the unfortunate demise of the Chancellor's dog, a stolen Cadillac, a novel blowing in the wind, and much more. These strange occurrences bring with them the opportunity for Tripp to reassess his life and discover what new directions are open to him. Wonder Boys is brilliantly written, funny, and touching and one of my favorite films of the last decade. It is one of the few films I know that are comfortable with smoking pot and having sex, both gay and straight, not as a manipulative plot device or a display of weakness, but as a part of normal, every day life.

Every now and then a movie comes along which all the leading critics give rave reviews about. But upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that all of the applause was much adieu about nothing. So it is with this film. Having just seen it, I must say that I was not impressed. Michael Douglas (as Professor Grady Tripp) gave an adequate performance. Nothing more and nothing less. Yet for some strange reason he was nominated for both a BAFTA Film Award and a Golden Globe. Good for him. But quite frankly, I don't understand why. Likewise, Frances McDormand won the BSFC Award for "Best Supporting Actress" for her performance as "Dean Sara Gaskell". Again, she performed adequately. But once again, I failed to see anything in her performance that was so outstanding or noteworthy. Then there is the matter of all the awards the film received which includes the BAFTA Film Award for "Best Screenplay" and a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Motion Picture-Drama". Because of this, one might think that this was an extremely good movie which certainly had great acting and a dynamite plot as well. Well, I guess I must have been watching a different movie because to me this film was a meandering collection of characters and events which never seemed to coalesce around anything meaningful or tangible. For example, one of the college students named "Hannah Green" (Katie Holmes) apparently had a crush on Professor Tripp. Okay, things like that happen. But it was nothing more than a side-event that never really went anywhere and didn't add anything significant to the film or even matter in the grand scheme of things. That being the case, I thought Katie Holmes' talent was wasted in this movie. Another rather useless scenario involved a character named, "Vernon Hardapple" (Richard Knox) and his pregnant girlfriend, "Oola" (Jane Adams). Supposedly, Professor Tripp was riding around in a car that had been stolen from Vernon and he was completely unaware of it. Again, I fail to see the significance or humor in this as it adds nothing substantial to this film. Same thing with the names, "Hardapple", "Crabtree" (Robert Downey Jr.) and "Tripp" (for the pot-smoking professor). Come on. Making fun of a person's last name is the kind of juvenile humor one might find in a grade school playground--but it doesn't belong in a big time motion picture. In short, this movie had some big actors in it and it received a lot of awards. That's all well and good. But I have the feeling that maybe the stars in this cast somehow influenced the critics because the film itself didn't seem that spectacular to me and I'm sure there were plenty of other films made that year which were more deserving and much better in comparison. If not, then it must have been a bad year for the motion picture industry. In any case, I'm satisfied to let the viewers make their own evaluation and I will end with one last thought: Beware of all the hype.

Wonder Boys never disappoints. It's dry humour and bizarre imagination never stops for a second, and we are glued with a grin on our faces. Hardly realistic, the audience can still feel for the characters as their lives spiral into a comic frenzy. Grady and his off-beat world crumbling around him as he searches for happiness; Terry, the flamboyant homosexual who puts on a brave face, believing in others as he searches for a comeback novel (which he will not get from Grady); James, the loner who needs to release the genius within himself. These are the wonder boys. Frances McDormand and Katie Holmes gladly take a back seat in the story as this film refuses to be weighed down by sap.The acting is flawless, with at least two superb supporting roles. Robert Downey jr sparkles in his greatest role since Chaplin, but it is Tobey Maguire who makes us feel he has always been that awkward, deadpan student that is James Leer. For those who have seen Pleasantville and The Cider House Rules will recognise Maguire for the talent he is (it almost makes one feel he sold out when taking the Spider-Man role), and here he has been sadly overlooked for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Douglas is in fine form as he always is in these strange and demanding roles, the last one being Falling Down. He can play a suicidal maniac and a stoned teacher and both roles will seem tailor made. The direction is impeccable as Hanson allows the characters to shine and the story flow, and it is almost unbelievable that this man directed the gritty, deadly serious L.A. Confidential. He packs Kloves screenplay with comic beauty and I sincerely hope he continues to direct these understated movies.