Hey folks, Harry here with the self titled, 'Just Another Anonymous Coward' taking a look at Curtis Hanson's first film since the highly praised and loved L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (a film many felt was cheated at Oscar time, though I was not one of them... I loved the film... But loved the other one more). Certainly a tough follow up, but it seems from the sound of this review (and the tidbits in the nether) that he's pretty much made another very good film. WHich is great, because we need Hanson on a cycle of making great movies.... But as we hear more... we'll see... The film isn't scheduled to hit till sometime in the Spring of 2000. SO take it easy... This one is quite a ways down the road.
Hi Harry!
My girlfriend managed to snag an invite to an NRG sponsored buzz preview test screening for an upcoming Paramount film, Wonder Boys.
Based on the novel of the same name (written by Michael Chabon), which I've neither heard of nor read, the story unfolds over a weekend festival of literati at the University of Pittsburgh.
Professor Grady Tripp's (played by Michael Douglas) weekend starts off badly. His wife left him, his editor's in town for the weekend and his latest contractual obligation novel is rather late, his mistress, the wife of another professor at the university, announces she's pregnant.
What follows, while not quite the out of control roller coaster that is After Hours, is still a weekend of instability that slaps Professor Tripp in the face and makes his head get screwed on right.
This is another great performance from Michael Douglas. Roger Ebert called him a "versatile pro" in his review of "A Perfect Murder", and here he proves it. Grady Tripp is the sort of character you expect to be played by Nick Nolte or Jeff Bridges, but Douglas is great.
All the other performances are either great, or really good. Frances McDormand, playng his mistress, proves she doesn't need to sleep with the director to get a part, Robert Downey Jr. plays a gay version of himself (I agree with David Poland here, I want to see the Robert Downey Jr. biopic), and Tobey Maguire (looking a lot like Kyle MacLachlan) turns in a performance unfortunately reminiscent of Wes Bentley in American Beauty. Hopefully by the time this movie comes out, American Beauty will have been gone from the theatres for a while. There's also a bit part played with relish by Rip Torn.
There's some great location shots of Pittsburgh, the story unfolds at a decent pace, though the story did kind of slow towards the end, I blame this on the lack of a score, because there was nothing to cut to pick up the pace. That's right, there's nothing to cut. Everything is used, there are no loose ends or dangling subplots. I expect one subplot to be trimmed out prior to release, leaving us with just the setup and scratching our heads when we leave the film, but that's just because Hollywood producers are idiots.
There are a few soundtrack songs dropped in, which are all good, and fit okay.
The production seems to be the kind of nostalgia vision we saw in Payback. There are no cell phones, the writers all use typewriters, and we even saw one rotary dial phone.
Lots of drug use, one dog killing, and implied homosexual sex means the Childcare Action Project http://www.capalert.com/ is going to have a field day with this one.
I'm definitely going to see the final product when it's released, and you should too.
Call me Just Another Anonymous Coward.
