the movie wonder boys starring michael douglas tobey maguire frances mcdormand robert downey jr directed by curtis hanson

this movie is relevant to my interests

i watched this the other day on netflix watch instantly. how could you leave katie holmes out of the thread title. ;_;

i watched it for the first time in a couple years the other night--i used to watch it a lot in college; it was kind of a comfort movie--and it made me think of that "best comedies" thread where people were talking about whether or not anyone made sort of... "normal" comedies anymore, that arent like aggressively weird or ironic or parodic. and anyway this movie is a "normal" comedy and its sort of sweet and easy and charming and everyone is really good in it

xp i watched on netflix too!!

it is charming, even michael douglas somehow.

xp tbh i think i watched it because you and nabisco were talking about it in that fuckin novels thread

and yeah sorry i left out the following people who rule in this movie:

• katie holmes
• rip torn
• jane adams

ari wont watch it with me because it makes her anxious, that all the bad things happen to michael douglas

still don't know why i love katie holmes so much, but i do. rip.

bits of it are sort of michael chabon-cutesy but for some reason it doesnt bug me

its hard not to love her she is very pretty btw

has she even been in anything lately? i feel like she devotes most of her energy to clothing her child

i don't know why it doesn't make me anxious, but something about the vibe of the movie is so comforting, the bad things that happen to michael douglas don't seem threatening. also for once he's not playing a horrible asshole so he seems like he's going to react to things with equanimity

xp she's going to be in something soon but she is not the same girl she was

it's hard to do much when you are stuck to flypaper.

hes a model of "reacting to things with equanimity" in this movie

her wiki pic has an ominous weirdness to it...

I liked this movie okay but I found the novel extremely irritating. I'll prolley never read another Chabon novel.

her = Katie.

i often think of this movie when i'm drinking orange juice. only saw it once though

i like its dylan song a lot.

i was going to say! i still dig that song.

my roommate made me watch this and it was good but I don't remember any of it, I should watch it again I guess

this movie has something to do with writing and collegiate life rite

p much that's all it has to do with

I really disliked this but I don't remember what happened other than SPOILER I GUESS his book flying away in that scene

Michael Douglas is really good despite being miscast.

This was one of the few times I saw people walk out of a movie -- during the ooh-shockah scene of RDJ and Tobey Maguire in bed.

tobey maguire looks so young in this

we were all so young then...

yeah

max, wd ari hv watched it with you if Grady was a big chubby guy like in the book?

watched this about a month ago for the first time in a long time and thought it kinda funny that it had dylan, neil young, tim hardin, leonard cohen, john lennon, AND van morrison on the soundtrack.

no John Prine though.

i remember enjoying this pretty much but the only things i remember from it are katie holmes in them panties and some kinda corny anti-pot pro-family epilogue and that katie holmes character had had several stories published in harpers (as an undergrad!) but this wasn't considered remotely notable or a big deal which seemed unlikely to me. what i recall about the ooh shockah scene are iron man and spiderman are in bed but they don't even kiss or anything right? just two men lying in the same bed right? how homophobic do you have to be to bolt at the sight of that?

Seemed pretty pot neutral if not posi to me.

what i recall about the ooh shockah scene are iron man and spiderman are in bed but they don't even kiss or anything right? just two men lying in the same bed right? how homophobic do you have to be to bolt at the sight of that?

I wasn't standing outside at the Human Rights Campaign table

This movie's better than the book, actually, which is crowded with incident.

this movie was so much better in theory... it kinda sucks dude

solitary man is like wonder boys 2.0, and better

this movie has one of my least-favourite movie-ending cliches, where the book the main character writes is actually the wonderful events of the movie itself

i just banned you from this thread, c ya

It's fun enough. Michael Douglas indulges his favorite tic: to get through a difficult bit of dialogue he'll end the sentence with a small sigh (Julia Roberts used to clear her throat).

i remember enjoying this pretty much but the only things i remember from it are katie holmes in them panties and some kinda corny anti-pot pro-family epilogue and that katie holmes character had had several stories published in harpers (as an undergrad!) but this wasn't considered remotely notable or a big deal which seemed unlikely to me. what i recall about the ooh shockah scene are iron man and spiderman are in bed but they don't even kiss or anything right? just two men lying in the same bed right? how homophobic do you have to be to bolt at the sight of that?

― balls, Thursday, September 2, 2010 10:28 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i thought they were all mfa students? actually i think i thought that because she has a bunch of stories published. the 'anti-pot' stuff is mild but yeah its sorta grating. and slockis right that the ending is p lame. but i dunno. this movie just charms me into liking it

didnt work because premise of thread is false - u have no power here

ur banned, please leave

i really wanted to like this and i can remember digging the vibe and stuff but man, fuck a curtis hanson. what a wussy director. always cops out so hard with the ending. la confidential sucks too

i liked la confidential too

now YOU'RE banned

I like "Huck's Tune" from Lucky You more than "Things Have Changed," which borrows from Leonard Cohen's "The Future" or perhaps Chris Rea's "The Road to Hell." But I liked this movie a lot. Didn't like L.A. Confidential.

max were u a big 'in her shoes' guy too

i saw this and thought it was ok but i really don't remember much. i do remember when this came out and it sort of flopped despite some decent reviews and i do recall the posters/ad campaign were pretty awful with an extreme closeup of douglas looking "incorrigible" and frumpy.
paramount realized they screwed up and tried to rerelease it but didn't really work (what a disaster for paramount!)

just borrowed this and according to the cover peter travers thinks this movie is a 'comic dazzler'

co-sign peter travers

haha i remember being confused at the vehemence of your hate for l.a. confidential. i believe curtis hanson is not a great director, but i don't know. wonder boys is exactly the kind of low-stakes movie that he could make work somehow?

xxp to s1ocki

I remember (and this isn't how I usually watch movies) Katie Holmes being braless under her sweatshirt. And Downey being especially good. And Douglas doing well as something other than an alpha male.

I moved this over to ILM, but I bet Chris Rea was pissed after hearing "The Future" and "Things Have Changed":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abZlWqVeLzg

yeah i am kinda loling at the idea that its possible to wuss out on wonder boys

if only wonder boys had a hard-hitting ending

real reason it flopped = not filmed @ 0ccidental College ; )

some of us like super depressing things

― Tape Store, Sunday, July 6, 2008 2:17 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

velks did u know that the new lesbian movie with mark ruffalo was filmed at oxy

sounds relevant to my interests!

;-)

why is there a picture of a guy with the head of a dog on the DVD

have doubts about being comically dazzled after seeing that

maybe this means it is a 'dog' of a movie

yeah i am kinda loling at the idea that its possible to wuss out on wonder boys

― max, Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:29 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

come on u even admitted that ending is so lame

it's so self-congratulatory... "the events in this movie are so awesome of course they would make for a wonderful best selling novel!"

i kind of like in your shoes, tbh

in your poos

i wish there were more curtis hanson movies i had seen so that i could further troll you with my halfhearted enthusiasm for them.

it's so self-congratulatory... "the events in this movie are so awesome of course they would make for a wonderful best selling novel!"

― real s1ock (s1ocki), Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u wish michael douglas had died huh

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092627/

it's so self-congratulatory... "the events in this movie are so awesome of course they would make for a wonderful best selling novel!"

― real s1ock (s1ocki), Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u wish michael douglas had died huh

― max, Thursday, September 2, 2010 11:57 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark

i wish the movie had a surprise ending where it was actually a 'falling down' prequel

wish the move had a surprise beginning where it was a sequel to wall street

also wish michael douglas dressed like this the whole movie:

http://gallery.sendbad.net/data/media/27/black%20rain.jpg

Tenure, for lack of a better word, is good. Tenure is right. Tenure works.

^ i laffed at that

s1ocki do you hate how arrested development ends?

i hate THAT it ends

yeah, this movie is so relaxing! with all the resignation and rain and robert downey jr. love it.

Yeah, comfort movie for me too. I have a weakness for movies where all the characters, although maybe flawed, are basically good people, and negative events mostly just happen because of circumstances and normal non-pathological human emotions and weaknesses.

Plus the poster is funny
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/68/OriginalWBposter.jpg

Michael Douglas looks like he just learned the true meaning of Christmas.

hahah i forgot about that poster--that is truly atrocious

"undependable. unpredictable. unforgettable." <---- should be new ile board descrip

still havent seen the movie, but this song fr all time...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EKqQWPjyo&ob=av2e

guessin maybe some of that video stuffs got some contextual tie w/plots in this?

is that poster a ref to risky business? i really like this film. the ending is silly but satisfying somehow.

la confidential is terrible but that's mainly because spacey is in it.

la confidench rules

solitary man is like wonder boys 2.0, and better

fuckin crazy talk, u drunk

The movie flopped, then was rereleased that fall for another run because the studio wanted to give it "another chance." It flopped again.

i hated the beginning of Arrested Development, because it implied further episodes

still don't know why i love katie holmes so much

Go

I saw this on a plane on New Year's Day 2001
then again, on the plane
and it may even have been on on the way back

then it kept coming on TV, once a year
and I kept watching it
and I really find it quite compelling
I like the ranginess of the action

and I love the Dylan song but don't own it

i was really into this soundtrack, thought the movie was just ok

i have watched this movie time and again and will continue to watch it over and over

i also love the movie 'moonlight mile', they are bracketed together in my head for some reason

I read (and liked) the book but I have never gotten around to seeing the movie. Michael Douglas annoys me.

i used to watch it a lot in college; it was kind of a comfort movie

Yep. I guess the ending is lame but how else should it end? I'm a sucker for that stuff though. I always want people to be happy in movies. I watched "MAX" and kept wanting John Cusak to just be nicer to little Hitler so he wouldn't turn mean. Silly (and actually a bad example of this desire but I can't think of anything else right now), but it is what I wanted.

I like it when Tobey is smoking a doob and having a drink watching a mickey rooney judy garland movie. His posture on the couch and facial expressions are so great.

Nicole this movie seriously might change your feeling about the guy. It's bizarre.

It's on Netflix watch instantly, so I will try and check it out this weekend.

technology will allow you to be 'instantly' disappointed!

lollll

iirc this film was okays. RDJ was good, probably?

only remember it as ok, nothing would really drag me back to it.

seem to remember it was snowing in this film, michael dougas was vaguely unsettling (as he is) and katie holmes was rly cute (as she was)

can we partially blame this movie for all the movies about sad sack guys who get their groove back? there are so many of them. just watched one where matthew broderick plays a washed up children's music singer who learns how to live and love via his dying african roommate! or do we just blame american beauty and call it a day.

I blame "Casablanca"

Forward complaints to Bruce Dern.

http://www.tubaba.com/movie_poster/uploadfile/200701/20070131113572249.jpg

can't believe you people are comparing this movie to casablanca

think that poster upthread may have been what killed it at the box office (killed it as in did not do well nahmean)

they sort of pulled it back with this?

http://www.impawards.com/2000/posters/wonder_boys.jpg

rdj looking weirdly young

still have never seen bruce dern's TUBABA

well, you get the idea

xpost

'tubaba' reminds me of the random tuba in the book.

how is s1ocki still posting to this thread after i banned him

i told u, it didnt take because the thread premise was false

u sicken me

"u cant handle the truth"
- michael douglas, wonder boys

doesn't this movie end with michael douglas throwing a joint into a garbage can or something, like a pot variation on the whole "quitting smoking on a whim by throwing a butt out the window to indicate character change" cliche?

max how could you rep for a movie where the character is shown to have grown up by QUITTING GANJA

smh

no one has ever thrown a joint into a trash can = it's magic realism

nothing sadder than a 60-yo pothead, right

(unless it's Louis Armstrong)

still need to see this wacky one about living loving and learning

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/King_of_California.jpg

the fun part about the character is that he's a slovenly bedraggled fuck-up, who needs to see him clean up his act become a family man and start using a computer

i mean i guess what really rubs me the wrong way is when movies delight in wacky characters like this and then totally turn on them - like ally sheedy's makeover at the end of breakfast club

it helps if you grow a wacky beard these days on your quest to learn about life and love.

afaik to get any script greenlit you need to have "redemption" and/or "uplifting message about life" at the end

i said upthread that it bugs me! but i didnt make me turn against the movie.

uplifting doesnt necc mean "not lifted"

i started watching this the other night but i fell asleep. great quaid beard though.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9d/Smart_people.jpg

S1M3A1RT1 P3E1O1P3L1E1

would have been so awesome if douglas throws the splifter in the trash, walks away, camera stays on the trash can, credits start rolling, still on the trash can, hurried footsteps back and douglas tears off the lid and scrabbles around for it and hurries off again

it would be awesome if he threw it over his shoulder into the trash as he walked away and the trash exploded into a giant fireball and it was in slow mo and he just kept walking and didnt look back

when i went to the dumb video store down the street that was closing down - dvds were, like, 50 cents - they must have had like 20 movies that had posters/art like this. the nerd comix cover. i couldn't believe it. this one stars harvey danger.

http://img.nattawat.org/images/bwr5j244vsbliqjuzg3.jpg

couldn't even afford a picnic table

couldn't even afford a haircut

la confidench rules

― i am legernd (history mayne), Friday, September 3, 2010 6:42 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hell yeah

*flips slocki the bird*

*drives off on cool motorcycle, didnt even notice*

8 mile... was well shot

feel like most ilxers had an '8 mile moment' before they first posted, puking and looking in the mirror and psyching themselves up

movie should have ended with douglas saying "f u katie holmes," publishing his pynchonesque novel to great acclaim, and growing marijuana in frances macdormand's greenhouse

in her greenhouse eh

yes, her lush, humid greenhouse

http://putitinherbrownie.ytmnd.com/

it's been a long time since Arsonist's Daughter

"arsonist's daughter" never fails to make me lol

movie should have ended with douglas saying "f u katie holmes," publishing his pynchonesque novel to great acclaim, and growing marijuana in frances macdormand's greenhouse

See now this would be a movie

watched "MAX" and kept wanting John Cusak to just be nicer to little Hitler so he wouldn't turn mean. Silly (and actually a bad example of this desire but I can't think of anything else right now), but it is what I wanted.

― peacocks, Friday, September 3, 2010 8:01 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

this is crakkin me up

black rain is pretty tight iirc. remember when we were all afraid of japan lol

when i run an arthouse theater im going to do a week of 80s/90s movies about how scared we were of japan, incl. rising sun, black rain, die hard

i had a lot more in mind but i cant remember any of em now

gung ho

idk even more than the anti-drug pap ("...and i never had a seizure since i quit smoking grass" lol) it bothers me because why does a baby even have to be involved

James Leer: The doors made so much noise!
Grady Tripp: Is he all right?
James Leer: It was so embarrassing! He had to be carried out.
Terry Crabtree: He's fine. He's narrating.
James Leer: They were going to the restroom. But would they make it in time?

how scared we were of japan

gremlins, imo

Q: I... am a writer.
[applause]

Hannah Green: And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's... it's at times... it's... very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyone's horses, and the dental records, and so on.

haha Q

when i run an arthouse theater im going to do a week of 80s/90s movies about how scared we were of japan, incl. rising sun, black rain, die hard

arthaus fare fo' sho!

just the other day, regarding an article she was working on, my sister was like, "i just feel like, i didn't make any choices"

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2d/Kinjite_forbidden_subjects.jpg

looooollllzzz

Wiki This section requires expansion.

A Japanese businessman sees a woman being groped in a crowded Tokyo subway. He is interested to see how she would rather moan silently, involuntary orgasm than let people know she is being groped. When he is transferred to Los Angeles, the Japanese businessman tries to imitate what he saw by groping who happens to be Lt. Crowe (Bronson)'s daughter. But unlike in Japan, the American woman raises a commotion and makes him run away.

Meanwhile, the daughter of the same Japanese businessman is kidnapped into a child prostitution ring. Lt. Crowe, who claims the Japanese are in the process of buying Los Angeles, is recruited to find the daughter.

Lt. Crowe and his partner indeed find the daughter, and Lt. Crowe changes his opinions about the Japanese when the Japanese businessman and his wife visit his house bearing gifts. Lt. Crowe's daughter recognizes the Japanese businessman but says nothing.

Back at home, the Japanese businessman's daughter cannot cope with what happened to her back in the ring, and commits suicide by an overdose.

Lt. Crowe and his partner thus go to find the ring's owner by any means necessary. In the ensuing fight, the ring's owner manages to kill Lt. Crowe's partner, but - not knowing how to swim - almost drowns in the process of the fight. Lt. Crowe does answer his calls for help, but arranges for the small, long haired pimp to serve his prison sentence in a particularly harsh environment with multiple muscular, threatening inmates, all of whom make clear their desire to rape him. Lt.Crowe personally escorts the terrified prisoner to his cell, then walks away smiling. As the pimp screams after him in petrified rage, Crowe looks back and says, "Now that's justice."

is the college in the movie based on any particular one? or just an amalgam (I've heard wheaton mentioned for this but idk, could be anywhere afaik)

its in pittsburgh, right?

yea

I want to produce a Michael Douglas movie where he operates an arthouse down the block from max's revival house.

it was shot at Carnegie Mellon, as was Smart People.

tho it seems like a generic, writerly college that alumni of diff places could project their colleges experiences onto, which i guess is part of the appeal of the movie?

yeah totally

btw scott thanks for alerting me to kinjite forbidden subjects

not sure how to describe my reaction to the plot synopsis but basically: O_O

that movie is nuts. in troo bronson fashion.

I think this was the movie where I realized how much I hated heavy hollow narration. "then we went to this character's house" over shot of car pulling in character's driveway, "But I really loved her" over scene of Michael Douglas not particularly conveying much love for Frances McDormand.

Aside from that, the I-stopped-smoking-pot-and-the-pain-went-away ending and one of those typical erudite-white-dudes-peeling-away-from-lower-class-violence scenes, all I can remember is some likable actors doing what they've done in movies I enjoyed more.

Basically, this movie had no scenes of Frances McDormand frying Michael Douglas' weed in the microwave.

one day RDJ will come along and "discover" me

he should have gone and lived with her character from this movie:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Laurel_canyon_poster.jpg

wow, kinjite forbidden subjects. i must have picked up that video box 1000 times in my young life and never rented it.

black rain is pretty tight iirc. remember when we were all afraid of japan lol

― goole, Friday, September 3, 2010 6:11 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

when i run an arthouse theater im going to do a week of 80s/90s movies about how scared we were of japan, incl. rising sun, black rain, die hard

― max, Friday, September 3, 2010 6:16 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is a dynamite idea

'the informant!' kinda riffed on this iirc

pearl harbor, too, in a way

lol

u know what movie is a good example of good actors just chilling and doing their thing is the anniversary party

woder boys more like wonder bread

s

n

where are todays fear the chinese movies?
I guess osama derailed them.

anniversary party makes my skin crawl

so why don't you marry it

I think this was the movie where I realized how much I hated heavy hollow narration. "then we went to this character's house" over shot of car pulling in character's driveway, "But I really loved her" over scene of Michael Douglas not particularly conveying much love for Frances McDormand.

Aside from that, the I-stopped-smoking-pot-and-the-pain-went-away ending and one of those typical erudite-white-dudes-peeling-away-from-lower-class-violence scenes, all I can remember is some likable actors doing what they've done in movies I enjoyed more.

― da croupier, Friday, September 3, 2010 10:55 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I think this was the post where I realized how much I hated run-on compound modifiers.

elmo otm, fuckin horrible movie

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Year_of_the_dragon_poster.jpg

Mentioned already, but:
http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/reviews/gungho.jpg

http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/78019.gif

http://www.otrnow.com/store/dvd/VCI/December_7th.jpg

Just spent too much time trying to GIS for the Japanese bad guys in Diva.

I'm a teacher, not a Holiday Inn.

when i run an arthouse theater im going to do a week of 80s/90s movies about how scared we were of japan, incl. rising sun, black rain, die hard

― max, Friday, September 3, 2010 6:16 PM (53 minutes ago)

yes! this does seem strange in retrospect

also lol at the symbol of michael douglas sloughing off the sins of his past being...upgrading to a PERSONAL COMPUTER

I def. like the movie better than the book but the movie did lack my favorite part of the book: the adopted father of the dude's ex-wife. He wz a great character.

who was scared of Japan in Die Hard?!

Alan Rickman was so scared of Japan he kidnapped a Japanese.

Watched Lucky You tonight. I don't remember it at all--must have come and gone quietly. It's okay, but should have been better. I like poker movies: California Split and Rounders and (sort of fits) The Gambler are great, vaguely recall The Cincinnati Kid being pretty good, and there was a TV movie with Shirley Jones I liked as a kid. The poker's the best thing about Lucky You, and there's lots of it--the poker and Robert Duvall. The love story's silly; it allows the screenwriters to get in all their clunky poker metaphors (breaking up = "a good fold"). Michael Shannon has a small but striking role--weirdly enough, there are two different Michael Shannons in this film. The biggest problem for me was Eric Bana. So bland.

In the review of Closed Circuit that's been syndicated to the Voice media papers, the reviewer mentions having to resist the urge to add an 'l' the end of Eric Bana's name whenever they have to type it.

what does Lucky You hafta to do w/ Wonder Boys, plz?

ok, Hanson. You mighta said so.

when i run an arthouse theater im going to do a week of 80s/90s movies about how scared we were of japan, incl. rising sun, black rain, die hard

― max, Friday, September 3, 2010 1:16 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

blade runner

god i love this movie.

and the novel too.

ok, Hanson. You mighta said so.

Looked for a poker/gambling movie thread, couldn't find one. I should have mentioned Owning Mahoney, The Cooler, and Croupier in the short list I made. Liked the last, first two nothing special.

Was thinking of a poll--any obvious poker-specific films that should go on? (Sorry, Curtis Hanson...maybe suggestions could be relocated here: ILX Poker Players Unite.)

:(

still haven't seen The Silent Partner, which Hanson wrote.

aw, RIP Mr. Hanson.

the chair on netflix is riyl wonder boys

just sayin