Wonder Boys (DVD)

Professor Grady Tripp is a published author, once a wonder boy, but is now struggling to finish the book he has been writing for seven years. His editor, Terry Crabtree, arrives to chase him on the same day that his wife leaves him. And his affair with the married Dean of his college is coming to a head. Life is to get even more complicated when one of his students shoots the Dean's husband's dog at a party and a female student who is boarding with him comes on to him. Can he sort out everyone else's problems and manage to continue his own career at the same time? Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, in a role which is pleasantly different from anything else I ...  Read the complete review

This is one of the most underrated films released in the last few years and is possibly my favourite film ever. It's one of those films that you can watch over and over, each time finding a new meaning to a line of dialogue, a new depth to a character's motivation, and a new comic gem that you hadn't noticed the first time. The film is, by turns, heartbreakingly sad, stunningly beautiful, painfully realistic, and finally optimistic and reassuring. It is, also, hilariously funny in an offbeat and subtle way. Look out especially for Vernon The Car-Jumping Maniac. Every performance is outstanding and why there weren't any Oscars awarded is beyond me. ...  Read the complete review

Got this recent release out over the weekend and thought it was worth writing a review about. Curtis Hanson the critically acclaimed director of LA Confidential had a lot on his shoulders as fans and critic's waited with baited breath for the release of the Wonder Boys. The Wonder Boys is a wonder that will leave you wondering through it all! It makes a remote statement about a place in one of life's many journeys as you find yourself tumbling through a spiral of emotional and spiratual intersections. Michael Douglas serves us up a humourous performance playing Grady Tripp, a creative writing professor at a prestigious liberal arts college, ...  Read the complete review

Director Curtis Hanson finally follows up the much-acclaimed LA CONFIDENTIAL with a clever and amusing comedy-drama that integrates star power with a literate screenplay. Michael Douglas plays Grady Tripp, a dope-smoking English professor and writer who is struggling to complete his new novel some seven years after his first was hailed as a classic. On the eve of his University’s ‘WordFest’ writing festival his wife leaves him and his mistress (Frances McDormand) announces that she is pregnant. He is also burdened with one of his students, James Leer (Tobey Maguire), who is a gifted writer but is also evidently unstable and dangerously ...  Read the complete review

After flopping in the US first time around, “Wonder Boys” gets a re-release, as well as in the UK. Starring Michael Douglas as English college professor/struggling novelist Grady Tripp, “Wonder Boys” is based on the novel by Michael Chabon. The film centres on one particular weekend in the life of thrice-wed Tripp, who is just coming to the end of his third marriage. Tripp is having a particular hellish time, what with his mistress and university chancellor Sara (Frances McDormand) revealing she is carrying their child, although she is married to the college department head of English (Tripp’s boss in other words), who is played by ...  Read the complete review