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Wonder Boys is a 2000 film adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel of the same name. It stars Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes and Robert Downey Jr. Film critic Roger Ebert described it as "the most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember." Directed by Curtis Hanson, Wonder Boys was filmed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, including locations at Carnegie Mellon University, Chatham College, and Shady Side Academy. Other Pennsylvania locations included Beaver, Rochester and Rostraver Township. Released February 22, 2000, the film reunited Holmes and Maguire, who had appeared together three years earlier in The Ice Storm. After Wonder Boys failed at the box office, there was a second attempt to find an audience with a new marketing campaign and a November 8, 2000, re-release, which was also a financial disappointment.
StorySpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Image:Leertripp.jpg James Leer and Grady Tripp His students include James Leer (Tobey Maguire) and Hannah Green (Katie Holmes). Hannah and James are friends and both very good writers. Hannah, who rents a room in Tripp's large house, is attracted to Tripp, but he does not reciprocate. James is enigmatic, quiet, dark and enjoys writing fiction more than he first lets on. During a party at the Gaskells' house, Sara reveals to Grady that she is pregnant with his child. Grady finds James standing outside holding what he claims to be a replica gun, won by his mother at a fairground during her schooldays. However, the gun turns out to be very real, as James shoots the Gaskells' dog when he finds it attacking Grady. James also steals a very valuable piece of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia from the house. Grady is unable to tell Sara of this incident as she is pressuring him to choose between her and Emily, so Grady is forced to keep the dead dog in his car for most of the weekend, and also to allow James to follow him around, fearing that he may be depressed or even suicidal. Gradually he realises that much what James tells him is untrue, and designed to elicit Grady's sympathy and so that he can hang out with Grady. Image:Terrycrabtree.jpg Terry Crabtree Meanwhile, Grady's editor, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey Jr.), has flown into town on the pretense of attending the university's annual WordFest, a literary event for aspiring authors. In reality, Crabtree is there to see if Tripp has written anything worth publishing, as both men's careers depend on Grady's book. Terry arrives with a transvestite whom he met on the flight, called Antonia Sloviak (Michael Cavadias). The pair apparently become intimate in a bedroom at the Gaskells' party, but immediately afterwards Terry meets, and becomes infatuated with, James Leer, and Miss Sloviak is unceremoniously sent home. Terry wants to publish what James writes, and the two spend a curious night together in one of Grady's spare rooms.
The movie ends with Grady recounting the eventual fate of the main characters - Hannah graduates and becomes a magazine editor, James drops out and moves to New York with Crabtree to rework his novel for publication, and Crabtree himself "goes right on being Crabtree." Grady finishes typing his new novel (now using a computer rather than a typewriter), then watches Sara and their child in the garden together for a moment, before turning back to the computer and clicking "Save." Re-ReleaseImage:OriginalWBposter.jpg Original theatrical poster Amy Taubin interviewed Hanson for the Village Voice and he said, "The very things that made Michael and I want to do the movie so badly were the reasons it was so tricky to market. Since films go out on so many screens at once, there's a need for instant appeal. But Wonder Boys isn't easily reducible to a single image or a catchy ad line." Hanson felt that the studio played it safe with the original ad campaign featured a headshot of Douglas. The posters and the trailer for the re-release highlighted the ensemble cast. SoundtrackThe soundtrack features several songs by Bob Dylan, including one new composition, "Things Have Changed"; Hanson also created a music video for "Things Have Changed," filming new footage of Bob Dylan on the film's various locations and editing it with footage used in Wonder Boys as if Dylan were actually in the film. The song eventually won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for "best original song." Tim Hardin's "Reason To Believe" and Neil Young's "Old Man" and other vintage recordings are featured in the film. ReactionRoger Ebert a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times praised Wonder Boys as "the most accurate movie about campus life that I can remember. It is accurate, not because it captures intellectual debate or campus politics, but because it knows two things: (1) Students come and go, but the faculty actually lives there, and (2) many faculty members stay stuck in graduate-student mode for decades."[1] Emanuel Levy of Variety said that"The movie's frivolous touches and eccentric details emphasize its dry, measured wit and the power of comedy to underscore serious ideas. Massively inventive, "Wonder Boys" is spiked with fresh, perverse humor that flows naturally from the straight-faced playing."[2]A.O. Scott from The New York Times wrote, "What occupies the screen is a well-intentioned muddle. The problem with "Wonder Boys" is not that it's a bad movie, though if it had risked becoming one it might have been a lot more. The problem is that everyone involved seems to have agreed that it was a great idea for a movie and pretty much left it at that."[3] Looking back in his Salon.com review, critic Andrew O'Hehir felt that Hanson, "and cinematographer Dante Spinotti capture both Pittsburgh (one of the most serendipitously beautiful American cities) and the netherworld of boho academia with brilliant precision. If you went to a liberal-arts college anywhere in the United States, then the way Grady's ramshackle house looks in the wake of Crabs' enormous all-night party should conjure up vivid sense-memories."[4] Wonder Boys holds an 83 percent "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.5 rating at the Internet Movie Database with 20,063 votes, which is above average. AwardsBob Dylan won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Things Have Changed" in 2001. In addition, the film was nominated for Best Editing and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published. Dylan also won Best Original Song at the 2001 Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand won a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award in 2000 for Wonder Boys in categories Best Actor (Douglas) and Best Supporting Actress (McDormand). Box officeIn its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $5,808,919 in 1,253 theaters. As of November 29 2006, the film has grossed a total of $33,426,588 worldwide.[5] Trivia
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