Wonder Boys

Wonder Boys
by Curtis Hanson

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Movie Reviews of Wonder Boys

Movie Review: I was a teen-aged Wonder Boy.
Summary: 5 Stars

That's actually meant to be a compliment. A lot of people will say about a movie "you should read the book." And by that, they mean, "the book is better." That's not why I wanted to read the book. I was so moved by the film that I wanted an opportunity to totally immerse myself in the world in which it took place. I ordered the book from Amazon the next morning and have only just begun to read it. I can only hope that it will move me as well as the film did. Given the depth of the talents of its Pulitzer Prize winning author, Michael Chabon, I don't expect that I will be disappointed. I will likely write a review of it as well, but I wanted an opportunity to review the film as a piece unto itself first without hampering my opinions based additional knowledge from the book.

What really struck me was how real the film was. At least from my point of view. I felt as though I knew those people. I felt as though I lived that life. Part of that may be due to the fact that I did live that life (I graduated with an English degree from Carnegie Mellon University, where this movie was filmed), but I think a lot of it was also due to honesty with which these characters were portrayed. From Katie Holmes's Hannah, the mysterious cute girl in the class with an obvious crush on the professor to the Michael Douglas's Grady, mildly successful, more of a writer than a teacher with a fine eye for detail that will zone in on a single aspect to sum up the entire character and personality of a real life individual (like her feet).

This film is beautiful. I mean it simply breathtaking. I was enrolled at CMU for six and a half years. As I said before, I have been to each location seen in that film more times than I can count, but I can honestly say that I saw the campus in an entirely new light and I will never be able to look at it the same way again. The scenery makes this picture. I've lived in Pittsburgh for nearly a decade, but whenever anyone asks me where I am from, I have always told them Cleveland (my original hometown). But after seeing what the film crew did here, I am proud to live in Pittsburgh. A little bit of movie magic has turned this burned out steel city into a thing of beauty. And I mean movie magic. The movie was actually filmed during an uncharacteristically warm winter. Almost all the snow in the film is fake. It was astounding to see the crew pumping fake snow out all over the place during filming, but it comes across wonderfully realistic in the film.

I recommend this film to anyone and everyone. I watch a lot of movies, and I can usually find something nice to say about almost all of them. But it is very seldom that I see a film that touches me in the same way that this one did (the most recent before this was American Beauty). I especially recommend this film to anyone who is familiar with Pittsburgh; the creative writing process or who has at some point found themselves at a difficult crossroads in life. In short, I recommend the movie to anyone like me. But the thing is, I recommend this movie to anyone who isn't like me. Go see this film. You'll be glad you did. And if by any chance you are anything like me, then perhaps you will find a bit of yourself in this film. Perhaps you will find out that you're a Wonder Boy as well.

Summary of Wonder Boys