Wonder Boys (2000)

Regisseur:

Curtis Hanson

Drehbuchautoren (WGA):

Michael Chabon (novel)
Steve Kloves (screenplay)

Premierendatum:

25. Februar 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Komödie

Werbezeile:

Undependable. Unpredictable. Unforgettable.

Plot:

An English Professor tries to deal with his wife leaving him, the arrival of his editor who has been waiting for his book for seven years, and the various problems that his friends and associates involve him in.

Plot Keywords:

Marijuana | College Professor | Snow | College | Professor

Filmpreise:

Won Oscar. Another 14 wins & 32 nominations

Nutzerkommentare:

Time Out of Mind

Besetzung

Michael Douglas	...	Prof. Grady Tripp
Tobey Maguire	...	James Leer
Frances McDormand	...	Dean Sara Gaskell
Robert Downey Jr.	...	Terry Crabtree
Katie Holmes	...	Hannah Green
Rip Torn	...	Quentin 'Q' Morewood
Richard Knox	...	Vernon Hardapple
Jane Adams	...	Oola
Michael Cavadias	...	Miss Antonia 'Tony' Sloviak
Richard Thomas	...	Walter Gaskell
Alan Tudyk	...	Sam Traxler
Philip Bosco	...	Emily's Father
George Grizzard	...	Fred Leer
Kelly Bishop	...	Amanda Leer
Bill Velin	...	Officer Pupcik

MPAA:

Rated R for language and drug content.

Länge:

111 Min

Produktionsland:

UK | Deutschland | USA | Japan

Sprache:

Englisch

Farbe:

Farbe (DeLuxe)

Seitenverhältnis:

2.35 : 1

Tonverfahren:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Altersfreigabe:

Iceland:L | South Korea:12 | Italy:T | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Canada:14A | Chile:14 | Denmark:7 | Finland:K-14 | France:U | Germany:12 | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:M | Norway:11 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG (cut) | Spain:13 | Sweden:7 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R

Drehorte:

Beaver, Pennsylvania, USA

Firma:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Dies und das:

At the party, James talks about the actors George Sanders's suicide. Later, George Sanders is on the television in a scene for The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945).

Pannen:

Verschiedenes: James says that 'Alan Ladd' committed suicide. After protest from the Ladd family, the DVD version has edited out this mention of Ladd's (arguable) suicide (some reports list Ladd's death from cerebral edema) (Reportedly, only the theatrical version has the original mention of Alan Ladd's death.).

Dialogzitate:

[first lines]
Grady Tripp: "The young girl sat perfectly still in the confessional listening to her father's boots scrape like chalk on the ancient steps of the church, then grow faint, then disappear altogether. She could sense the priest beyond the grate...” On that particular Friday afternoon, last February, I was reading a story to my Advanced Writers' Workshop by one James Leer, Junior Lit major and sole inhabitant of his own gloomy gulag.

Bezüge zu anderen Titeln:

Enthält ausschnittsweise Written on the Wind (1956)

Soundtrack:

Shoot Your Shot

Time Out of Mind

At a recent Dylan concert, my friend Charlie pointed out a shiny gold statuette placed unobtrusively atop one of the speakers way in the back of the stage. It was the Oscar which Dylan won for his Best Song "Things Have Changed" from this movie, from "The Wonder Boys." I was glad that my friend pointed out that gold thing in the background because it added a whole other dimension to the concert. There was a story behind the statue - the whole "Wonder Boys" story and I was glad to be familiar with it. No, Bob never mentioned the statue. Why should he? He's Bob Dylan. He just did his thing, played his music.

Life presents us with the absurd as much as it does the mundane. Watching the way people handle the good and bad drama in their life is a hobby of mine. I liked the way Bob Dylan kept his "Wonder Boys" gold quietly present.

Michael Douglas' Grady Tripp doesn't call attention to his abnormally odd weekend, either. Douglas' Grady always maintains his cool even with a transvestite's tuba and his mistress' husband's dead dog and "the Crabtree pharmacopoeia" in the trunk of his ass-marked car. Grady deals with all of it. Grady deals with everything this peculiar weekend shows him - with a calm voice and an attitude mellowed from either age or experience or pot. In the here and now, he is calm and quiet but we all know that he'll have his anxiety or heart attack quietly near offstage with as few crowds and drama about them as possible.

Grady speaks lines like "gimme the gun, James" matter of factly, the same way that his married girlfriend tells him she's pregnant, the same way he'd order a drink from Oola. Why add drama and histrionics to the mix? He is what he is. Things are the way they are - even though things have changed.

One of the things that separates one human from another is the way we deal with change. isn't it? Personally? I want to hear about the absurdities of life. I like observing how people deal with it all. I like those stories.

Tripp's fellow travelers are in flux too - it's not just Grady going through change - his wife (unseen), his mistress (France McDormand), his editor (Robert Downey, Jr.), his students (Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes) - all of them are experiencing an extraordinary weekend but there's hardly a voice raised in the storytelling.

The soundtrack alone is worth the viewing, thanks, Bob Dylan! And Curtis Hansen, Michael Chabon - tell me another story, please! If you can manage to bring a similarly wonderful ensemble cast - even better!