MovieChat Forums > Wonder Boys (2000) Discussion > This was a vanity piece for Michael Doug...

This was a vanity piece for Michael Douglas.

posted 15 years ago by morningsidemary
4 replies | jump to latest

I really hated it. It was so self-conscious it was embarrassing. Rambling, incoherent. So many stereotypes and hackneyed situations. And yet so forced. If there was an unnatural way of playing a scene, they found it. And that dog. Wouldn't he have putrified in 3 days of freezing and thawing? So ridiculous, the whole narcissistic focus including MD's limp and those spells. Why not throw in a stroke and an earthquake too! Thank God for Frances McDormand, though. She always gives you your money's worth.

Nobody ever lies about being lonely.

[–] TheMouseShadow 15 years ago

couldnt disagree more. i dont know how you could intepret vanity into the professor tripp character. Probably one of the least vain parts of Douglas' career. THis is an overlooked gem.

[–] johndeckbose 15 years ago

I'm with jaminator. I have seen every Michael Douglas movie, and this is my favorite performance -- much better, much more human, than the touted Gordon Gekko role, among the many others.

Its even better than The Street of San Francisco!

Its true, I love this movie to pieces. I have seen it 20 times at least, and, as a writer, I find it inspiring. And I mean that -- the "inspiring" comment -- in its most definitive sense. Whenever I watch the movie, it makes me want to sit down and write.

Maybe it's the celebration of the writing process that I love, and for people that don't -- or worse, hate to -- write, this may be an empty 112 minutes.

[–] Naughty-God 15 years ago

I really hated it. It was so self-conscious it was embarrassing. Rambling, incoherent. So many stereotypes and hackneyed situations. And yet so forced.

Your rambling run-on sentences here seems forced, incoherent, and self-conscious. I'm embarrassed for you. Care to explain what stereotypes involved with hackneyed situations exist in this film?

If there was an unnatural way of playing a scene, they found it. And that dog. Wouldn't he have putrified in 3 days of freezing and thawing?

Which scene are you talking about? About that dog, it doesn't have to decompose if the temperature outside is cold enough to preserve like a meat locker, if you had been paying attention, which it was. As for the dog's corpse thawing, it seems your interest was in the dog not the story.

So ridiculous, the whole narcissistic focus including MD's limp and those spells. Why not throw in a stroke and an earthquake too!

Stroke? Earthquakes? Hell why not just have Tobey Maguire morph into Spiderman and save the day just so you could enjoy the movie????

Thank God for Frances McDormand, though. She always gives you your money's worth.

Uh, Frances was a bit player involved with Grady Tripp's plight, yet you found her performance exceptional to everyone else?

(¯`i´¯)´·¸.)‹^›

[–] Gunther-Giessen 15 years ago

The movie was spot-on from the book. Do you think Michael Chabon wrote it for Douglas? Um, no.