Wonder Boys

Kim and I watched Wonder Boys last night as part of our ongoing Post-Reherasal Film Series (I guess that'll be curtailed after this weekend). I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that movie. It hit the proverbial spot after my bout of gloominess last week (see self-pitying diatribes below). I think the movie's only big flaw is that it gets a little too pat and saccharine near the end. The very moment it gets too cute is when Vernon and Oola are giving Tripp and Crabtree a ride back to campus and suddenly the dialogue just seems much triter than in any scene previous. Like the movie had been walking a tightrope the whole time between being sappy and being geniune, and it just tumbles into sappy for the last few scenes. But before that moment everything just goes so, so right. Plus I had forgotten Alan Tudyk was in in. He's the janitor at the auditorium. He only gets high when he's working. Working at flying a Firefly-class starship, that is!

But anyway, I love that movie. Even with the screwball-comedy elements, it doesn't ring false. Most of the time. I remember having high hopes for the first Harry Potter film because screenwriter Steve Kloves did such a good job adapting Michael Chabon's novel. We all know how that turned out. But interviews I've read with Kloves about Harry Potter 3 seemed to read as "Hey, they finally let me cut stuff out this time!" so I can't really blame him for those first two movies.

But anyway, Wonder Boys. Good times.