alinabonci Reviews

Wonder Boys (2000)

My all time favourite movie

[10/10 · 5 March 2005]

• This comment may contain small spoilers - I have watched Wonder Boys four times so far and I'm not considering putting it aside yet. But when I wanted to share my enthusiasm for it with a couple of friends one night, they dozed off after 20 minutes.

Wonder Boys is not your average fun night out movie, although with the suitable frame of mind, you get your laughs, and plenty of them! If you are also the kind of person who hunts for the "good old regulars" when choosing their movies, then you're in for a treat. This profound comedy with a dramatic scent has an outstanding cast! The amusingly absurd series of events of the movie is overshadowed by the even queerer odds and ends characters, out of which Trip (Michael Douglas) may seem the dullest... Starting with Terry Crabtree, the sharp New York editor (Rober Downey, Jr.) with vague sexuality and the transsexual he picks up on the plane to Pittsburgh, and finishing with the chancellor's dog, Poe, which is dead throughout most of the movie but remains an important character, none of the characters, as short an appearance as they may make, is what you and I would call regular. Tobey Maguire is also amazing as James Leer, the young "wonder boy", a charming self-induced delusional student who writes and lives his own fiction.

The movie deals with people who cannot and will not adapt, but underneath it all, Wonder Boys is about love and being able to "come home" to it. "The cherry on top" is one of the best movie soundtracks, performed in a great extent by Bob Dylan.

Great movie!

Hostage (2005)

Challenging the clichés

[9/10 · 3 March 2005]

I just saw Hostage today at an advanced screening and I liked it! It seems to have all the elements of the Bruce Willis action movie, so one might think it cannot surprise anymore. Then again, you rarely see a bad Bruce Willis movie. It has the opening failure of the perfect cop, and the almost "post traumatic stress" side to the character who then moves into a smaller town, but carries his burden along with him.

But this time, Bruce Willis doesn't seem all that perfect, he is scared, his voice is shaking in several situations and even cries. He still saves the day, but he's a lot more... human. And the guy is pretty good at this, too.

Then there are the really powerful scenes that shake your soul! Young actor Ben Foster is involved in many of them and does a terrific (literally and figuratively speaking) job! There are also some unexpected resolutions and some even less expected symbolic shots.

Bottom line is, Hostage is a good pick not only for the action/thriller fan, but also for any movie goer.