Wednesday, August 23, 2006

mid-afternoon time waster: "that movie is completely underrated!"



a couple of weeks ago kellie and i stumbled in the soon-to-be-closed video smith and started buying used DVDs that probably cost us more than new copies would have cost on amazon. anyway…

after we picked up a couple of new favorites including walk the line, sideways and good night and good luck, i found a copy of wonderboys an under-appreciated jewel from the bright, buoyant days of 2000.

since our purchase, i’ve watched this film twice and i still can’t quite explain why i love it so. sure, the cast, which features the enchanting frances mcdormand along with a couple of other people you’ve probably heard of, is fantastic, the dylan infused soundtrack is inspired, the dialogue is catchy and the natural contextualization of the scenes is absolutely perfect,* but in the end i think i love this movie because it is as quirky as a stream-of-consciousness short story** and it focuses on – an admittedly strange as hell – mentoring relationship between professor tripp and james leer.

i’d love to say more, but I’m out of time and doing the movie a grave injustice. So just see it, will ya? and take a moment to let us know about additional underrated flicks we need to see.



* if you ever check this flick out, and you should, note how snow and rain reflect and amplify the emotional content of particular scenes.
** it was originally written by michael chabon, whose books i keep meaning to read.

2 comments:

joolz said...

I, too, love Wonderboys. I saw it in the theatre for reasons I cannot remember right now.

And you should read Chabon. I think you would enjoy Kavalier and Clay. Maybe. What do I know?

g13 said...

hey joolz, thanks for stopping by. i got about 120 pages into summerland at one point, but set it down for reasons that i cannot remember. i'll have to finish that one before moving onto k & c, which was the primary book i was thinking about.

have you had a chance to read caputo's acts of faith yet? if not, i think you would enjoy it.