I Said That Didn't Sound Like You

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Frances McDormand unloading their baby from the car and smiling up directly at Michael Douglas >>> Any Other Ending Ever.

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"I saw a movie once. Part of it took place in heaven. Everyone wore white and lived in crystal houses. Like that." pic.twitter.com/pDCLi7v3yf

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 21, 2016

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I tweeted a few times about the passing of Wonder Boys director Curtis Hanson last night but I'd be remiss not mentioning it here since Wonder Boys became one of my favorite movies the second I saw in in the year 2000, and my love for it's only grown deeper through the years. I re-watched half of it last night really wanting to project my sadness upon it but the film wouldn't sit still for that - it's too funny and weird and particular for that kind of agenda. Oh there's sadness, plenty of it, coursing through it's literary-not-cinematic (to quote a character) veins - the way Hanson lights the tears that spill from Tobey Maguire as he stares at Marilyn Monroe's jacket for the first time is half heavenly and half-pornographic. Them tears matter!

"Pow."

But the movie won't be pinned down, much like Hanson's career - it's a little bit of everything, and that's why I think it's his truest masterpiece over the more-respected likes of LA Confidential. Not that it's a contest! They can all be good movies. I just feel, without having known the man, that Wonder Boys speaks his language the clearest. Anyway I am very sad we won't get to see which swerve Hanson's genre-hopping career would take next - there aren't enough old-fashioned anti-auteurs like him anymore, where you never knew what you'd get going in but it was always interesting and usually very good at that.
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