Next Stop Wonderland (1998)
Directed by Brad Anderson
Dumped by her loser boyfriend, Erin's love life hits rock bottom when her overbearing mother places an embarrassing ad in the "personals" section of a local newspaper on her behalf. Erin's disgust turns to curiosity as she searches for the right guy in a hilarious series of disastrous dates. Meanwhile, a lonely ex-plumber named Alan clumsily searches for his dream job while narrowly missing one chance meeting with Erin after another.
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What critics compared Next Stop Wonderland to
It's a wonderful romantic comedy that borrows the basic formula of Sleepless in Seattle (1993) -- two lovers fated for each other but tantalizingly kept apart -- and brings it to life.
Cheerful, accomplished and straightforwardly commercial, "Next Stop Wonderland" is basically the second best version of "Sleepless in Seattle" ever made--and that's not a criticism.
''Session 9'' is the first film released from director Brad Anderson after his lovely 1998 breakthrough, the bossa-nova-sparked ''Next Stop Wonderland,'' and this movie is so different in tone that the filmmaker, at times, seems to be bending over backward to stretch his wings.
Director Brad Anderson, a former indie upstart (his Next Stop Wonderland was a famous Sundance overbuy) turned capable genre filmmaker (his moody horror film Session 9 is particularly strong), emphasizes the violence with a distracting stutter effect, but otherwise handles the back-and-forth between Berry and Breslin with swiftness and brio.
Directed by Brad Anderson, whose breakout film was the charming Boston-set 1998 romance “Next Stop Wonderland,” “The Call” is standard serial killer fare.
Director Brad Anderson , whose experience runs from lauded indies (“Next Stop Wonderland”) to acclaimed TV (“The Wire”), has a firm handle on things for most of the movie, which he structures as a taut thriller.
In recent years, Anderson, known for well-received low-budget features such as “Next Stop Wonderland” and “The Machinist,” has focused on prestigious cable dramas (“Boardwalk Empire,” “The Killing”).
Anderson began in the mid-1990s in independent romances (Next Stop Wonderland, Happy Accidents) and has settled into a balance of chillers (Session 9, The Machinist) and television series.
The man who made the delicate Boston romance “Next Stop Wonderland” (1998), the creepy Christian-Bale-gets-skeletal drama “The Machinist” (2004), and the baroque Euro-thriller “Transsiberian” (2008) has gone down-market, with seamy, exploitive touches like fish-eye lenses pushed repeatedly into victims’ sobbing faces.