Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2003 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Forget It

  published December 25, 2003

  Seems a little early for a remake of Minority Report, but when your movie's all about seeing and forgetting the future, who's gonna... More >>

• Lies My Father Told Me

  published December 25, 2003

  For all of its inspired side trips down Imagination Lane, Big Fish is ultimately about one thing: the relationship between a son about to... More >>

• A Fan's Notes

  published December 11, 2003

  This being the end of the year, and since none of the people I wanted to write about this week felt it necessary to return any of my calls, from... More >>

• The S Word

  published December 4, 2003

  Bad Santa, in which Billy Bob Thornton plays a drunken department-store Santa who repeatedly swears at children, pisses himself... More >>

• Comics from the Front

  published December 4, 2003

  Maybe you know the feeling. Maybe it struck you one morning as you stared in the mirror before trundling off to the job you hate, or maybe it hit... More >>

• Indian Giver

  published November 27, 2003

  In director Ron Howard's The Missing, Tommy Lee Jones' Samuel Jones takes his place among the oldest archetypes in the Western genre -- the... More >>

• Free Will

  published November 6, 2003

  Even when people were watching Will Ferrell on television every Saturday night, they weren't seeing Will Ferrell. They saw no more than a... More >>

• The Boss

  published October 30, 2003

  On October 12, BBC America aired the second-season premiere of The Office, the beloved mockumentary that follows paper-selling rats 'round... More >>

• A Ball, Screwed

  published October 9, 2003

  t's beginning to look as though the films of George Clooney are less the works of fiction than the products of documentary crews following around... More >>

• Half Great

  published October 9, 2003

  he opening credits insist that Kill Bill: Volume 1 is "Quentin Tarantino's 4th film," when it's actually his 3.5th; it's too incomplete to... More >>

• It's a Black Thing

  published October 2, 2003

  Director Richard Linklater's School of Rock imagines, sort of, what might have become of voluble rock snob Barry the morning after his... More >>

• David Bowie

  published October 2, 2003

  At this late date, only the acolytes await the latest Bowie release, the casual fan having been waved off by slow sellbacks masquerading as Low... More >>

• Lowbrow, Meet Eyebrow

  published September 25, 2003

  The script for The Rundown has lingered for more than a decade and was originally a Patrick Swayze vehicle, well before those wheels fell... More >>

• The Reel Who

  published September 25, 2003

  The publicity materials sent in advance of the at-long-last release of The Kids Are Alright on DVD suggest that the maker of the 1979... More >>

• Con Heir

  published September 11, 2003

  When Nicolas Cage plays still and sullen -- a man possessed by self-loathing and melancholy in Adaptation, say, or the landlocked angel in... More >>

• Lit Up

  published August 21, 2003

  On Sunday, HBO will air the final episode of what has been the most consistently entertaining -- and aggravating -- show of the summer television... More >>

• For Love of the Game

  published August 14, 2003

  He knows there are people, too many, who do not like him. He has to know. They've told him to his face--the studio executives who slice and... More >>

• You, Spy

  published July 31, 2003

  David Wolstencroft moved from London to Los Angeles in November, and not only so he could rise each morning for a game of tennis--though there is... More >>

• Minor League

  published July 17, 2003

  The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- or LXG, as Fox refers to it, as though it's the latest Lexus all-terrain vehicle -- would... More >>

• Still Smilin'?

  published July 10, 2003

  Stan Lee, for better or worse the most recognizable face in the history of the comic book, insists he has no love for rehashing his past. He... More >>

• Greek Out

  published June 12, 2003

  You need not leave the house to know what's playing in movie theaters in coming weeks. You've already seen these films, with titles consisting of... More >>

• Hammer of the Gods

  published June 5, 2003

  In November there will arrive on newsstands a music magazine edited by Alan Light, who left Spin to embark on his endeavor of publishing a... More >>

• Safe, Cracked

  published May 29, 2003

  Another week, another remake -- summer, that season of air-conditioned originality, must be upon us. Only, unlike The In-Laws, which... More >>

• Dem Blues

  published May 29, 2003

  You've been warned: This is a column about politics wherein a popular-culture critic (dunno what that is either, but says so on my tax returns)... More >>

• Terror Firmer

  published May 15, 2003

  In March 2002, days before President Bush was scheduled to visit Peru, a car bomb exploded near the U.S. embassy in Lima, killing nine and... More >>