Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2004 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Movies: the Year in Review -- From Major to Minor

  published December 30, 2004

  To understand this most tumultuous year in film, over which loomed the ghost of a blessed messiah and the shadow of an accursed pariah, turn your... More >>

• Splish Splash Thud

  published December 30, 2004

  The early reviews for Beyond the Sea, the Bobby Darin biopic on which Kevin Spacey did everything save for feeding the crew and sweeping... More >>

• Crash and Yearn

  published December 23, 2004

  The parade of real-life figures strolling into the googolplex has been endless this year: Look, there's Jamie Foxx as musical Mount Rushmore Ray... More >>

• Focking Wonderful

  published December 23, 2004

  When your movie gets riotous laughter out of endless utterances of the word "Focker," it doesn't have to try very hard. So it's no surprise that... More >>

• Sea of Loathe

  published December 23, 2004

  The critic who takes notes during The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou will ultimately fill a notepad only with scribbled details: "All the... More >>

• All You Can Eat

  published December 16, 2004

  In Spanglish, which is less a story than a snapshot of a crumbling marriage populated by sitcom characters, Adam Sandler plays John Clasky,... More >>

• No Dicking Around

  published November 25, 2004

  The most shocking thing about Kinsey, the first film from writer-director Bill Condon since 1998's Gods and Monsters, is how... More >>

• Skip It

  published November 25, 2004

  As the year stumbles toward its conclusion and critics begin penning their best-and-worst compendiums, here's a holiday contender fit for the... More >>

• Cage Death Match

  published November 18, 2004

  Jerry Bruckheimer has always insisted he cares less about critical acclaim than about commercial appeal. "We make movies for the common man," he... More >>

• Bridget Jones: The Edge of Treason

  published November 11, 2004

  Directed by . Screenplay by , . Starring . Rated R. More >>

• Super, Ordinary

  published November 4, 2004

  Myriad filmmakers have attempted in vain to film Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic book Watchmen since its initial publication in 1986, in... More >>

• Candy Caine

  published November 4, 2004

  Writer-director Charles Shyer's Alfie is less a remake of the 1966 film that made Michael Caine a star than it is a retooling that softens... More >>

• Messed Around

  published October 28, 2004

  Ray, director Taylor Hackford's 15-years-in-the-making biography of Ray Charles, begins as you might hope: with 1959's "What'd I Say (Part... More >>

• Icky, Icky, Icky

  published October 28, 2004

  Even before the movie begins, as the New Line logo is still coalescing on a dark screen, a man speaks on the soundtrack. He's talking about... More >>

• Soft-Shoe Soft Sell

  published October 14, 2004

  It would be so easy to titter and scoff at Shall We Dance?, a Miramaxed-out version of the 1996 Japanese film of the same name,... More >>

• Hell of a Catch

  published October 7, 2004

  There are at least three movies contained within the covers of H.G. Bissinger's best-selling 1990 nonfiction book Friday Night Lights. One... More >>

• Say Wha? Say Why?

  published October 7, 2004

  Maybe it's the mark of a great film that it can affect an audience member even when he sleeps through the entire thing. Such was the case with my... More >>

• Floundering

  published September 30, 2004

  Shark Tale is an animated film, though after you see it you might wonder whether the term is intended as oxymoronic. Put simply, it has no... More >>

• Already Forgotten

  published September 23, 2004

  In this year of political movies, in which agendas serve as plots, comes the unlikeliest candidate of them all, The Forgotten, in which the... More >>

• Shallow Pop

  published September 16, 2004

  Mr. 3000 has low aspirations, which suits it well. It's about a 47-year-old baseball player trying to get three meager hits and the team... More >>

• Vote No

  published September 16, 2004

  Silver City is being marketed as a biting, bitter send-up of George W. Bush. Hence the copious use of trailer footage in which Chris... More >>

• Yes, You Can

  published August 12, 2004

  A good friend likes to say that there's only one kind of great pop song -- the song that someone had to create, as though the writer and... More >>

• Nasty Girl

  published August 5, 2004

  Little Black Book, with its Carly Simon soundtrack all but daring you to tune it out before it begins, is being marketed as a daffy... More >>

• Head Trip

  published August 5, 2004

  Perhaps the most unlikely thing to capture on film is the creative process -- the spinning of gears, the tripping of wires, the breaking of... More >>

• Summer Camp

  published July 29, 2004

  Jonathan Demme's gutsy The Manchurian Candidate, which dares to rear its head just after the Democratic National Convention in Boston, is... More >>