Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2004 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• 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 >>

• 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 >>

• Crash and Yearn

  published December 23, 2004

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

• Life After Death

  published December 16, 2004

  Andre Anthony Lewis used to dream about his death. He thought of it so often it became almost like the memory of something that hadn't yet... More >>

• Robert Downey Jr.

  published December 2, 2004

  Insert drug reference here, 'cause somebody's snortin' (shootin', smokin') some serious shit--the guy who made it, the company that... More >>

• Back to Work

  published November 25, 2004

  When last we saw David Brent, manager at Wernham Hogg's Slough branch, he was being fired by higher-ups Neil and Jennifer. Brent, his eyes welling... 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 commercial appeal. "We make movies for the common man," he said... More >>

• No Dicking Around

  published November 18, 2004

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

• U2

  published November 18, 2004

  Curious career move, following your best album with your worst, though it could be blamed on expectation, too. What other explanation is there... More >>

• The Edge of Treason

  published November 11, 2004

  A week after having seen Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, no memory of it remains save some scribblings in my notepad, such is the... More >>

• Give 'em Hellmuth

  published November 4, 2004

  He's a franchise now--writer of two books, star of a series of DVDs, seller of a wireless Texas hold 'em game, even the face (literally) of a set... More >>

• Off to See the WizardWorld

  published November 4, 2004

  No longer does the comic-book reader have to apologize for his (or her!) fondness for tales starring caped crusaders; no longer must we skulk into... More >>

• Gabba Gabba Henh

  published November 4, 2004

  The Ramones have been commodified (shilling Bud Light with "Blitzkrieg Bop"), deified, even gentrified (on the soundtrack to The Royal... 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... More >>

• Reefer Sadness

  published October 28, 2004

  Only once during her tenure as a Dallas Observer columnist did Laura Miller ever ask if she could go to an early screening of a movie, and... More >>

• Scars and Bars

  published October 28, 2004

  "Whadyawant, motherfuck?" They're the first words Charles Bukowski speaks in John Dullaghan's documentary about the poet and novelist, famous for... 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 >>

• Various Artists

  published October 28, 2004

  At last a tribute compilation on which friends and family outnumber enemies and strangers, but not by much. At least the Pixies lay claim to... More >>

• Petra Haden and Bill Frisell | Alison Moyet

  published October 21, 2004

  These two discs--one fronted by a third of That Dog, the other by half of Yaz--share in common only their fondness for other people's songs; of... More >>

• Pick of the Litter

  published October 14, 2004

  Most film festivals--at least ones not in Toronto, Manhattan, Cannes or Park City, Utah--have no rhyme or reason to their schedules, no more than... More >>

• Shatner, Transformed

  published October 14, 2004

  They laughed then--roared, actually, till they ran out of breath--and probably will now. He expects nothing less, because rare is the punch line... More >>

• Mind Games

  published October 7, 2004

  Before he made Primer for some $7,000, Dallas software engineer-turned-writer-director-actor-editor Shane Carruth had no idea how to... 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 >>