Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2003 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Lies My Father Told Me

  published December 25, 2003

  For all of its inspired side trips down Imagination Lane (let's call it that, because the "memories" of protagonist Edward Bloom are too majestic... More >>

• Barely Passing

  published December 18, 2003

  The Mona Lisa Smile in question belongs, of course, to its star, Julia Roberts. Why? For no particular reason, actually. It's just... More >>

• Dance This Mess Around

  published December 4, 2003

  Honey is one of those movies you will see, swear you've seen before in several other guises and incarnations, then immediately... More >>

• Indian Giver

  published November 27, 2003

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

• Half Great

  published October 9, 2003

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

• Stupor Man

  published August 28, 2003

  Harvey Pekar, star of a long-running comic-book series he writes and others illustrate, is reminded early in American Splendor that... More >>

• Twist of Fate

  published August 28, 2003

  "A film starring Bob Dylan" -- five more frightening words you'd be hard-pressed to put into the same sentence, even among those who forgave the... More >>

• Heaven Sent

  published July 31, 2003

  There's magic in Northfork -- both in the movie, by twin brothers Mark and Michael Polish, and in the Montana town soon to be... More >>

• Family Affair

  published June 26, 2003

  I purposely avoided reading anything about Capturing the Friedmans till seeing the film, which has been no easy task. Andrew... 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 >>

• Mr. Mom

  published May 8, 2003

  Long ago Eddie Murphy had grown tired of Eddie Murphy parts: the fast-talking high-jiver, the preening put-on. Even before he began parodying... More >>

• Break Like the Wind

  published April 24, 2003

  They were loud once, deafeningly so--and dumbingly so, if such a thing is possible. They wore skins of leather stuffed with cucumbers of foil,... More >>

• Made With Love

  published April 10, 2003

  Maybe all you want out of your pop music is a few minutes of escape, a radio-friendly respite from the heavy humdrum of your workaday existence.... More >>

• War on War Songs

  published March 27, 2003

  War, as it turns out, is good for absolutely nothing when it comes to anti-war songs. At the risk of sounding like Bill O'Reilly (who, no doubt,... More >>

• Kill Shot

  published March 13, 2003

  When Neil Burger's debut as feature-film writer and director, Interview with the Assassin, was being shopped around, it had many... More >>

• That '60s Show

  published March 6, 2003

  This is a story with a happy ending, because, so far, nothing bad has happened to indicate otherwise. There are no ratings to sweat over, no... More >>

• Steal This Movie

  published February 27, 2003

  This should really piss you off: What follows is a story about a very funny movie you will have absolutely no chance of seeing any time soon. The... More >>

• Natural Disaster

  published February 20, 2003

  Tony Grisoni can always tell when his old friend Terry Gilliam, the visionary who sees too far for his own good, is in pain: He laughs. The worse... More >>

• The Bleeding Edge

  published February 13, 2003

  It was supposed to be make-believe, a disturbing but ultimately uplifting work of science-fiction from a celebrated author of grim futurama and... More >>

• The Pain Train

  published February 6, 2003

  Rawson Thurber has been so busy the past few days that by the time he finally returns a reporter's phone call, he does so at 1:30 in the... More >>

• Your New Friends?

  published January 30, 2003

  Last October, Sue Vertue found herself in a Los Angeles soundstage watching the filming of a pilot for a would-be NBC sitcom. The storyline of... More >>

• Blowin' Smoke

  published January 30, 2003

  First off, make no mistake: Biker Boyz is not, and has no intentions of being, The Fast and the Furious on two wheels, which... More >>

• Erasure

  published January 23, 2003

  James Taylor's stab at "Everyday" was just underwhelmingly twee; Andy Bell makes the Buddy Holly tune full-blown gay, which is precisely the... More >>