Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2008 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Critical Mass: The best movies of 2008

  published December 24, 2008

  Is it a sign of the apocalypse? Something in the water? Or is it just the way the wind is blowing? Whatever the case, when our... More >>

• Coming (at You) Soon: Jeffrey Katzenberg's cure-all for an ailing movie economy, in all three dimensions

  published December 24, 2008

  As far as Jeffrey Katzenberg is concerned, up to now there have been but two "revolutions" in the movie business: the mass introduction of... More >>

• Spinning Blues Into Lies: Cadillac Records can't handle the truth

  published December 3, 2008

  First, a key spoiler: Cadillac Records is not the story of Chess Records, the blues label started in Chicago in 1950 by brothers Leonard... More >>

• Big Daddies: Role Models is smarter and bawdier than your average boys-to-men movie

  published November 5, 2008

  Paul Rudd wears the constant look of glazed-eye amusement; everything seems to tickle him, even that which annoys or frustrates or disappoints... More >>

• We Rent the Night: New York cop-drama holds the audience hostage

  published October 22, 2008

  Pride and Glory doesn't make any effort to disguise precisely what it is: a barely held-together string of vignettes lifted from every cop... More >>

• Apocalypse Whatever: Ben Stiller's Hollywood send-up lacks firepower

  published August 13, 2008

  Early buzz out of Hollywood pegged Tropic Thunder, directed and co-written by star Ben Stiller, as the end-all and be-all of movie-biz... More >>

• Not Quite Ripe: Send it back. Bottle Shock's corked.

  published August 6, 2008

  Bottle Shock, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, is a great concept populated by great actors that works hard to make... More >>

• Going Down: Brendan Fraser falls into a deep, deep hole at the Center of the Earth

  published July 9, 2008

  At the top, let's be clear about one thing: Journey to the Center of the Earth is more a demo reel than a narrative feature. It's a... More >>

• Superzero: Hancock squanders potential greatness with lame humor and a half-baked hero

  published July 2, 2008

  The Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis as a dead man, was writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's breakthrough, but its follow-up,... More >>

• The Not Terrible Hulk: In the shadow of Iron Man, the latest from Marvel can't live up to its billing

  published June 11, 2008

  In recent days, Universal's been running a TV spot for The Incredible Hulk that gives away what should come as no surprise to any fanboy... More >>

• Indiana Jones and the Fortress of Sad Decline: Its very own temple of doom, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull digs Indy into a deep hole

  published May 21, 2008

  Here's your hat, Indy, but, really, what's your hurry? Because nineteen years after the Last Crusade that clearly wasn't, and fifteen... More >>

• McDreamy tries to win over his engaged gal pal in My Best Friend's Made of Honor Wedding

  published April 30, 2008

  In Made of Honor, Patrick Dempsey plays a conveniently rich and willfully single serial "fornicator" slowly but surely domesticated by... More >>

• Nobody's Baby: Neither Tina Fey nor Amy Poehler seem the least bit invested in Baby Mama

  published April 23, 2008

  Could have sworn I've seen this episode of Baby Mama before — like sometime in January 2007, when it was originally titled "The... More >>

• Jason Segel uses his balls to great effect in Forgetting Sarah Marshall

  published April 16, 2008

  Jason Segel is responsible for two of the most cringe-inducing, hands-in-front-of-your-face moments in the recent history of television, both... More >>

• Ordinary People

  published April 9, 2008

  Smart people got no reason to live — and, sure, that's not quite how Randy Newman sang it, but the point still stands. Because in Noam... More >>

• Three the Hard Way

  published March 12, 2008

  No Country for Old Men (Paramount) "A horror comedy chase" is how a grinning Tommy Lee Jones describes No... More >>

• Oscar-Starved

  published March 5, 2008

  Into the Wild (Paramount) Sean Penn waited a good decade before adapting Jon Krakauer's book about Chris McCandless,... More >>

• True or false, The Bank Job is too much fun to fact-check

  published March 5, 2008

  "Based on a true story," brags The Bank Job before diving into the clear blue water of the Caribbean, where, in 1970, a topless woman... More >>

• Move Along, Kids

  published February 27, 2008

  Justice League: The New Frontier (Warner Bros.)Based on Darwyn Cooke's comic-book miniseries — a masterpiece... More >>

• Laughing Pains

  published February 20, 2008

  Margot at the Wedding (Paramount) Margot (Nicole Kidman, or someone who looks just like her) is a fiction writer whose tales... More >>

• Chafing Dishes: No Reservations now available on DVD

  published February 13, 2008

  No Reservations(Warner Bros.)From its cheap, mid-'90s-looking package to its woefully scant extras (one pre-chewed... More >>

• How the West was wasted: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford now on DVD

  published February 6, 2008

  The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford(Warner Bros.)Beautifully shot, masterfully acted, and... More >>

• Donkey Punch

  published January 30, 2008

  The King of Kong (New Line) Seth Gordon's best-of-2007 documentary about the battle for Donkey Kong supremacy remains a... More >>

• Super, Thanks for Asking

  published January 23, 2008

  Confessions of a Superhero (Arts Alliance) As one of those quoted on the package ("A more beautiful documentary you're unlikely to... More >>

• Wookiee Mistake

  published January 16, 2008

  Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest (FOX) As someone with no use for Seth MacFarlane's potty-mouthed Simpsons rip, I'll admit... More >>