Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2000 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Blow Up the Box

  published December 28, 2000

  Thank God for old Jews with shaky hands and the inability to tell this word (G-O-R-E) from this one (B-U-C-H-A-N-A-N). Without them--and... More >>

• Twisp of the Tale

  published December 21, 2000

  Contained within a care package sent by C.D. Payne is a self-penned press release introducing the author as "the Rodney Dangerfield of comic... More >>

• Recycled Gifts

  published December 21, 2000

  The Family Man offers but a slight variation on the threadbare holiday theme of what life might have been like had Our Hero followed... More >>

• Broken and Battered

  published December 14, 2000

  Fair warning: Enough time has passed that it's OK to discuss the ending of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable. Those who have... More >>

• The Theater Shopping Network

  published December 14, 2000

  What Women Want could be the first movie to win a Clio Award for Advertisement of the Year. No fewer than two dozen products receive... More >>

• Bless the Blockhead

  published December 7, 2000

  Christmastime is here, but for the first time, Charlie Brown's father will not be around to watch his depressed, round-headed child celebrate the... More >>

• Hostage Crisis: Day 143

  published December 7, 2000

  Day One: It was just part of the job, just another movie on another afternoon. This one promised to be no more special than any other, save... More >>

• Soul Survivor

  published November 23, 2000

  Unbreakable is such a quiet film that whenever a character speaks above a whisper, it sounds like the shattering of glass in a... More >>

• Ransom Notes

  published November 9, 2000

  No one likes to be seen as the roadblock to a revolution. The unfortunate soul--or the dumb bastard--who chooses to impede progress is likely to... More >>

• What, Them Worry?

  published November 2, 2000

  Let's get this out of the way right now, because so many of you will find this hard to believe: Yes, Mad magazine still exists. It is still... More >>

• Fallen Angels

  published November 2, 2000

  The opening credits of Charlie's Angels hint at a movie that never appears in the film's expurgated 94 minutes; the tease is too... More >>

• The Man of Ink

  published October 26, 2000

  Before others could reject him, Michael Chabon had convinced himself no one wanted to read an epic novel about comic-book creators, mythical... More >>

• The Man of Many Face

  published October 19, 2000

  It has often been written of Chris Guest--or, if you prefer, Fifth Baron Christopher Haden-Guest, son of diplomat Peter Haden-Guest, who could... More >>

• "Look! I Made This!"

  published October 12, 2000

  A cold breeze blows through an open window, and a football game silently unfolds on the television screen. The old man sitting on the couch... More >>

• Oh, Doctor!

  published October 12, 2000

  Richard Gere, as Dallas gynecologist Sullivan Travis, has never been more likable on-screen, perhaps because he's never been more human, more... More >>

• The Grandstander

  published October 12, 2000

  There's no getting around it: The Contender is the most offensive movie of the year. It pretends to be high-minded even while it... More >>

• Rock and a Hard Place

  published October 5, 2000

  John Wesley Hall believes justice is a myth taught in classrooms, a fable found in law books, as imaginary as the unicorn and the mermaid. The... More >>

• In the Company of Moles

  published October 5, 2000

  Meet the Parents has just enough class to make for Prestige Pop Culture: Robert De Niro as star, Randy Newman as composer, Blythe... More >>

• Forget It

  published September 28, 2000

  Remember the Titans, based on a true story about how a football team brought together the segregated town of Alexandria, Virginia,... More >>

• Stayin' Alive

  published September 21, 2000

  Twenty-four years ago, Peter Frampton was a Rock God, a curly, feathered-haired totem on the peak of Mount Olympus. In 1976 he was Rolling... More >>

• Devil Made Him Do It

  published September 21, 2000

  In the 1998 documentary The Fear of God: The Making of The Exorcist, made for the BBC and available on The Exorcist 25th-anniversary DVD,... More >>

• Almost Famous

  published September 21, 2000

  At first, you don't want to admit it, because it seems somehow wrong--just too easy. After all, the woman on the other end of the phone line is... More >>

• A Fan's Notes

  published September 14, 2000

  Almost Famous is the movie Cameron Crowe always wanted to make--and the movie he tried to keep from making as long as he could. The... More >>

• Self-Righteous Leftists

  published September 14, 2000

  Tom Paxton doesn't like to look back too long, for fear of turning into dust. It is okay, he says, to glance backward every so often, but do not... More >>

• People Try to Put Us Down...

  published September 14, 2000

  This song explains why I'm leaving home and becoming a stewardess," says Anita Miller (Zooey Deschanel) to her well-meaning, overbearing mother,... More >>