Email Author Robert Wilonsky

2002 Stories by Robert Wilonsky

• Catcher in the Sky

  published December 26, 2002

  Everything about Catch Me If You Can, the loosely based-on-fact tale of a teenager who swindled millions while posing as, among... More >>

• Fear Factor

  published December 26, 2002

  The biggest event to happen to television this year took place at the multiplex this summer: My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a one-woman show... More >>

• Schmidt Happens

  published December 19, 2002

  It's easy to presume About Schmidt isn't much of a movie since its protagonist, Warren Schmidt, isn't much of anything. He's portrayed by... More >>

• Jenny from the Crock

  published December 12, 2002

  Maid in Manhattan, in which Jennifer Lopez goes from pauper to princess, comes not from a screenplay but from a handful of self-help... More >>

• End of the Road

  published December 12, 2002

  Notes from a network executive's forthcoming biography, pilfered from the desk of an editor at a major publishing house. This was hard to read, as... More >>

• What Was Going On

  published November 28, 2002

  The tragedy is that even those who should have known better didn't know at all; how could they? The names they sought weren't listed, their... More >>

• Richter's Scale

  published November 28, 2002

  Andy Richter, the man who for seven years proved himself the rare late-night television sidekick worthy of being labeled equal partner, is not... More >>

• Mr. One-Man Show

  published November 21, 2002

  This is the story of David Cross as told only by David Cross, since no one else contacted for this story, this oral history, would comment on... More >>

• See, Hear

  published November 7, 2002

  The best thing about turning 80, insists the maestro who has been making music for movies for half of the medium's lifetime, is that you no longer... More >>

• Ho Ho Huh?

  published October 31, 2002

  The Santa Clause, released at the height of Home Improvement's popularity, played like a Very Special Holiday Episode of that... More >>

• Paul Faaaaag!

  published October 31, 2002

  Paul Feig remembers everything about his childhood you want to forget about yours--the ass-kickings, the name-calling, the overwhelming smell of a... More >>

• Charlie's Angles

  published October 24, 2002

  Once more, it all boils down to the stamps -- which, if you've seen Stanley Donen's 1963 comic-thriller Charade, nearly ruins the last ten... More >>

• True Dat

  published October 24, 2002

  CHARACTERS Russell Simmons: He is 45, wears a white baseball cap, a T-shirt with the words "40 Acres and a Bentley" on the back and a sweat... More >>

• School Daze

  published October 10, 2002

  Roger Avary's screenplay for The Rules of Attraction is a remarkable work of literature: the disassembly and reconstruction of an... More >>

• Out of Focus?

  published October 10, 2002

  No one denies that a man's head was smashed in, most likely with a camera tripod, on June 29, 1978, in an Arizona hotel room. No one denies that... More >>

• Dawson's Crossing

  published October 3, 2002

  This is not how he's supposed to talk. These are not things he's supposed to say. These are not things he's supposed to do. Not the Teen People... More >>

• Dropped in the Reese

  published September 26, 2002

  No there's no confusion, the star of Sweet Home Alabama is Reese Witherspoon, who graces the film's poster in full-body pout and... More >>

• Almost? Not Even.

  published September 19, 2002

  In The Banger Sisters Goldie Hawn plays Suzette, an aging groupie too stuck in a gloriously seedy past to move into the future. It's... More >>

• Catcher in the Wry

  published September 19, 2002

  Among the more preposterous rumors spread by Harry Knowles, whose Ain't It Cool News movie-biz-gossip Web site garners undue attention from... More >>

• Live Long, Prosper

  published September 5, 2002

  One day long ago--or not, because no one except he and a rare few know the precise date--an actor dove into the ocean to save a drowning boy. He... More >>

• New Order World

  published August 29, 2002

  To misappropriate a choice comment from TV journalist-turned-music-biz impresario Tony Wilson, I'll just say "Ian Curtis." If you know what I... More >>

• Simulation Number One

  published August 22, 2002

  Andrew Niccol keeps making the same movie over and over again and dressing it in slightly different clothes: the sleek charcoal Hugo Boss grays of... More >>

• Deaf and Dope

  published August 22, 2002

  The fascinating and heretofore unexamined theory put forth by Read My Lips (Sur mes lèvres): Being deaf offers its estimable... More >>

• Fallon Fast

  published August 22, 2002

  Things you will learn from a forthcoming oral history of Saturday Night Live: Dan Aykroyd slept with, among others, Gilda Radner, Laraine... More >>

• Say Cheese

  published August 15, 2002

  Robert Evans wrote his autobiography in 1994 as much out of desperation as out of hubris. It cried out, "Damn it, look at me...please?"... More >>