Robert Wilonsky

The con is on ... the audience.; Credit: Peter Iovino

21: Counting Sheep

Robert Wilonsky
Ben Mezrich’s 2002 best-seller Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions was a smart narrative about ... well, you did see the subtitle, right? Mezrich more or less recounted a fantastic tale spun by an old acquaintance from Boston, an MIT......
Smalltime crooks; Credit: Jack English

The Bank Job: Fast and Loose

Robert Wilonsky
"Based on a true story," brags The Bank Job before diving into the clear blue water of a Caribbean island, where, in 1970, a topless woman frolics with two swimming mates — just another day in paradise. The trio retire to a hotel room for a sweaty, breathless afternoon quickie,......

Will Ferrell's Semi-Pro Is Only Half Bad:

Robert Wilonsky
Semi-Pro is much better than Blades of Glory, which wasn't nearly as good as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, which was a little better than Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was almost as funny as Old School, which was better than everything else Will Ferrell had......
Throw me the money: Queen Latifah

Chick Flick, Two Ways: Mad Money and 27 Dresses

Robert Wilonsky
If Diane Keaton were a comer in 2007, she'd likely be stuck in romantic comedies cooked up in movie-studio test kitchens. No Godfather for her. No Annie Hall, no Shoot the Moon, no Reds. Filmmakers who now use Katherine Heigl as their go-to girl would be flummoxed by the willowy......

Dan in Reel Life

Robert Wilonsky
Dan in Real Life has this much going for it: It is not the worst Steve Carell film of 2007. That honor, of course, goes to Evan Almighty, which even the Lord walked out of during the second reel. Fact is, Dan isn’t really much of a film at all......

The Kingdom: Shoot 'Em Up

Robert Wilonsky
The Kingdom is the first film from Peter Berg since the actor-turned-director’s Friday Night Lights, which spawned an acclaimed, if struggling, franchise for NBC. There will be no small-screen spinoff of The Kingdom — there are too many corpses lying around to populate a sequel, much less a series. Besides,......
Who says old media is dead? (Yari Film Group)

Truth and Consequences

Robert Wilonsky
Resurrecting the Champ is a great movie about journalism — maybe the best there ever was — because Resurrecting the Champ is mind-erasingly boring. It’s a solid story about the newspaper business — specifically, about how a well-intentioned writer occasionally makes a mistake totally by accident, a mistake that is......

No Reservations: Light Dining

Robert Wilonsky
Sadly, No Reservations is not the big-screen adaptation of Anthony Bourdain’s snack-gulping, risk-taking Travel Channel show; you’ll find no monkey brains here, nor any attempts to party down in Beirut whilst Hezbollah and Israel blow each other to smithereens. This is just more of the same from the franchise factory......