Robert Wilonsky

At the time of this writing, the Oakland Athletics sit at a distant third in the American League West, eighteen games behind the Texas Rangers managed by Ron Washington, once the first-base coach under A's wonderboy Billy Beane. The A's have not had a winning season since making the playoffs...

Paul, it should be noted up front, is not the third installment in the so-called Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, though there are indeed servings of both. Note the one key missing element: Edgar Wright, who directed and co-wrote with Pegg both the 2004...

Classiest. Comic. Book. Movie. Ever. Not the best. Not the worst. Just the classiest: Helen Mirren (and Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich and Brian Cox and Richard Dreyfuss) can spruce up any pulp. As far as comic-book adaptations go, though, Red is a little closer to the bright side of...

Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is every bit as faithful to its source material (Bryan Lee O'Malley's six-volume series about a 22-year-old go-nowhere man-boy fending off his new girlfriend's seven evil exes) as Zack Snyder's Watchmen was to his (Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's brooding comic-hero deconstruction). Both...

As the lights were dimming before a preview screening of Despicable Me, the six-year-old who lives in my house leaned over and said, "I hope this is funny — not like Toy Story 3." Now, don't misunderstand: He adored that movie. It's just that whenever the subject comes up, the...