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Shorts (2009 film)

2009 American family comedy/adventure film directed by Robert Rodriguez

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ2722782 ↗
Source-derived summary

Shorts (also known as Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock and released internationally as The Wishing Rock) is a 2009 fantasy comedy film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez and stars Jon Cryer, William H. Macy, Leslie Mann, James Spader, Jimmy Bennett, Kat Dennings, and introducing Jolie Vanier in her film debut, with Jake Short, Devon Gearhart, Trevor Gagnon, Leo Howard, and Rebel Rodriguez in supporting roles. It tells the story of a rainbow wishing rock that ends up in the possession of different people where the wishes have various results for those who make the wishes in a "series of shorts".

Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock made its world premiere screening on August 15, 2009, at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. Shortly after that, the movie was theatrically released in the United States on August 21, 2009, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film grossed $29 million on a $20 million budget.

It received mixed reviews from critics and received a Young Artist Award nomination for Best Performance in a Feature Film. Shorts: The Adventures of the Wishing Rock was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 24, 2009, by Warner Home Video.

Plot

Episode Zero - The Blinkers

In this prelude, a boy and a girl play a game of "Who Blinks First" where whoever blinks first has to do "you know what". Their staring contest goes through every event including sleeping.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Shorts (2009 film)” as 2009 American family comedy/adventure film directed by Robert Rodriguez. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Shorts, film and American.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2009. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Shorts, film and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Shorts (2009 film)”, the useful work is to connect “2009 American family comedy/adventure film directed by Robert Rodriguez” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2722782. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Shorts (2009 film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Shorts (2009 film) primary sources, Shorts (2009 film) archive and Shorts research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Shorts (2009 film)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Shorts (2009 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.