David Edelstein Author Archive
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David Edelstein

Senior Movie Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine
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  1. movie review
    The Trippy, Tacky, Monumental ThorIt’s like the most stoned dinner-theater production of ‘The Ring of the Nibelungs’ you’ll ever be lucky enough to ogle.
  2. movie review
    Movie Review: The Clever, Bloody, Sadistic Scream 4“A pretty fair hall-of-mirrors horror ride.”
  3. movie review
    Your Highness Is Bad Taste Done RightDavid Edelstein calls it “a cunning weave of low and high, regal and smutty, splendiferous and splattery.”
  4. retrospective
    Edelstein on Elizabeth TaylorHer great gift? Being alive onscreen as few actresses before or since.
  5. movie review
    Movie Review: There Will Be Blood in Black DeathChristopher Smith double-edged witch-hunting film.
  6. movie review
    Movie Review: Certified Copy Is the Best Kind of FakeAre the stars of this film a real couple married for years? Or are they play-acting?
  7. movie review
    Movie Review: Of Gods and Men’s Higher LoveA stark and powerful religious drama about French monks who remain in Algeria despite the threats of Islamic fundamentalists.
  8. oscars
    David Edelstein Live Blogs the OscarsWatch along with New York Magazine’s film critic and get some very opinionated reactions
  9. oscars
    Join David Edelstein Sunday As He Live-Blogs the OscarsSpend the night with a real, live film critic!
  10. movie review
    Movie Review: Another Thrill Ride for Liam Neeson in UnknownThe movie is lean and fast and endlessly upending, and unlike most modern crash-and-bash films, you can actually follow the car chases and fisticuffs.
  11. movie review
    At Least Sanctum Looks NiceThe acting is mostly blah, the dialogue from hunger, and there isn’t even a clear beginning to the story — it’s all throat clearing — until the first person gets killed.
  12. movie review
    Movie Review: Anthony Hopkins Serves Up Supernatural Swill in The RiteHopkins is surprisingly good and low-key in his first scenes, but that’s not because the Old Ham has changed his ways.
  13. movie review
    The Tiresome Men-children of The Green Hornet and The DilemmaThe genre in which grown-up buddies wrestle with their masculinity while acting like juveniles is looking mighty limp.
  14. movie review
    Movie Review: Rabbit Hole Finds a New, Powerful Perspective on GriefAnd Nicole Kidman is a revelation.
  15. movie review
    The Fighter Is Not So Much Raging Bull As Raging FamilyIt’s a rousing film, with so much texture that once it gets you, you’re good and got.
  16. movie review
    Movie Review: Jim Carrey’s Gay Con Man Actually Great!Carrey triumphs, by playing Steven as a man who plays other people.
  17. movie review
    Movie Review: Tangled is No Big Deal, But Still a Goofy Good TimeI can’t help liking a movie with chameleon reaction shots.
  18. movie review
    Movie Review: The Nutcracker in 3D — One Stinking Piece of Coal for Your StockingMy daughter forgave me for taking her to this, but yours may not.
  19. movie review
    Movie Review: A Clumsy But Still Surprising The Next Three DaysScene by scene, ‘The Next Three Days’ feels off.
  20. movie review
    Morning Glory’s Cookie-Cutter CharmThe movie pokes fun at shallow, self-satisfied TV morning shows that are no less artificial than this chick flick.
  21. movie review
    Movie Review: The Irregular Joys of Guy and MadelineWhen it works, it catches you off guard: You go, in an instant, from exasperation to exhilaration.
  22. movie review
    Movie Review: The Ick and Wow of 127 Hours Doesn’t Add Up to MuchDanny Boyle gives us a music-video-style exercise. There’s nothing to take home apart from the dwindling memory of sensation.
  23. movie review
    Movie Review: The Formulaic Due Date Is Better Than It Should BeDowney’s pitch-perfect deadpan and the seemingly delusional Galifianakis put the movie over.
  24. movie review
    Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 2 Is One Scary Lack of FunThe sequel to the 2007 original is at least not the dud ‘Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows’ was.
  25. movie review
    Movie Review: Nora’s Will Is Hereafter Minus the SapThe Mexican film ‘Nora’s Will,’ in its wry, understated way, is a far more searching depiction of life after death than Clint Eastwood’s mawkishly supernatural film.
  26. movie review
    Movie Review: Red Is Graphic, Though Hardly NovelThe movie has an aura of hipness and a cast to die (in a hail of gunfire) for, but nothing can quite get it airborne.
  27. movie review
    Movie Review: Why Jackass 3D Makes Me Laugh Like a HyenaThere’s something decadent about privileged white Americans hurting themselves for laughs and extreme profit.
  28. movie review
    Movie Review: A Righteous, Belabored ConvictionWhat female star wouldn’t jump at such Oscar bait? Prepare the net: Here comes Hilary Swank!
  29. movie review
    Zach Galifianakis Stunningly Good in Too Tidy It’s Kind of a Funny Story’It’s Kind of a Funny Story’ is too tidy and often too cute. What saves it is the directors’ soft sell.
  30. movie review
    Movie Review: Tamara Drewe Is Slightly InfectiousIt feels too slight to earn its eventual casualties, but in its unpretentious way, it has the fullness of an eighteenth-century novel.
  31. movie review
    Movie Review: I Spit on Your Grave Is the Sickest Kind of PleasureOh, the vile, sick, sadistic, despicable, depraved depths to which I will go.
  32. movie review
    Movie Review: Freakonomics, the Discovery Channel Series That Might Have BeenAs a four-part motion picture, it feels like piffle, even when its conclusions are momentous.
  33. movie review
    Movie Review: Ryan Reynolds Digs Deep in BuriedA gripping film, as well as a harrowing indictment of our occupation of Iraq.
  34. movie review
    Review: Howl Is an Exhilarating Trip Back in TimeJames Franco finds his first perfect role in Allen Ginsberg.
  35. movie review
    Movie Review: For a Good Time, Don’t Enter the VoidBombastic visionary Gaspar Noé delivers another marathon of unpleasantness.
  36. movie review
    Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger Is Despairingly ReflexiveThe great director’s craftsmanship is as strong as ever, but his despair has become reflexive.
  37. sex and the pity
    Debate: What Went Wrong with Sex and the City 2?And is Samantha “grotesque”?
  38. cannes 2010
    Cannes Reviews: Robin Hood, 2 Great Foreign FilmsDavid Edelstein and Logan Hill weigh in.
  39. movie review
    Step Brothers is Mightier Than the Sum of Its LaughsA lot of gifted, un-self-censoring men and women have been given license to say and do anything.
  40. movie review
    In Michael Clayton, George Clooney Cleans Up NicelyThe actor is as good as he has ever been in Tony Gilroy’s excellent conspiracy thriller.