David Edelstein Author Archive
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David Edelstein

Senior Movie Critic
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  1. movie review
    The Muddled Elements of The Accountant Somehow Add Up to a Decent TimeWhen you’re not laughing at it, you’re laughing with it.
  2. movie review
    Movie Review: Certain WomenThe director takes titanic emotions and frames them in un-titanic ways, here in long, seemingly uneventful shots.
  3. movie review
    Animation Heightens Tower’s Unsettling StoryStretching the form of documentaries has given us stunning hybrids like Waltz With Bashir, Persepolis, and now, this.
  4. movie review
    The Girl on the Train Is a Thriller That Doesn’t Know How to ThrillI got depressed early, when I realized I’d be spending two hours in the hands of people who didn’t know how to tell a story.
  5. movie review
    Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation Is a Melodramatic Revenge SagaIt conforms, beat by beat, to the most ruthless Hollywood vigilante template.
  6. Review: Ava DuVernay’s Essential, Imperfect 13thThe movie is frankly exhausting, with too much information (and too many brilliant interviewees) to do justice to here. You simply need to see it.
  7. movie review
    Deepwater Horizon Thrillingly Re-creates an Awful, Indefensible EventEvery burst of steam and lethal debris, every burn and laceration, feels momentous.
  8. movie review
    Movie Review: American Honey’s Magnetic RealismThe payoff is so huge you feel the medium is expanding before your eyes.
  9. movie review
    Review: The Magnificent Seven Is a Wan WesternThe movie has the trappings of a classic Western and it hits its marks, but there’s no grandeur in its images or generosity in its soul.
  10. movie review
    Bridget Jones’s Baby Rediscovers the Joys of the OriginalIt’s hard to parse the movie, but it certainly keeps you watching, amused and appalled and amused again.
  11. movie review
    Oliver Stone’s Snowden Takes Its Subject’s SideStone is so intent on making Snowden an icon that he scrubs him of his nuances, his individuality.
  12. movie review
    Author: The JT LeRoy Story Explores the Phenomenon of a Genuine PhonyThis lively documentary peels off the mask once more.
  13. movie review
    Tom Hanks Keeps the Shaky Sully From CrashingDirector Clint Eastwood and screenwriter Todd Komarnicki turned Captain Chesley Sullenberger’s heroic feat into a story of government persecution.
  14. movie review
    The Melodrama of The Light Between Oceans Arrives in Crashing WavesOn one side are flawed but noble grown-ups who can’t make happily-ever-after work; on the other is an innocent child who is suddenly bereft.
  15. appreciation
    Gene Wilder’s Genius Was in His Simmering HysteriaThe comic icon could go deep into himself and still be the greatest audience imaginable for his fellow clowns.
  16. movie review
    Southside With You Is Awkward and Unsure, But It Wins You OverThe movie’s mix of romance and politics — both African-American and feminist politics — has a naïve kind of charm.
  17. movie review
    Don’t Breathe Traps You With Its Expertly Crafted HorrorsIt’s visually resourceful and honest in how it sets up and delivers on its shocks. There isn’t a single false scare.
  18. fall preview 2016
    What Vulture’s Critics Are Most Excited for This FallTheir top five picks for the season.
  19. meryl streep
    Movie Review: Ironically, Florence Foster Jenkins Hits the Right NotesMeryl Streep has one flaw: She is a decent singer.
  20. The New Pete’s Dragon Is Like the Original, Except Not TerriblePete’s Dragon lumbers right up to the border of cloying, but doesn’t tip over.
  21. movie review
    Hell or High Water Is a Haunting, Humanist WesternThis is a work of broad scale and deep feeling, a film to make you excited about the potential for finding new stories in old places.
  22. criticism
    Don’t Blame Critics for Suicide Squad’s FailingsIt’s possible that the original Suicide Squad cut was lousy, too. But it would have made considerably more sense.
  23. movie review
    Suicide Squad Should Have Been Kept Locked AwayAs storytelling, DC’s latest is the worst of the worst.
  24. movie review
    Little Men Overcomes Its Melodramatic Premise With Gentle HumanityDirector Ira Sachs continues to use the New York real-estate market as a springboard for asking the ultimate question about our responsibilities to other people.
  25. movie review
    Jason Bourne Exhausts With Its Cybercentric Sensory OverloadJason Bourne isn’t much more fun than the stoic Matt Damon is — it’s too assaultive and humorless. But it’s a wow. Wow is it a wow.
  26. movie review
    Indignation Is the Best Philip Roth Film Adaptation By a MileDirector James Schamus’s style is deliberate but not cold, and the performances he has elicited are passionately deliberate.
  27. movie review
    Lights Out Is a Low-Wattage Horror That Delivers the Occasional ChargeLittle kids might like it: It’s a starter shocker.
  28. movie review
    Review: The Lively Star Trek Beyond Director Justin Lin knows how to shoot his fights from unexpected angles and with enough spatial-temporal variables to keep us jolt-addicts rocking in our seat.
  29. movie review
    Movie Review: Don’t Think TwiceIt’s funny and inspiring and harsh and depressing.
  30. movie review
    Woody Allen Returns to Old Hollywood in Café SocietyHis ’30s romantic drama is a surprisingly graceful work.
  31. movie review
    The Many Joys and Questions of Captain FantasticYou could think of the movie as Noam Chomsky’s Little Miss Sunshine.
  32. movie review
    Ghostbusters Takes the Right Idea and Makes All the Wrong MovesThe new Ghostbusters isn’t a horror, exactly. It’s just misbegotten.
  33. movie review
    Review: In Life, Animated, Disney Tempers AutismObserving Owen watch The Little Mermaid or Aladdin or The Lion King, I found it hard not to cry. And I don’t particularly even like Disney animation.
  34. movie review
    The Legend of Tarzan Falls Well Short of the TreetopsThe movie has impressive animals and woke aspirations, but forgot the fun.
  35. movie review
    Movie Review: The BFGDespite the inevitable E.T. comparisons, the two films have little in common.
  36. prolificity
    A Complete Guide to Entertainment’s Busiest CreatorsThe methods, meaning, and occasional madness of the creatively super-productive.
  37. vulture lists
    The 14 Greatest Alien-Invasion MoviesFind independence from Independence Day with these classics.
  38. movie reviews
    Review: Escape Independence Day: ResurgenceThis hodgepodge has been thrown together in so slovenly a way that it’s no surprise the studio didn’t show it to the press.
  39. movie review
    Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog Is 4 Pitch-Dark Comedies Co-starring One CanineIt could be called Welcome to the Doghouse.
  40. movie review
    Finding Dory Finds New Delights in a Familiar SettingThe silliness escalates — the jokes build and build and pay off — until you’re slaphappy, punch-drunk, primed for anything.
  41. movie review
    Even at Its Most Dynamic, Genius Is Still a Movie About Book EditingWatching Genius, you might have the nagging sense that the most vivid stuff is occurring offscreen.
  42. movies
    Why Have Johnny Depp’s Movies Been So Bad Lately?Blame his idols.
  43. movie review
    Review: Stop Popstar: Never Stop Never StoppingApparently there are people who think that Popstar is a witty satire of pop celebrity instead of a soulless hodgepodge of star cameos and gags that go nowhere.
  44. Movie Review: Me Before YouThe scene-stealers of the tepid weeper Me Before You are Emilia Clarke’s eyebrows, closely followed by her large top row of teeth.
  45. movie reviews
    X-Men: Apocalypse Is Ensemble Superhero Moviemaking Done RightWatching Apocalypse, you don’t feel as if every character is being set up for his or her own spinoff. They complement one another.
  46. movie review
    Maggie’s Plan Is an Enjoyably Silly FantasyMaggie’s Plan doesn’t quite gel, but it’s very enjoyable, and it has a solid emotional core.
  47. movie review
    Movie Review: The Nice GuysIt has a nice feel: just slick enough to keep from falling apart, just brutal enough to keep from seeming inconsequential.
  48. movie review
    Weiner Is a Sobering Behind-the-Scenes Look at Anthony Weiner’s ImplosionThis is a tabula rasa documentary — one of the most provocative of its kind I’ve seen.
  49. movie review
    Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship Is a TreatThe director has improved on his source, Jane Austen’s pre–Pride and Prejudice epistolary novella commonly known as “Lady Susan.”
  50. movie review
    Captain America: Civil War Is a Busy — But Uninventive — BlockbusterMarvel has resorted to making its colorful superheroes fight one another.
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