David Edelstein Author Archive
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  1. movie review
    Trainwreck Is a Winner, Until It Turns Into a Judd Apatow MovieIf you’re an Amy Schumer lover, you’ll be ecstatic to see her strut her stuff in this mostly delightful sex comedy — and maybe a tad disappointed when the playbook turns out not to be entirely hers.
  2. movies
    Movie Review: Cartel LandOne of the year’s most important documentaries is so difficult to get a handle on that I’ve struggled with my own responses for weeks.
  3. movies
    With Mad Women, Jeff Lipsky Dares Us to Rethink DesireIn this universe, every relationship has a sexual component.
  4. movie review
    Tangerine Is a Post-Camp Transgender ComedySean Baker’s Sundance crowd-pleaser is both hilarious and heart-attack serious.
  5. movie review
    Magic Mike XXL Delivers Exactly the Dumb, Shirtless Fun You’d ExpectThe actors in Magic Mike XXL seem to be having a blast selling out.
  6. movie review
    Terminator Genisys ReviewThe movie takes an already-convoluted premise and convolutes it even further.
  7. movie review
    Winehouse Documentary Amy Reveals the Lethal Effects of Celebrity Is it a profile or an autopsy?
  8. movies
    Movie Review: Eden Is Long and Unfocused, But It Mostly Works AnywayYou could be forgiven for finding this 131-minute odyssey wandering and overlong.
  9. movies
    Movie Review: Burying the ExIt’s a lot of fun, and Joe Dante’s heart is palpably in it.
  10. movies
    Movie Review: The Overnight Is Squirmy and Full of Great PerformancesThe Overnight distills L.A. anxieties beautifully.
  11. movie review
    Emotions Are the Stars of Pixar’s Inside Out This teeming, tear-duct-draining, surreal animated comedy is going to be a new pop-culture touchstone.
  12. movies
    Review: Me and Earl and the Dying GirlI found much of it appalling, but some of the final scenes snuck past my defenses.
  13. movies
    Jurassic World ReviewAt its best, it’s good enough to take your mind off its worst, which is saying a lot.
  14. obituary
    David Edelstein on Christopher Lee: ‘The Last Living Horror Icon’A career spent embodying the “alien other.”
  15. movie review
    The Wolfpack Is a Rare, Transcendent Work of ArtIt’s a grueling film, but it’s buoyed by the spirit of … Quentin Tarantino, of all people.
  16. movie review
    Movie Review: Testament of YouthStarring Ex Machina’s Alicia Vikander and Jon Snow himself, Kit Harington.
  17. movie review
    Movie Review: Love and MercyBut it catches the spectacular, drug-addled self-indulgence of the ’60s L.A. music scene only glancingly.
  18. movie review
    Paul Feig and Melissa McCarthy’s Spy Is a Mixed VictoryI’d like to say the film is a feminist breakthrough, but this is all about box office. And it’s going to be boffo.
  19. movies
    Results Is Andrew Bujalski’s Smoothest, Craftiest Movie YetThe most adorable aspect of the deadpan-goofy quasi-romance Results is the way two of the three main characters have the hardest bodies imaginable but soft hearts and wooly heads. 
  20. movies
    Heaven Knows What Takes Some Getting Used To, But It’s Worth ItHeaven knows what the unready viewer will make of its hellish discordances.
  21. movies
    San Andreas Is Clunky and Ridiculous, But Not Un-FunIn San Andreas, San Francisco disintegrates while a disintegrated family is restored to wholeness, which the movie presents as a net plus for humankind.
  22. movie review
    Tomorrowland Is the Anti–Hunger GamesIt’s a major pop-culture statement with all sorts of implications, both vital and nutty.
  23. movies
    Good Kill Is Potent But ClunkyYou could get nosebleeds from how on the nose the movie is.
  24. movies
    Pitch Perfect 2 Is A Ca-TerribleI’m also guessing Kendrick did not want to come back. I’ve never seen her so flat-out bad.
  25. movies
    Review: You Don’t Just Watch Mad Max: Fury Road, You Rock Out to ItMost critics think Miller has his cred back and then some, and they’ve given him a hero’s welcome. That gives me happy feet. 
  26. movie review
    The Seven Five Is a Great Yet Toxic Look at Police CorruptionThe story of the “dirtiest cop in NYC history.”
  27. movies
    Arnold Schwarzenegger Aims to Reinvent Himself in the Just-Okay MaggieSchwarzenegger still can’t deliver a line of dialogue without sounding as if he learned it phonetically, and most of Maggie is so dark you can barely make out the zombies or the humans.
  28. movies
    Movie Review: Far From the Madding CrowdMoviegoers often say, “Forget about the book, even if it’s a ‘classic.’ How does the film work on its own terms?” On its own terms, it’s bewildering. 
  29. movie review
    Avengers: Age of Ultron Is a Bloated Sequel That Doesn’t Feel Like OneThe amazing thing about Avengers: Age of Ultron is that it’s reasonably enjoyable while still sowing seeds for multiple Marvel properties. 
  30. movie review
    Movie Review: True StoryIt is definitely no Jinx.
  31. movie review
    Unfriended Turns Everything Teens Love Against Them“It’s a mean, potent little movie.”
  32. movie review
    Movie Review: Asghar Farhadi’s About EllyThe 2009 film from the director of A Separation.
  33. movie review
    Ex Machina Appears Original, But Turns Formulaic FastAlex Garland makes a half-dandy directorial debut.
  34. movie review
    Movie Review: Clouds of Sils MariaThe film, starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz, plays like a dream.
  35. movies
    Movie Review: Furious 7You’ll cry anyway.
  36. movie review
    Movie Review: White GodIt’s a B revenge movie with A-plus direction.
  37. movie review
    Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young Is a Long AnticlimaxHe gets hold of a good satirical premise and does halfway well by it, maybe even two-thirds.
  38. movies
    Movie Review: Kumiko the Treasure HunterIn comedy, delusional idées fixes can be fun, but the dreamer needs to have Don Quixote–like stature.
  39. movies
    Movie Review: InsurgentVeronica Roth isn’t a tenth as talented as The Hunger Games’ Suzanne Collins, but she has a more powerful agenda.
  40. movies
    Movie Review: I’ve Rarely Been As Scared As I Was by It FollowsBut it wasn’t a fun kind of scare. It was the so-upset-I-feel-sick kind of amorphous dread.
  41. movies
    Movie Review: Doc Merchants of Doubt Will Infuriate YouMerchants of Doubt focuses primarily on corporate-funded climate-change denialism, but also charts the maneuvers and counter-maneuvers of the tobacco industry.
  42. movie review
    Reviews: Seymour: An Introduction & Honest LiarTwo new documentaries focus on remarkable old men. 
  43. movies
    Chappie Is Like RoboCop Starring Jar Jar BinksA sentimental comedy-thriller with hideous violence and a profound cynicism about the inexorability of the computer-enhanced surveillance state.
  44. movie review
    Maps to the Stars Is a Hollywood Psychodrama Played to PerfectionDavid Cronenberg and Bruce Wagner’s collaboration is a portrait of inbreeding — metaphorical and literal.
  45. movie review
    College-Rape Documentary The Hunting Ground Plays Like a Horror MovieThe filmmakers’ techniques are not subtle, but neither is their subject.
  46. oscars
    This Was the Best Oscars Show in Years (But It Was Still Terrible)My favorite speech was the one where J.K. Simmons thanked his Whiplash colleagues in a single sentence and then went on to address his wife and children.
  47. Vulture’s Movie Critics Live-Blog the OscarsNew York and Vulture film critics David Edelstein and Bilge Ebiri will be right here, voicing their approval and disgust of all the winners.
  48. Oscar-Nominated Wild Tales Is Scarily EntertainingThe movie goes down easily — maybe too easily, like fast food.
  49. ha ah ah
    Vampire Parody What We Do in the Shadows Is a Triumph of UndeadpanA crazy-great blend of vampire movies and reality TV from Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi.
  50. movie review
    Movie Review: The Last Five YearsShe’s that rare thing, a movie star with a trained soprano.
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