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David Edelstein

David Edelstein is a film critic for New York magazine and for NPR's Fresh Air, and an occasional commentator on film for CBS Sunday Morning. He has also written film criticism for the Village Voice, The New York Post, and Rolling Stone, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times' Arts & Leisure section.

A member of the National Society of Film Critics, he is the author of the play Blaming Mom, and the co-author of Shooting to Kill (with producer Christine Vachon).

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Movie Reviews
10:30 am
Fri May 25, 2012

A Wes Anderson 'Kingdom' Full Of Beautiful Imagery

Credit Focus Features
Edward Norton plays a scoutmaster in search of his lost charge in Wes Anderson's latest film, Moonrise Kingdom.
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Originally published on Fri May 25, 2012 2:11 pm

Many people are rapturous over the work of Wes Anderson, and for them, I expect, Moonrise Kingdom will be nirvana. The frames are quasi-symmetrical: a strong center, often human, with misaligned objects on each side suggesting a universe that's slightly out of balance, like a series of discombobulated dollhouses.

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Movie Reviews
11:15 am
Wed May 16, 2012

'The Dictator' Rules With A Satirist's Fist

Credit Melinda Sue Gordon / Paramount Pictures
Sacha Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen, the authoritarian, anti-Semitic and unexpectedly sympathetic protagonist of The Dictator.
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Originally published on Wed May 16, 2012 12:30 pm

Many fans will be disappointed that Sacha Baron Cohen's The Dictator is a more or less conventional comedy and not an ambush-interview mockumentary in the style of Borat and Bruno. But that guerrilla-clown shtick would be tough to sustain: Why not let him try something else? The good news is that The Dictator is loose and slap-happy and full of sharp political barbs and has funny actors moving in and out — and at a lickety-split 83 minutes, it doesn't wear out its welcome.

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Movie Reviews
11:42 am
Thu May 10, 2012

'Dark Shadows': A Vampire Returns, Without His Bite

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Credit Peter Mountain / Warner Brothers Pictures
After Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) rises from the grave in the 1970s, 200 years after he was imprisoned, he returns to his ancestral home and befriends his descendants, including David Collins (Gully McGrath).
Credit Warner Brothers Pictures
Eva Green plays Angelique Bouchard, Barnabas' spurned lover — and witch — who makes it her mission to take revenge on him and his family.
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Originally published on Fri May 11, 2012 9:22 am

Two score and four years ago, I'd fly home from fourth grade for the 4 p.m. broadcast of Dark Shadows. In 1968, vampires and werewolves weren't mainstream — the era's horror films mostly played drive-ins — yet here on TV was a daily horror soap opera.

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Movie Reviews
10:54 am
Thu May 3, 2012

'The Avengers': A Marvel-ous Whedonesque Ride

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Credit Walt Disney Pictures
Thor (Chris Hemsworth, left) and Captain America (Chris Evans) join up with Iron Man and the Hulk to save the Earth in The Avengers.
Credit Walt Disney Pictures
Mark Ruffalo (left) and Robert Downey Jr. are both helped by ample amounts of CGI to transform into the Hulk and Iron Man, respectively.
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Originally published on Thu May 3, 2012 5:29 pm

Two spheres merge in The Avengers: the Marvel Comics universe and the Whedonverse, fans' name for the nerdy wisecracking existentialist superhero world of writer-director Joss Whedon.

The Whedon cult is smaller but maybe more fervent, inspiring academic conferences on such subjects as free will vs. determinism in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I find a lot of Whedon's banter self-consciously smart-alecky, but I love how he can spoof his subjects without robbing them of stature.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu April 26, 2012

A 'Five-Year Engagement' Leaves A Bitter Taste

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Credit Universal Pictures
Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) celebrate their impending nuptials with their families before Violet drops a bomb: She's been accepted at a program at the University of Michigan, and wants to move there and postpone their wedding day.
Credit Universal Pictures
Tom, ever the devoted fiance, agrees to postpone the wedding day as life continues to throw obstacles in the couple's way.
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Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 8:38 am

There are many dramas and comedies in which career trajectories take couples to different corners of the country, complicating or ending romantic relationships. There will be many more, at least until someone invents a teleportation machine. What's different about each work is how the problem gets interpreted.

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