ROTTEN TOMATOES: David Edelstein

DAVID EDELSTEIN

Agrees with the Tomatometer 74% of the time.

Biography: I started way back at the Harvard Crimson, then moved on to the Boston Phoenix, then the Village Voice, then the New York Post, then oblivion, then Slate and Fresh Air. I also wrote a book with Christine Vachon called Shooting to Kill and a couple of plays, chiefly Blaming Mom (a comedy).

Favorites: The Lady Eve, The General, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Shop Around the Corner, The Godfather, Smiles of a Summer Night, Rules of the Game, Jaws, Ride the High Country, His Girl Friday, Bride of Frankenstein, Seven Samurai, Ashes and Diamonds, Touch of Evil, Singing in the Rain, Night of the Living Dead, and about 100 others.

Publications: New York Magazine, NPR's Fresh Air, Slate

Critics' Group: National Society of Film Critics

Total Reviews: 947

LISTING OF ALL REVIEWS & ARTICLES

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Showing 1 - 50 of 947

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Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date (default)

Fresh	Fresh 90%	Red Cliff (2009)	" Any war picture in which the heroine stalls the villain with a quiet, painstaking tea ceremony until the wind shifts direction and the good guys can firebomb the bad guys into oblivion is too ineffably Zen not to love." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 9, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 93%	Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)	" The additions are okay; but it�s the look that keeps you buoyed up, your eyes roaming the frames, laughing in surprise at the visual jokes and flourishes and textures. It�s a dandy�s movie, but that adds to the fun." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 9, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 100%	La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (2009)	" A portrait of one of the world�s great companies by one of the world�s great v�rit� documentarians." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 2, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 88%	Precious: Based on the Novel PUSH by Sapphire (2009)	" Daniels does everything to hold the melodrama at bay, but there�s only so much he can do." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 2, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 20%	Amelia (2009)	" It�s all so glancing and superficial that the movie doesn�t seem to have a present tense. It goes by like coming attractions. It is, however, a treasury of bad biopic dialogue." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 26, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 13%	Gentlemen Broncos (2009)	" *The best part is Jemaine Clement as Benjamin�s grandiose genre hero, Dr. Ronald Chevalier. Even if you love him on Flight of the Conchords, you�ll be unprepared for his genius -- and charisma." — New York Magazine* Posted Oct 26, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 48%	Antichrist (2009)	" Von Trier has said he wanted to make a genre horror picture, but he couldn�t even come up with a decent metaphor: The climax is out of a Grade C hack-�em-up with people chasing each other through the woods with axes and knives." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 26, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 100%	The Maid (2009)	" It�s a testament to Saavedra�s tough performance that even with a happy ending, you wouldn�t want to leave her with your kids." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 12, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 84%	Paranormal Activity (2009)	" In the light of day, it�s all very silly and conventional. But of course we�re not talking about the light of day." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 12, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 70%	Where the Wild Things Are (2009)	" Instead of being bombarded by computer illusions, we�re allowed to suspend our disbelief, to bring our own imaginations into play. For all the artfulness, the feel of the film is rough-hewn, almost primitive. It�s a fabulous tree house of a movie." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 12, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 92%	The Damned United (2009)	" Quite enjoyable, even for those of us who don�t follow British �football.�" — New York Magazine Posted Oct 5, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 78%	Yes Men Fix the World (2009)	" This movie is glorious testimony to the moral power of satire." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 5, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 93%	An Education (2009)	" Lone Scherfig�s direction is glum. We�re so clued in to what�s really going on that we never share Jenny�s authentic excitement at being introduced to art, music, and exotic locales." — New York Magazine Posted Oct 5, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 82%	Whip It (2009)	" Barrymore hovers over her actresses like the nicest, most nurturing den mother imaginable, and on its own, Go For It formula terms the movie delivers." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 75%	Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)	" Moore relates a half-century of fraud in singsong narration that makes him seem like Mister Rogers with 200 extra pounds and a Che Guevara T-shirt instead of a cardigan. But what a figure he cuts." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 85%	A Serious Man (2009)	" A Serious Man is not only hauntingly original, it�s the final piece of the puzzle that is the Coens." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 66%	Coco Before Chanel (2009)	" *As picturesque period biopics with too many symmetrical compositions go, Anne Fontaine�s Coco Before Chanel* is surprisingly intimate and nuanced.*" — New York Magazine* Posted Sep 21, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 48%	Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009)	" John Krasinski�s adaptation of David Foster Wallace�s ... Brief Interviews With Hideous Men works only in spurts, but when it does, it�s enough to remind us how much deeper our dramatists could drill -- and of the magnitude of Wallace�s loss." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 21, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 55%	The Invention of Lying (2009)	" *The movie is something rare, a boisterous American comedy with the power to trigger philosophical disputes -- even, if taken really* seriously, fisticuffs. One can hope!*" — New York Magazine* Posted Sep 21, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 100%	Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009)	" So many people risked their livelihoods to put the 7,000-page Pentagon Papers out there -- although its most tangible result was the creation of Nixon�s plumbers unit. We have not celebrated Daniel Ellsberg enough. Let�s begin." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 14, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 76%	The Informant! (2009)	" The Informant! does raise a fascinating question: How can humans so compartmentalize their psyches? But Whitacre has no stature -- he�s just a nut." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 14, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 83%	Bright Star (2009)	" What keeps all this from seeming overmelodramatic is Schneider�s huge performance, which is too hilarious. All costume dramas need actors this rude." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 14, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 68%	American Casino (2009)	" You'll never hear an economist explain derivatives again without thinking of the woman who walks away from the camera, weeping, as her mortgage broker refuses her check, or children's dolls splayed out on the floors of empty homes." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 7, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 94%	Crude (2009)	" Berlinger doesn't counter Chevron's counter charges with facts and figures. With footage of petrochemical-sludge swamps and babies covered with flaming sores, he doesn't especially need to." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 7, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 89%	No Impact Man (2009)	" No Impact Man -- the film and the book -- could well end up instruction manuals." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 7, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 56%	9 (2009)	" For all the Saturday-matinee heroics, the movie is dreary and monotonous, the vision junky in more ways than one." — New York Magazine Posted Sep 7, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 21%	Halloween II (2009)	" Zombie isn�t a storyteller, he�s a wallower. And because his movies take place in a culture of violence and sadism, there�s nothing for Michael Myers to do except echo what�s already there and slaughter weaker sadists." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 31, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 51%	Taking Woodstock (2009)	" Lee and his producer and screenwriter, James Schamus, have turned Tiber�s book into a gentle, rather tepid film. Its first half is modest and likable, but it goes on for over two hours." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 26, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 100%	Passing Strange (2010)	" The cutting is hyperkinetic, yet Lee is always in synch with the cast�s phenomenal energy. He�s in their thrall -- and so are we." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 17, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 38%	The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)	" I�m over the moon about this movie, which smooths out the psychological dissonances in Audrey Niffenegger�s fine novel but is still an emotional workout." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 17, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 59%	The Headless Woman (2009)	" The lead actress, Mar�a Onetto, holds you through the longueurs." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 17, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 90%	District 9 (2009)	" To call this the best shrimp-from-outer-space South African apartheid allegory ever made does not begin to do it justice. But it�s a start." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 17, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 88%	Inglourious Basterds (2009)	" The movie is an ungainly pastiche, yet on some wacked-out Jungian level it�s all of a piece." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 17, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 75%	Julie & Julia (2009)	" When actors like these are cooking, it�s better than haute cuisine." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 3, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 91%	Ponyo (2009)	" When Miyazaki makes films that decry the threat to the natural world, every molecule onscreen resonates with that belief -- a belief that dissolves the boundaries between form and content." — New York Magazine Posted Aug 3, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 88%	The English Surgeon (2009)	" [A] superb documentary." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 27, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 95%	The Cove (2009)	" *The end of The Cove* is as rousing as anything from Hollywood. Manipulative? Sure -- but isn't that fitting?*" — New York Magazine* Posted Jul 27, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 83%	Thirst (2009)	" It�s fun (if overlong), but for all the noisy slurping, there�s no fresh blood." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 27, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 68%	Funny People (2009)	" Funny People feels insular, as if Apatow's whole world consists of nerdy jokesters who were angry, lonely kids who got rich beyond their dreams... but are deep down still angry." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 27, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 50%	Death In Love (2009)	" A pretentious and stilted but weirdly compelling blend of sins-of-the-parent saga and horror movie." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 13, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 87%	500 Days of Summer (2009)	" There�s no real drama when the inner life of the female lead is so shrouded, even if that�s the point." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 13, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 83%	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)	" No, it�s not a larky kid-pic. We�re firmly in the realm of English horror, as one set of sallow Brits battles another even sallower." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 13, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 67%	Br�no (2009)	" Baron Cohen is a genuine comic guerrilla, charging right to the front lines of the war against prejudice and sanctimony." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 6, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 77%	Humpday (2009)	" *Lynn Shelton�s marvelous chamber comedy Humpday* butts up against the same sort of taboos as Br�no, and in its fumbling, semi-improvised way, it�s equally hilarious and even more subversive.*" — New York Magazine* Posted Jul 6, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 19%	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)	" Much of the movie is computer-generated hash, weightless even with nonstop BOOMS and METAL GROANS and THUDS." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 6, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 67%	Public Enemies (2009)	" The best rejoinder to Public Enemies is Michael Jackson�s Smooth Criminal video... It�s a tommy-gun gangster fantasia with a touch of Guys and Dolls, and it�s everything Public Enemies isn�t." — New York Magazine Posted Jul 2, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 54%	Cheri (2009)	" It�s not a good sign when you have to take the movie�s word for it that the lovers at its center are really, really into each other." — New York Magazine Posted Jun 22, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 96%	The Beaches of Agnes (2009)	" Agn�s Varda manages to be full of herself without seeming � full of herself. Perhaps that�s because her self is full of so much other stuff: friends, photos, films, buildings, and beaches." — New York Magazine Posted Jun 22, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 98%	The Hurt Locker (2009)	" The Hurt Locker might be the first Iraq-set film to break through to a mass audience because it doesn�t lead with the paralysis of the guilt-ridden Yank. The horror is there, but under the rush." — New York Magazine Posted Jun 22, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 75%	Betty Blue (1986)	" The movie was colorful and swirling and oppressive all at once, and in 1991, Beineix recut it not to slim it down but to add a florid third hour." — New York Magazine Posted Jun 8, 2009

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DAVID EDELSTEIN

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