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: 958

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Showing 1 - 50 of 958

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

Rotten	Fresh 87%	The White Ribbon (2009)	" Haneke doesn�t deign to deliver the genre goods�resolution, catharsis, etc. That way he can crudely spell out his themes and yet still give the bourgeois audience the finger." — New York Magazine Posted Dec 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 70%	Sherlock Holmes (2009)	" By now we�ve seen so many good, bad, and indifferent Sherlocks that it�s almost a relief to get something different, however wrongheaded. And there�s no such thing as too much Downey." — New York Magazine Posted Dec 28, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 83%	Avatar (2009)	" *The narrative would be ho-hum without the spectacle. But what spectacle! Avatar* is dizzying, enveloping, vertiginous ... I ran out of adjectives an hour into its 161 minutes.*" — New York Magazine* Posted Dec 21, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 89%	Up in the Air (2009)	" Clooney -- slim, dark, perfectly tailored -- glamorizes insincerity in a way that makes you want to go out and lie." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 30, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 57%	Brothers (2009)	" Sheridan pulls you so deep into Brothers so fast that there isn�t time for the alarm bell to go off that says: �Warning! Another Traumatized-Vet Movie!� You never catch Sheridan or Benioff grandstanding, only observing." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 30, 2009
Rotten	Rotten 28%	The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)	" Weitz�s pacing is so limp you�re going to need the electricity generated by a live audience to keep from yelling, �Hurry it up!�" — New York Magazine Posted Nov 23, 2009
Fresh	Rotten 58%	Mammoth (2009)	" *Too many films exploit the perils faced by children when the social contract is ruptured, but Mammoth* earns its cruel, sensationalistic turns and then some.*" — New York Magazine* Posted Nov 23, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 83%	Broken Embraces (2009)	" *Pedro Almod�var�s Broken Embraces* is a lush, deeply romantic noir dense with nods to films past, yet it plays as if it sprung fully formed from the director�s unconscious.*" — New York Magazine* Posted Nov 23, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 85%	Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)	" If there�s a sure thing in movies, it�s that if you cast Nicolas Cage in a role in which he goes crazy, he�ll rise to the occasion and keep on rising until he seems even loonier than his character." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 16, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 90%	The Messenger (2009)	" I�m not sure how Morton made sense of her character�s ebbs and flows, but I never doubted her. She�s a mariner in uncharted seas of emotion." — New York Magazine Posted Nov 16, 2009
Rotten	Fresh 72%	The Road (2009)	" *Evocative as it is, The Road* comes up short, not because it�s bleak but because it�s monotonous, and because McCarthy�s vision is finally as inflexible as his patriarchal hero�s.*" — New York Magazine* Posted Nov 16, 2009
Fresh	Fresh 88%	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 95%	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 91%	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 21%	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 16%	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 50%	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 95%	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 82%	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 73%	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 94%	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 80%	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 94%	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 83%	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 87%	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 65%	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 41%	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 57%	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%	The Most Dangerous Man in America (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 77%	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 84%	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 70%	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 96%	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 57%	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 49%	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 96%	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 82%	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

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DAVID EDELSTEIN

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