Quotessence
Home / Authors / David Edelstein Biography
David Edelstein

David Edelstein Biography

Film critic

Related Quotes

“King Arthur is profoundly stupid and inept.. then there's Clive Owen, rising above it all. Aloof yet watchful, the actor cultivates an inner stillness that is perfect for faintly ironic brooders. He neither distances himself from this risible material nor pulls out the stops and opens himself to ridicule. His King Arthur tells us little about Arthur, but much about protecting one's flank. The mark of a box-office king?”

LittlesActorsPerfectStupidMaterialsKingsOfficeMarkDistanceBoxesRisingIronicStillnessRidiculeRise AboveArthurBox OfficeAloofKing Arthur
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“If I had to catalog all the moronic plot turns in The Day After Tomorrow, we'd be here until the next ice age. It's just so very bad. You can have a pretty good time snickering at it-unless, like me, you think there's something to this global warming thing, and you shudder at the irony of a movie meant to warn people about a dangerous environmental trend that completely discredits it. Is it possible that the film is a plot to make environmental activists look as wacko as anti-environmentalists always claim they are?”

PeopleIfsThinkingLooksAgeFilmTurnsNextDangerousTomorrowClaimsEnvironmentalLike MeIceIronyGlobal WarmingGood TimesPlotActivistTrendsEnvironmentalistDiscreditIce Age
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“There will be a competition among critics for the best Paris Hilton insult. Here's my first: Her attention span is so short that she can't even maintain her concentration while running away from a psycho... Maybe the ultimate insult is that she makes her co-star Elisha Cuthbert seem, by comparison, the sexiest and most interesting actress in modern cinema.”

FirstsSeemsRunningStarsInterestingAttentionModernUltimateCompetitionCriticsActressesCinemaParisInsultComparisonConcentrationRunning AwayMost InterestingPsychoAttention SpanSexiest
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“You won't be reading reviews of the dystopian sci-fi flick Aeon Flux in the papers today because it wasn't screened for the press-and, given that it cost the GDP of a small country and that Charlize Theron and the director, Karyn Kusama, are critics' darlings, this could mean but one thing: A stinker. A weapon of mass destruction. A planet-killer. Folks, I'll never understand studios. Aeon Flux is not that terrible.”

MeanCountryTodayReadingGivenOne ThingPlanetsTerribleCostDirectorsPaperWeaponsMassDestructionPressesCriticsFolksStudiosReviewsSci FiKillersPapersDystopianDarlingWeapons Of Mass DestructionMass DestructionFluxGdpSmall Countries
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“What can you say about a man who leaps from a helicopter over Manhattan without a parachute in the hope that by increasing his heart rate he'll transform into an iridescent lime-green behemoth so he can take on an even bigger behemoth? That he knows he's living in a computer-generated universe in which gravity is a feeble suggestion and nothing is remotely at stake, and that when he hits the ground he'll be replaced by a special effect. The Incredible Hulk is weightless-as disposable as an Xbox game.”

KnowsMenHeartUniverseGamesSpecialEffectsComputerBiggerGreenRateIncrediblesLeapStakesGravityReplacedSuggestionsManhattanHelicoptersSpecial EffectsDisposableParachutesLimesXboxHeart RateIridescentBehemothIncredible HulkLime Green
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“As a critic, I try to stay neutral about movies before I see them, but I really wanted "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" to be great. It's based on a barbed memoir by Kim Barker called "The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days In Afghanistan And Pakistan." And its stars Tina Fey, out of her comfort zone, just as Barker was a fish out of water when, in 2004, she began covering the Afghanistan occupation for the Chicago Tribune.”

TryingWantedStarsWaterStrangeComfortCriticsFishesMemoirZoneOccupationChicagoAfghanistanComfort ZonePakistanCoveringWhiskeyTalibanKimTangoShuffleFeyStrange Days
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“Well, the movie isn't bad. For a while, I even told myself I liked it, even as it missed one mark after another. But in the end, it's shapeless and blandly apolitical, apart from its watered-down feminism. You see, Fey's Kim Baker - changed from Barker - transforms herself from a neophyte reporter, condescended to by male war correspondents, soldiers and Afghan officials, into a hard-charging political animal who speaks the language fluently and parties as hard as men. That's about as edgy as a sitcom.”

MenWellsWarEndsHardPoliticalSpeakLanguageAnimalPartyFeminismChangedMarkMalesSoldierOfficialsReportersSitcomKimEdgyBakersChargingAfghanFeyApoliticalMissed OnesPolitical Animals
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“It's hard for comic actors used to pulling faces just to be on screen, but Tina Fey does a good job. I liked watching her. The part, though, isn't filled in. When Baker announces that she's gotten too used to the madness of Afghanistan, that she's worried she's thinking of it as normal, the sentiment comes out of nowhere. The dramatic arc in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" is nonexistent. The movie evaporates in the mind like water in the Afghan desert.”

ThinkingMindDoeHardJobsFacesUsedActorsWaterNormalMadnessFilledScreensComicDesertWorriedDramaticSentimentsAfghanistanPullingGood JobWhiskeyArcsBakersTangoAfghanFeyFilled In
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“Argo might well be studied as a bait-and-switch masterwork: In showing the capture of the American Embassy in Tehran, Ben Affleck first made a fetish of authenticity, then served up a shamelessly Hollywood, and wholly fictional climax, then capped the whole thing off with a coda that was essentially a tribute to his movie's authenticity, complete with side-by-side photos of the actors and their near-identical real-life counterparts. Well done, sir!”

FirstsWellsMadeRealDoneWholeMightActorsSidesHollywoodReal LifeAuthenticityCaptureIdenticalTributeWell DoneBaitCounterpartsClimaxFetishTehranEmbassyArgo
Author:David Edelstein
Create image

“It's no mystery why many of us in the media can't get enough of the fabricators Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, the latter of whom concocted more than a score of bogus feature stories for the New Republic (and who wrote for other magazines, including this one, once) in the mid-1990s. Anyone--journalist, student, academic--who has ever stared at a blank screen, their brains grinding emptiness, and thought, How can I fill this hole? knows that in those desperate moments before a deadline, almost anyone can do almost anything: make stuff up, plagiarize, scribble senseless half-truths.”

KnowsEnoughMomentsStoriesStuffCan DoBrainHalfMysteryMediaStudentsIncludingGlassesScreensHolesMagazinesJournalistFeaturesDesperateEmptinessScoreLatterRepublicAcademicBlankDeadlineBlairHalf TruthScribbles
Author:David Edelstein
Create image