David Edelstein

David Edelstein Boston Phoenix Sep 17, 2026 The surprise is that Friday the 13th Part III -- in 3-D has been elegantly shot, by Gerald Feil, who does wonders with textures and depth of field. Go to Full Review Friday the 13th Part III (1982) 17% 42%

David Edelstein Village Voice Mar 5, 2026 I don't know whether to laugh or cry about how much I loved every brutal, perverse, demagogic minute of it. Go to Full Review RoboCop (1987) 84% 84%

David Edelstein Village Voice Jan 7, 2026 It's never outright parody, but it's rarely as exhilarating as a full-bodied swashbuckler. It perks along, disarming as it goes. Go to Full Review The Princess Bride (1987) 93% 94%

David Edelstein Village Voice Nov 7, 2025 As an actor, Schwarzenegger makes Stallone look profound. He's pretty hilarious cast as someone called "the running man"; he's so muscle-bound he can hardly walk. Go to Full Review The Running Man (1987) 59% 61%

David Edelstein New York Magazine/Vulture Oct 16, 2025 This is just good, evil fun. Go to Full Review Re-Animator (1985) 88% 82%

David Edelstein Slate Sep 4, 2025 When we watch these wonderful comedians—Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer—we can taste how much they love embodying their roles. Go to Full Review This Is Spinal Tap (1984) 98% 92%

David Edelstein Village Voice Jul 30, 2025 Pee-wee's Big Adventure is spun out of childish delight and childish malice. Go to Full Review Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) 78% 79%

David Edelstein Boston Phoenix Jul 7, 2025 Movies that start in the muck and end in the muck don’t leave you feeling this lost. Go to Full Review Superman III (1983) 31% 23%

David Edelstein Slate May 8, 2025 So is the movie a tacky hoot? Yes, but until the godawful last half-hour it's a surprisingly fun tacky hoot. Go to Full Review Mission: Impossible II (2000) 58% 42%

David Edelstein Village Voice Nov 17, 2023 [A] cretinous bit of bubble-gum mythmaking -- so dumb that you want to know, ''Who do they think they're kidding?" after every scene. Go to Full Review The Legend of Billie Jean (1985) 39% 75%

David Edelstein Slate Sep 9, 2023 It’s an exhilarating trip. Go to Full Review Y tu mamá también (2001) 90% 88%

David Edelstein Slate Sep 6, 2023 Traffic has three overlapping narratives, none terribly novel, but the shivery camerawork and odd juxtapositions keep you off-balance. Go to Full Review Traffic (2000) 93% 85%

David Edelstein Slate Feb 15, 2023 What the new, monstrously budgeted Godzilla brings home is that size doesn’t matter -- that tacky crudeness harnessed to a real vision can have more brute power than all the state-of-the-art computer wizardry that Hollywood’s money can buy. Go to Full Review Godzilla (1998) 19% 28%

David Edelstein Boston Phoenix Dec 6, 2022 The rigid structure is meant to echo the character’s neuroses, but the woman is such a voidoid and her universe is so constricted that Akerman’s accomplishment feels minimal: the film is a miniature bloated to 196 minutes. Go to Full Review Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) 95% 80%

David Edelstein Boston Phoenix Aug 9, 2022 Romero is -- on paper, anyway -- an ideal director for a comic-book movie... [But] the mechanics of storytelling bog him down, and most of the time the formal style of Creepshow has him in a straitjacket. Go to Full Review Creepshow (1982) 68% 69%

David Edelstein Boston Phoenix Nov 9, 2021 Aurora apparently doesn't see the irony in championing the progressives in the movie while in real life touting its own efforts to refuel a Cadillac, a reactionary cinematic gas guzzler. But the company's done a terrific job of old-fashioned storytelling. Go to Full Review The Secret of NIMH (1982) 93% 85%

David Edelstein Slate Mar 24, 2021 Diana's fighting isn't about delivering knockout blows; it's about staying alert and winning on points. It's a means of self-control and of acquiring the self-knowledge on which self-control depends. Go to Full Review Girlfight (2000) 87% 75%

David Edelstein New York Magazine/Vulture Nov 3, 2020 Whatever his foibles, An Honest Liar depicts a great American original... Go to Full Review An Honest Liar (2014) 98% 88%

David Edelstein Slate Jun 5, 2020 Brooks' minimalism can be amazingly jampacked, but Mother is perilously slack. Go to Full Review Mother (1996) 88% 75%

David Edelstein New York Magazine/Vulture May 8, 2020 I was reminded of everything I'd been missing in a culture that ridicules "crunchiness" more than amoral consumption and greed. Go to Full Review Spaceship Earth (2020) 87% 60%