David Edelstein

Before I tell you about J.J. Abrams' second Star Trek film, with its youngish new Starship Enterprise crew, let me say that just because I've seen every episode of the original Star Trek and of The Next Generation, and most of the spinoff series, and every movie, I'm not a ...

While I was watching Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge back in 2001, I had the oddest experience. Someone's cellphone rang, and instead of getting annoyed I was ... relieved. The movie's bombardment was so relentless — so suffocating — that I thrilled to a signal from the outside world.

And so ...

The third time might be the charm for some things, but the number three after a movie title is typically shorthand for a deal with the devil.

The studio thinks there's more money to be squeezed from a particular property, and voila: Spider-Man 3, Superman III, The Godfather — God ...

Studios are putting most of their eggs in $100 million baskets these days, even as American independent filmmakers go hungry from lack of mainstream attention. But two of my favorite American indie writer-directors, Jeff Nichols and Ramin Bahrani, have new films with bigger stars than they've had before — films ...

The voiceovers from Terrence Malick's To the Wonder, which has a lot of them, are intoned on the soundtrack while the characters stare into sunrises or sunsets — whenever the light is right, what cinematographers call, "the magic hour." This film and Malick's last, The Tree of Life, suggest that ...

Mental is madder than madcap. I heard one critic sniff, "It's kind of broad" — and, Your Honor, the defense agrees! But if broad means "unsubtle," it doesn't have to mean "unreal." Mental makes most other movies seem boringly, misleadingly sane.

Why "misleadingly"? Because writer-director P.J. Hogan aims for a ...

What surprises me about the ongoing discussion of violence in cinema and whether it influences violence in the real world is how people fail to engage with the male fantasy behind these films. There's a template for them, a theme; it hinges on violation and vengeance. A seminal action picture ...

Oz the Great and Powerful. Say that name aloud and you will smile, I guarantee you: It will conjure up so many images, characters, actors, songs. Then hold that smile as long as you can, because you won't be doing much smiling at the movie called Oz the Great and ...

Stoker has a ripely decadent, creepy-crawly feel that would have gotten under my skin if the tone weren't so arch and the people so ghoulishly remote. It's like a bad Strindberg play with added splatter. But director Park Chan-wook certainly works to make you uncomfortable. Take the early shot in ...

The finale to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy has the caped crusader battling a brute villain posing as the leader of a modern-day French revolution. Critic David Edelstein says th...

As Mitt Romney wraps up his audition to be the Republican nominee, he looks increasingly in control of everything but his image. The problem, according to New York film critic Da...

The timing is almost too good: a terrific Wall Street melodrama at the moment the Occupy Wall Street protests are building. We haven't seen the like since Three Mile Island had a near-meltdown a couple of days after The China Syndrome exploded into theaters. Now, Margin Call seems anything but ...

At festivals and in interviews, Pedro Almodovar is such a furry cuddle bear that it's possible to forget what a perverse filmmaker he can be — that is, until you watch something like his nasty new gender-bent Frankenstein picture, The Skin I Live In. It's a self-conscious, madly ambitious work, ...

The Help, based on the popular book by the same name, opened in movie theaters yesterday. Sheri Parks, professor of American studies at the University of Maryland and author of Fierce Angels: The Strong Black Woman in American Life and Culture, and David Edelstein, film critic for New York magazine and NPR's Fresh Air, provide historical and cultural context for the book and new feature film.

Listeners: Did you see the movie yet? Did you read the book? What are your thoughts about "The Help"? Call us or comment here!

Name one film that involves someone with Asperger's syndrome. And it can't be Rain Man. Cat got your tongue? Well, after this summer season, the task might get a little easier: from...

A nerdy-boy-meets-beautiful-girl flick, "500 Days of Summer" invites you into a love story set in Los Angeles. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Daschanel play the lead roles in this fir...

When Harry Potter first hit the literary scene, the book sales were astronomical and fans would line up the night before, eager for each installment of the fantastical tale. The next ...