Latest David Edelstein Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The rise of video on demand will make it possible for small movies to earn back costs via $9.95 24-hour rentals and for people in cities without independent cinemas to see the kind of movies they never have before. That's great - but on the other hand, that's TV.

  David Edelstein

  Independent, Hands, Cities

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". www.vulture.com. December 2, 2012.

• Every year, I'm depressed that so few of the documentaries I've loved break through.

  David Edelstein

  Years, Break Through, Documentaries

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". Vulture Interview, www.vulture.com. December 2, 2012.

• Still, you can't complain about the number of movies being made. Never have the means of making movies been so accessible to so many. The problem is getting bodies into seats.

  David Edelstein

  Mean, Numbers, Complaining

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". Vulture Interview, www.vulture.com. December 2, 2012.

• The economic and technological changes are real, but I just can't bring myself to wax apocalyptic about the future of books.

  David Edelstein

  Real, Book, Technological Change

  Source: www.vulture.com

• Along with my peers, I gripe about the increasing number of superhero films, and I'm sad that so many critics so uncritically use words like franchise, which should be reserved for your local Burger King.

  David Edelstein

  Kings, Numbers, Superhero

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". Vulture Interview, www.vulture.com. February 2, 2012.

• I'd put the most money on Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson - and not just because we'll probably still be waiting for the final volume in 2017.

  David Edelstein

  Waiting, Finals, Biographies

  Source: www.vulture.com

• I fell in love with Twitter. Fathers, lock up your deadlines.

  David Edelstein

  Father, Locks, Deadline

  Source: www.vulture.com

• My fears are the obvious ones: that marketplace-minded publishers - all four of them - will shy further away from literary fiction, international authors, poetry, and the other marginal but hugely important regions of the book world.

  David Edelstein

  Book, Important, Shy

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". www.vulture.com. December 2, 2012.

• 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!

  David Edelstein

  Real, Actors, Done

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". www.vulture.com. December 2, 2012.

• Despite some standout events, 2012 was demoralizing. The Met felt adrift, and New York City Opera couldn't claw its way back to artistic health.

  David Edelstein

  New York, Cities, Way

  Source: www.vulture.com

• I'm more encouraged by the saplings: new music groups, tiny new venues, entrepreneurial musician-composers who aren't waiting to be discovered but are instead building their own Establishment.

  David Edelstein

  Waiting, Musician, Groups

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". www.vulture.com. December 2, 201.

• It's easy to say "This year in art sucked." After all, about 85 percent of all shows of contemporary art are bad. But 85 percent of all art made in the Renaissance was bad.

  David Edelstein

  Art, Years, Renaissance

  Source: www.vulture.com

• I think I can safely call 2012 average. Overall, it was a stronger year for nonfiction than fiction - a situation that would've surprised me back in January, when I was looking forward to big new novels from several authors I really love.

  David Edelstein

  Thinking, Average, Years

  Source: www.vulture.com

• Some reviewed 'The Master' on their knees, and while I respected its distinctive discordancy - can a movie be at once feverish and glacial? - I was unmoved.

  David Edelstein

  Knees, Masters, Distinctive

  "Critics' Roundtable: What Was the Cultural Event of 2012?". Vulture Interview, www.vulture.com. December 2, 2012.

• 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.

  David Edelstein

  Jobs, Thinking, Filled In

  "Tina Fey's War-Zone 'Foxtrot' Falls Out Of Step". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. March 4, 2016.

• I have a female colleague who gets annoyed that Tina Fey seems to go out of her way in her movies to deride her looks, as if she weren't such an attractive woman.

  David Edelstein

  Annoyed, Female, Fey

  "Tina Fey's War-Zone 'Foxtrot' Falls Out Of Step". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. March 4, 2016.

• The movie's only serious criticism is reserved for Baker's television network, which doesn't think Americans care about Afghanistan - kind of hypocritical given this film's lack of substance.

  David Edelstein

  Thinking, Criticism, Serious

  "Tina Fey's War-Zone 'Foxtrot' Falls Out Of Step". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. March 4, 2016.

• 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.

  David Edelstein

  War, Party, Men

  "Tina Fey's War-Zone 'Foxtrot' Falls Out Of Step". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. March 4, 2016.

• 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.

  David Edelstein

  Stars, Water, Trying

  "Tina Fey's War-Zone 'Foxtrot' Falls Out Of Step". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. March 4, 2016.