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 EdelsteinAs 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 EdelsteinEver since the Tim Burton Batman of 1989, it has been de rigueur in movies to focus on the freaky alienation aspect of the superhero's life: This is how talented people make movies for 14-year-olds while retaining their self-respect.
David EdelsteinRichard Curtis, the writer and director of Love Actually, is brilliant at many things, but his genius, I submit, is for thrusting characters into situations in which they feel driven to humiliate themselves. Which is why we love them, especially when it's all in the name of love. He is the Bard of Embarrassment.
David EdelsteinA critic often has to play the role of coroner, dissecting a work to find out why it died (or never lived).
David EdelsteinKing 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?
David Edelstein