New York magazine film critic David Edelstein issues a bit of a mea culpa this morning, regarding Anthony Minghella and some not-so-pleasant comments he made about the late filmmaker's oeuvre. Last week he suggested that the English writer-director was perhaps artistically bullied by former Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein. Once Miramax got a hold of Minghella, Edelstein argued, Weinstein coerced him into directing high-gloss prestige pictures, Oscar-bait that didn't exactly sync up with the ragged little edge he showed in his first film, Truly, Madly, Deeply. Now, just a few short days later, Edelstein is recanting.

It was all terribly tacky timing! Minghella had total control! Harvey would never recut one of his films, because that just wasn't done. After all, Weinstein and Minghella were close friends, how dare Edelstein imply that there was any bullying or railroading. (Our sister site Defamer even started feeling bad for the notoriously difficult exec.) But don't worry! Edelstein insists that his apology was not forced, that he has truly realized that Minghella worked on his own steam, bringing projects to Weinstein, not the other way around. He even spoke to Harvey and sort of apologized. Though... I don't know. It's hard to believe that crazy Harvey didn't have anything to do with this atonement. He's a pretty formidable character, and not one that, I'd imagine, New York wants to piss off. Plus, no one relishes the idea of broken legs, even a guy who sits and watches movies for a living.