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Brandon Fibbs
Tomatometer-approved critic
Publications:
Movies reviews only
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) |
Unlike nearly every adaptation Hollywood produces, the Harry Potter films, taken individually or as a whole, are worthy-epically worthy-of their literary source material. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 18, 2011
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Rango (2011) |
Rango is Disney by way of Hunter S. Thompson, Chinatown recast with a lizard, Blazing Saddles with existential angst, Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns romanticallyspoofed. Rango is both weird and wonderful. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Limitless (2011) |
One complaint you cannot level at Limitless is that it is unoriginal or uncreative. In an upcoming summer of senseless sequels and repugnant remakes, Limitless-warts and all-is at least something we've never seen before. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Season of the Witch (2011) |
Although I will likely be disemboweled from my toes to my nose (metaphorically speaking only, I hope) for this proclamation, I didn't think Season of the Witch was all that bad!* - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Priest (2011) |
Priest is the sort of movie you walk into knowing full well its IQ is significantly less than the bucket of popcorn balanced in your lap... - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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X-Men: First Class (2011) |
In a summer unfortunately glutted with superhero movies, every one an origins story, X-Men: First Class not only eclipses its competition, but also each of its franchise predecessors. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Fast Five (2011) |
Director Justin Lin has a spooky, second sense for staging bombastic action sequences, even if he breaks every law in physics to make them work. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Cars 2 (2011) |
It's not that Cars 2 is bad-it's just ordinary, and Pixar has never made ordinary. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) |
Kung Fu Panda 2 is all just a bit too familiar, a bit too common, a bit too unimaginative. In the real world, recycling is a great and admirable thing. In cinema, it is a death knell. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) |
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides suffers from an extraordinary lack of imagination, something that cannot be said of its predecessors, convoluted and impenetrable though they may have certainly been. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Green Lantern (2011) |
If serendipity is a collision of happy accidents that produce something greater than the sum of their parts, then The Green Lantern is its unlucky antonym, a film far less impressive than its superior individual ingredients. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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The Hangover Part II (2011) |
This is not a case of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery-it is indolent narcissism of the most nauseating kind. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 06, 2011
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Larry Crowne (2011) |
Larry Crowne is neither dinner nor dessert, but rather the tasty and ultimately inconsequential appetizer you enjoy before moving on to the more substantive fare. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 05, 2011
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) |
There are those who claim Transformers: Dark of the Moon is light years better than its misogynistic and puerile predecessors. Do not believe their rancid deceit. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jul 01, 2011
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Black Death (2010) |
Black Death is the feel bad movie of the year, a film with an unrelentingly bleak view of humankind's barbaric nature and the notion that, no matter what your creed, violence only ever begets more violence. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 21, 2011
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Happythankyoumoreplease (2010) |
Radnor's characters never shut up, which here at least is a very good thing. I'd love to see a Comfortablywiseryourewelcomesurprisinglycontent sometime in his future. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 21, 2011
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Hanna (2011) |
Like a lover who brags about his prowess in bed but cannot deliver when the moment comes, the climax is overlong, tedious and deeply disappointing. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 21, 2011
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Thor (2011) |
The problem with the current crop of superhero movies is that once you've exhausted the A-list, you begin reaching for the second string personalities who do not have the same sort of populist street cred. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 21, 2011
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Bridesmaids (2011) |
It is artistically dishonest and embarrassingly naive to grant the status of "classic" to something only newly born. For a film to be called a classic, it must first stand...oh hell, who am I kidding? Bridesmaids is an instant classic. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 21, 2011
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Super 8 (2011) |
Despite the complete chaos, Super 8's conclusion somehow felt anti-climactic, a blunt and barbaric cinematic shock-and-awe campaign when what had come before it had been handled with the precision of a surgical SEAL team strike. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 15, 2011
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The Tree of Life (2011) |
When I compare my own cinematic ambitions in light of a film like this, I cannot help but level an accusatory finger back at myself and cry aloud, "You, sir, are a fraud." - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jun 01, 2011
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Source Code (2011) |
Screenwriting teachers will tell you that if you don't hook your audience in the first 10 minutes, you've lost them for the full two hours. Director Duncan Jones and writer Ben Ripley have crafted a thriller that does it in only eight. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Apr 01, 2011
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Sucker Punch (2011) |
Sucker Punch is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on acid, a glorious disaster, a mind-bogglingly messy, perversely gorgeous piece of hyperstylized filmmaking that chills the blood one moment and thrills it the next. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 24, 2011
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Jane Eyre (2011) |
Jane Eyre is a sumptuous, transcendent melodrama-it feels more tragic, more authentic and more alive than ever before. It rings true with the most important critic of all, our heart. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 24, 2011
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Win Win (2011) |
Rarely has the title of a film better described its contents. Win Win is yet another funny, poignant and endearing creation by writer/actor/director Tom McCarthy. Turns out, sometimes there is truth in advertising. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 24, 2011
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Paul (2011) |
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have proven once again that there is no genre outside their enviable range or comedic abilities. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 17, 2011
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The Lincoln Lawyer (2011) |
Do you believe in the resurrection? Well you should. Matthew McConaughey is back from the dead. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 17, 2011
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Red Riding Hood (2011) |
Following the Red Riding Hood screening, I expressed my feelings about the film to a colleague who was lucky enough to have been otherwise occupied. "Was it really that bad?" she asked. "Bad?" I replied. "Hitler was bad. This was awful." - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 11, 2011
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Battle: Los Angeles (2011) |
Recently, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking suggested that if alien life exists, we shouldn't be in a rush to make first contact. Consider Battle: Los Angeles Hawking's cinematic "I told ya so." - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 11, 2011
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The Adjustment Bureau (2011) |
Damon and Blunt have such palpable chemistry from their very first scene that we utterly believe he would spend an entire movie vaulting obstacles to be with her. This is a pulse-pounding mix of science fiction, philosophy and theology. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Mar 04, 2011
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Hall Pass (2011) |
Inexplicably, I went into Hall Pass ignorant of the fact that it was a Farrelly Bros. movie. If I'd known, I would have been mentally prepared. There are moments in this film that would make Judd Apatow blush. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Feb 25, 2011
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Unknown (2011) |
Who'd have thought that Unknown would have more in common with Douglas Quaid than Jason Bourne? - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Feb 18, 2011
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I Am Number Four (2011) |
I am Number Four is based on the tween novel by the one-thousand-year-old alien Pittacus Lore. Lore, it turns out, is really James Frey. Yes, that James Frey. Turns out, Oprah owes us yet another apology. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Feb 18, 2011
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Cedar Rapids (2011) |
The word "meh" was coined for films such as this. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Feb 11, 2011
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The Illusionist (2010) |
Charming and graceful, The Illusionist tells a gorgeous tale of love and loss with delicate whimsy and tender humor. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Feb 11, 2011
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The Rite (2011) |
The Rite, neither fresh nor innovative, plays like a two-hour Vatican recruiting video. But it is easily Hopkins' most creepy cinematic portrayal since Hannibal Lecter. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 28, 2011
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Biutiful (2010) |
Biutiful is one of those rare films that is so gorgeous and so splendidly acted that you are tempted to overlook the fact that it is not even close to a great film. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 28, 2011
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Another Year (2010) |
We might be tempted to think Leigh's pessimistic camera is relentless (it is) and even cruel (it is not). Leigh is not out to dash hope, but he does call things as he sees them--choose what you do in life and whom you do it with wisely. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 21, 2011
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The Company Men (2010) |
This is not a movie of our time so much as it is a movie for our time. It is quite good, but it is, to be entirely truthful, discouraging to the core. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 21, 2011
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The Green Hornet (2011) |
Witless, charmless, clumsy and appallingly unenjoyable, The Green Hornet is almost unrecognizable as having come from the same, endlessly inventive storehouse of creativity as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 14, 2011
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Blue Valentine (2010) |
Blue Valentine is an agonizing film, a raw, soul-shattering dissection of a marriage's end. This is not a film for incurable romantics whose perceptions of love are informed by romantic comedies. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 07, 2011
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Country Strong (2010) |
As far as I can tell, the moral of Country Strong seems to be: mothers, don't let your kids grow up to sing country music. Good advice. That said, the music is easily the best part of the movie, and I don't even like country music. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Jan 07, 2011
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True Grit (2010) |
Almost entirely bereft of the Coens' usual nihilistic commentary, True Grit has no bigger agenda than being one of the best, most handsome Westerns you've ever seen. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 22, 2010
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Somewhere (2010) |
All the important things Somewhere has to say it says not with dialogue but with action (or lack thereof). It is a bold, often exasperating, and ultimately surprisingly effective choice. Somewhere is not a movie you think, it is a movie you feel - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 22, 2010
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Tron: Legacy (2010) |
Watching Tron: Legacy is like witnessing a thermonuclear explosion from inside the mushroom cloud-white hot, dazzlingly intense and indescribably overpowering-pop art unlike any you've ever seen before. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 17, 2010
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The King's Speech (2010) |
A beautifully crafted, sturdily constructed, sublimely written story shimmering with robust humanity and impish wit. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 17, 2010
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The Fighter (2010) |
The Fighter doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does exemplify the very best of it-a crowd-pleasing triumph about a working-class underdog - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 17, 2010
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How Do You Know (2010) |
[A] film of sentimental perceptivity delivered by some of the most amiable and charismatic actors working today. Sad then that it is not a great film thanks to a series of critical miscalculations by its acclaimed writer/director. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 17, 2010
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The Tempest (2010) |
[A] fragmented and almost incomprehensible mess, garishly over-scored, full of embarrassingly bad special effects and a great tragic-comedy romance never given the chance to simply stretch its cumbersome limbs. - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 17, 2010
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The Tourist (2010) |
As the closing credits begin to roll, I found myself wanting to say, "That's nice Florian. Isn't that cute. Now put away your toys and get back to work." - BrandonFibbs.com
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| Posted Dec 09, 2010
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