BrandonFibbs.com

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

admin — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 16:57:47 +0000

Like the boy that shares its name, the Harry Potter series stumbled from the gate, saddled not entirely unexpectedly with inexperience and immaturity. But then, as with the boy, something truly wonderful—even magical—happened. It grew into something to be immensely, colossally, button-poppingly proud of. Unlike nearly every adaptation Hollywood produces, the Harry Potter films, taken [...]

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

admin — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:22:40 +0000

It is no secret that I disliked the first two Transformers films. In fact, I employ no hyperbole whatsoever in admitting that I, for lack of a more expressive word, utterly loathed them. There are those who claim Transformers: Dark of the Moon is light years better than its predecessors. Do not believe their rancid [...]

Larry Crowne

admin — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:44:58 +0000

Several years ago, one of my dearest friends starred in a national CitiCard commercial in which a woman Feng shuis her house (the ancient Chinese system of aesthetics that teaches that greater spiritual energy can be derived from a proper orientation of your material belongings) but discovers that what she really needed to do was [...]

Cars 2

admin — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:53:05 +0000

It was bound to happen. No one can keep a winning streak like that going forever. A 25-year perfect game isn’t exactly shabby. In fact, it just might be unprecedented. There is no other creative entity in Hollywood with as unblemished and sterling a record as Pixar. This makes the stumble that is Cars 2 [...]

The Green Lantern

admin — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:57:09 +0000

When I was young, I accidentally punched a hole in the side of our garage wall with a wayward snow shovel. Terrified at the implications once my mother returned from work, I did the only thing I could think of: I taped a piece of notebook paper across the sizable gouge and painted over the [...]

Super 8

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 19:53:02 +0000

Nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” One thing that is abundantly clear while watching Super 8 is that writer/director J.J. Abrams’ nostalgia for his early teenaged years—an era defined by the films of Steven Spielberg (also a producer [...]

X-Men: First Class

admin — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 13:49:47 +0000

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. Psychologically complex, thematically rich and emotionally layered, this is the best, smartest and classiest of the X-Men series by leagues. This is a comic book movie that [...]

The Tree of Life

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 14:41:56 +0000

Author’s Note: The following is less a standard film review and more a lengthy, deeply personal and impressionistic filmic examination. When NASA launched the Voyager space probes in 1977, they housed golden records containing a variety of sounds—natural, animal, linguistic, musical—as well as photographs and scientific and mathematical schematics. Voyager’s contents were intended to be a [...]

Kung Fu Panda 2

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 12:33:09 +0000

Kung Fu Panda 2 is disappointing only because it is not the original Kung Fu Panda, a rare animated action-packed adventure that managed to delight adult filmgoers as well as kids not by injecting sophisticated humor but by making a story of a fat Panda bear incontestably exciting. The second entry in the trilogy (this [...]

The Hangover: Part II

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 11:05:33 +0000

To dispense with a lengthy plot synopsis for The Hangover: Part II would be a profound waste of the time it would take me to write it and you to read it. The Hangover: Part II is the exact same movie as its predecessor down to nearly every single narrative beat. While there’s certainly something [...]

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

admin — Fri, 20 May 2011 12:14:37 +0000

Fan fiction is an awkward literary subset written not by the original creator of a given work, but rather by fans. Nearly always disavowed by the originating artist, fan fiction is both defined by and exists outside the canon of whatever universe is being depicted, especially due to the fact that the quality of work [...]

Bridesmaids

admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:14:21 +0000

It is both 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 the tests of longevity, critical reception and…oh what the hell, who am I kidding? Bridesmaids is an instant classic. Annie (Kristen Wiig) has a J.D. [...]

Priest

admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 19:42:22 +0000

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. About all you can hope for in this situation is that it will also be fun. And when it turns out to not be any fun at all, you [...]

Thor

admin — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:04:59 +0000

The problem with the current crop of superhero movies is that once you’ve exhausted the A-list (Superman, Spider-Man, Batman), you begin reaching for the second string personalities who may be every bit as worthy, but do not have the same sort of populist street cred. Thor is one such superhero. (The Green Lantern is another.) [...]

Fast Five

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:18:39 +0000

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states roughly that there is a universal tendency for all things to progress from order to disorder. The longer a particular system goes, the greater its tendency toward entropy and decline. If only that principle could explain Fast Five, the fifth entry in the wearying, middling Fast and Furious franchise—clear [...]

A personal note from Brandon Fibbs:

brandonfibbs — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:12:11 +0000

Recently, while wandering in Frost’s proverbial yellow woods, I came to a fork in the road and decided to take the one less traveled. After a half dozen years as a professional film critic writing about other people’s movies, I have decided it is time to start letting them write about mine. To that end, I [...]

Hanna

admin — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 06:27:17 +0000

In the Brandon Fibbs Book of Movieisms it is stated: “A bad film is not the worst kind of film. A bad film is simply bad. It does not aspire to be anything better. But a film with potential to be great that squanders its promise by either action or inaction is a far more [...]

Happythankyoumoreplease

admin — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 06:59:58 +0000

Observant and heartfelt, the gentle comedy Happythankyoumoreplease is certainly not the most polished film you will see this year, but it is a breath of fresh cinematic air all the same. When was the last time you saw a film populated with young people on the cusp of adulthood who traded reflexive cynicism for vulnerable [...]

Source Code

admin — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:23:19 +0000

A version of this review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here. Proving definitively that his remarkable freshman effort, Moon, was anything but luck or chance, director Duncan Jones returns with Source Code, a less meditative and ambitious film than his last outing, but one which [...]

Sucker Punch

admin — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:25:11 +0000

A version of this review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here. An ambitious, epic, operatic action delirium, the dark and intensely violent Sucker Punch is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest on acid. The film is a glorious disaster, a mind-bogglingly messy, perversely gorgeous piece [...]