Author: Brandon Fibbs

After 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.” If the story of a young woman (Amanda Seyfried) caught in a love triangle…

Offbeat but also formulaic, vulgar but not nearly as much as it likes to think, “Cedar Rapids” has plenty of heart, but, unfortunately, it isn’t very funny.Small-town insurance salesman Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) has never left the tiny hamlet of Brown Valley, Wis. Never flown on a jet. Never stayed at a hotel. For Lippe,…

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey discovers, with a little supernatural assistance, that he has a very precise destiny and that one misstep could generate a radically different future. “The Adjustment Bureau” is a sort of modern retelling of the holiday classic, this time placing the emphasis less on the altered timeline and more…

“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. It is handsomely mounted but it is also unrelentingly humorless. It is powerfully performed but it is also an unremitting dirge. “Biutiful”…

The “Bourne” films did more than just force James Bond to reinvent himself for the better. They gave other filmmakers permission to jump into the European spy genre, producing what has been mostly derivative and often hokey results, yet products that stand as a testament to a single vision’s power to reshape the cinematic landscape.…

“I am Number Four” is based on the tween novel of the same name by Pittacus Lore. Lore, as the dust jacket describes him, is a 1,000-year-old alien who has come to Earth to tell stories as a warning to humanity of a gathering extraterrestrial threat. Lore, it turns out, is really James Frey. Yes,…

“The Company Men” was originally slated for a Christmas Day release. That was before the studio began reading critical feedback and quickly moved it to mid-January, and trickled out the openings in midsize cities like Colorado Springs through February. It’s not that the film is bad. It’s not, and neither, I’m fairly certain, was most…

  GRADE: C+   MINI REVIEW: Rabbit Hole” is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a couple trying to find normal again after the tragic lost of their only child. It is populated by talented actors at the top of their game and helmed by a director known for his edgy, boundary-pushing style. Why…