Dan Lybarger Movie Reviews & Previews

Critics » Dan Lybarger

Official Websites:
efilmcritic.com

Dan Lybarger

"The situation is hopeless, but not serious. Billy Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond"

Agrees with the Tomatometer 87% of the time.

Biography:: Dan Lybarger has contributed film articles to the Kansas City Star, Nitrate Online, The Lawrence (KS) Journal-World, and PitchWeekly. eKC tmi He has an M.A. in Writing from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a B.A. in English from Ottawa University.
Favorites:: My favorite filmmakers are:
Billy Wilder
Akira Kurosawa
Agnieszka Holland
Buster Keaton (I attend a Keaton Festival every year in Iola, KS. This festival takes place seven miles from Keaton's birthplace in Picquay).
Orson Welles
Martin Scorsese
Peter Weir
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Woody Allen
David Lean
Charlie Chaplin Favorite Movies:
The Apartment
Europa Europa
Life Lessons (from "New York Stories")
Modern Times
Apocalypse Now
Rashomon
The Magnificent Ambersons
The General (1927)
Witness (Part of my fascination with this movie is due to the fact that my relatives are Dunkards, a religious order like the Amish)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
My Life as a Dog
Of course, Citizen Kane
Publications:: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette , County Cable , eFilmCritic.com , Hollywood Bitchslap , Huffington Post , Kansas City Star , KC Active , Lawrence Journal-World , Lybarger Links , MovieMaker Magazine , Nitrate Online , Pitch.com , Rotten Tomatoes , Script Magazine
Critics' Group:: Kansas City Film Critics Circle, Online Film Critics Society

Total Reviews:: 1068
Total QuickRatings:: 254

Location:: Kansas City

Listing Of All Reviews & Articles

Showing 1 - 50 of 1068

Previous | Next

Rating	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Add Date
1/5	8%	The Big Wedding (2013)	" It's best not to use your brain when watching The Big Wedding." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Apr 26, 2013
0/5	26%	21 And Over (2013)	" With '21 and Over,' Lucas and Moore finally have a chance to demonstrate that they can be as witty as well as sophomoric. I'm still waiting for them to at least start trying." — KC Active Posted Mar 18, 2013
3/5	60%	John Dies at the End (2013)	" It is refreshing that Coscarelli is willing to offer viewers something that at least tries to take the rules of cinema into new directions." — KC Active Posted Mar 18, 2013
2.5/5	60%	Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)	" Oz the Great and Powerful should probably have been titled Oz the so-so and Kind of Entertaining or Oz, At Least It's Better than The Wonderful Land of Oz." — KC Active Posted Mar 18, 2013
4/5	89%	A Place at the Table (2013)	" Jacboson and Silverbush know how to make this potentially unpleasant news palatable and inspiring." — KC Active Posted Mar 18, 2013
2/5	39%	The Call (2013)	" The story could be about how Jordan deals or doesn't deal with the helplessness of the situation, but that would have required more work than anybody involved with 'The Call' was apparently willing to make." — KC Active Posted Mar 18, 2013
3.5/5	58%	Snitch (2013)	" It is easy to fault Snitch for trying to be two seemingly incompatible films at once. I, for one, am deeply grateful that Waugh does a passable job of juggling when too many filmmakers have trouble keeping one ball in the air." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Feb 22, 2013
1.5/5	20%	Identity Thief (2013)	" 'Identity Thief' gets off to a shaky start and never recovers." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Feb 8, 2013
4/5	85%	Side Effects (2013)	" Thankfully, Burns and Soderbergh have more on their agenda than simply trashing the pharmaceutical industry." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Feb 8, 2013
4/5	70%	Les Misérables (2012)	" Director Tom Hooper ('The King's Speech'), for the most part, balances Hugo's gritty, if romantic tale, with the larger-than-life demands of an adaptation of the 1985 stage musical." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
3/5	52%	This is 40 (2012)	" But for everything Apatow gets right, he bungles something else." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
3/5	61%	Jack Reacher (2012)	" It's easy to like the idea of a Jack Reacher movie; it takes a little more effort to like the one writer-director Christopher McQuarrie (who penned 'The Usual Suspect's) has made." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
4/5	66%	The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)	" If Jackson had focused simply on Bilbo's party and their attempts to get a proper homeland for the dwarves, 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' would have been a leaner, more engaging tale." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
4/5	84%	The Flat (2012)	" 'The Flat' has a strange staying power that the objects in the apartment didn't. " — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
4/5	64%	Anna Karenina (2012)	" Knightley has a rare gift for making viewers willing to follow her characters even as they make catastrophically stupid decisions." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
1/5	9%	Jack and Diane (2012)	" Little movie, called Jack and Diane. Must have been sitting too long in the can. No, it doesn't have the Mellencamp song. And it gets everything thing else terribly wrong." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
4/5	93%	The House I Live In (2012)	" Our search for easy answers to the evils of drugs is an addiction we must wean ourselves from." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
2.5/5	38%	Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)	" Perhaps Hyde Park on Hudson would have been more edifying if it hadn't been released in the wake of The King's Speech." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
2.5/5	69%	Not Fade Away (2012)	" Unfortunately, Chase's failed group is no more interesting than one you or your friends might have played in." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
3/5	51%	Promised Land (2013)	" In attempting to make 'Promised Land' more than a simple diatribe about the evils of fracking, director Gus Van Sant ('Good Will Hunting,' 'Milk') oddly makes the story seem less authentic." — MovieMaker Magazine Posted Feb 2, 2013
4/5	81%	The Impossible (2012)	" Unlike a lot of movies that have the "based on a true story" tagline, 'The Impossible' doesn't have to do much to remind us that its harrowing tale is genuine" — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
1/5	32%	Gangster Squad (2013)	" It's fitting that 'Gangster' Squad deals with crime because charging admission to this torpid film is robbery." — KC Active Posted Feb 2, 2013
4.5/5	93%	Zero Dark Thirty (2013)	" "Zero Dark Thirty" is less a celebration how terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was found and killed than an engrossing examination of why it took a decade to deal with him." — KC Active Posted Feb 1, 2013
4/5	82%	Rust and Bone (2012)	" Through restraint, French director Jacques Audiard does a better job of tugging on viewers' hearts than most filmmakers can achieve with excess." — KC Active Posted Feb 1, 2013
4/5	79%	Quartet (2013)	" At 75, Dustin Hoffman makes his directorial debut with 'Quartet' and demonstrates some real promise if the acting thing doesn't work out." — KC Active Posted Feb 1, 2013
4/5	80%	Warm Bodies (2013)	" Screenwriter-director Jonathan Levine has an uncanny gift for milking comedy and even romance from unlikely places." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Feb 1, 2013
4/5	59%	The Last Stand (2013)	" No, Schwarzenegger is unlikely to deliver an Oscar acceptance speech, but he and everyone else have their tongues firmly in cheek (that's not an Austrian thing)." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Jan 18, 2013
3.5	79%	A Late Quartet (2012)	" While classical music sometimes seems to exist in a bubble protected from the real world, the people who play it struggle with the same issues everyone else does." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Nov 30, 2012
4/5	76%	Killing Them Softly (2012)	" These fellows are hardened criminals, but they're often darkly hilarious and mesmerizing when viewed from the safety of the big screen." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Nov 30, 2012
4.5/5	89%	A Royal Affair (2012)	" Sometimes falling in love can really change the world or at least the fate of a nation." — KC Active Posted Nov 29, 2012
4.5/5	92%	Silver Linings Playbook (2012)	" Loaded with pleasant surprises, this adaptation of Matthew Quick's novel combines romantic comedy, dysfunctional family woes and a sense of danger without ever losing its way." — KC Active Posted Nov 29, 2012
2.5/5	74%	Rise of the Guardians (2012)	" It takes a unique film to make Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy seem dreary or even unappealing." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Nov 29, 2012
4.5/5	88%	Life of Pi (2012)	" Taiwanese director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) poses intriguing philosophical questions while also providing some of the finest eye candy in recent memory." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Nov 29, 2012
4/5	33%	Chasing Mavericks (2012)	" If Chasing Mavericks is short in the originality department, at least directors Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) and Michael Apted (Coal Miner's Daughter) know how to make the film seem believable." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Oct 26, 2012
2/5	26%	Fun Size (2012)	" Like the candy, Fun Size is short and occasionally sweet, but not all that fun." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Oct 26, 2012
1/5	12%	Alex Cross (2012)	" Imagine Bob Uecker pinch-hitting for Stan Musial, and you get an idea what it's like to see hyphenate Tyler Perry step into Morgan Freeman's shoes." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Oct 19, 2012
2/5	21%	Taken 2 (2012)	" Like American filmmakers, it seems the French don't know when to quit, either." — KC Active Posted Oct 14, 2012
4.5/5	82%	Seven Psychopaths (2012)	" Irish playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh doesn't make movies; they're more like balancing acts." — Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Posted Oct 14, 2012
2/5	32%	The Oranges (2012)	" Essentially, the movie feels like a one-night-stand that's overstayed its welcome." — KC Active Posted Oct 14, 2012
1/5	54%	V/H/S (2012)	" Perhaps it's time to put the "POV, found footage" horror subgenre out to pasture, the way the western faded into obscurity." — KC Active Posted Oct 14, 2012
4.5/5	87%	Frankenweenie (2012)	" Tim Burton more than redeems himself by resurrecting something he made nearly 30 years ago." — KC Active Posted Oct 14, 2012
3/5	39%	Here Comes the Boom (2012)	" Kevin James is an appealing performer who'd probably be even more likable if he could pick out better scripts." — KC Active Posted Oct 14, 2012
4.5/5	96%	Argo (2012)	" Now that Affleck taken up directing and chosen his acting roles more carefully, the wait between his films seems intolerably long." — KC Active Posted Oct 14, 2012
2/5	59%	10 Years (2012)	" This should be a new rule for filmmakers: If the people you're following aren't as interesting as the real folks you know and love, your movie won't be much to leave home for or come home to." — KC Active Posted Sep 28, 2012
2/5	43%	Hotel Transylvania (2012)	" About the only thing interesting about 'Hotel Transylvania' is its release date, September 28, World Rabies Day." — KC Active Posted Sep 28, 2012
3/5	38%	[REC] 3 Genesis (2012)	" Just because a movie is subtitled doesn't mean it's any more imaginative or better crafted than domestic films." — KC Active Posted Sep 17, 2012
4/5	85%	Sleepwalk With Me (2012)	" There is something worthwhile about a comic who has the guts to admit not everything that arises from his lips is worthy of Mark Twain." — KC Active Posted Sep 17, 2012
.5/5	0%	Last Ounce of Courage (2012)	" It's a call for the faithful to rise up if they, or any heathens who stumble in the audience, can wake from their naps or their fits of helpless unintentional laughter." — KC Active Posted Sep 17, 2012
3.5/5	58%	Sparkle (2012)	" 'Sparkle' is a solidly, if not imaginatively, made showbiz tale that might have escaped notice had it not been for that fact that one if its stars, singer Whitney Houston, died after she completed her work in it. " — KC Active Posted Aug 26, 2012

Showing 1 - 50 of 1068

Previous | Next

Sort by Rating:

Sort results by this critic's rating. This option is only available for critics with a rating system (4 star, letter grade, 1-10, etc.)
Sort by T-meter:

Sort results by the Tomatometer (percentage of critics recommending a certain movie)