Scott Foundas

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L.A. Weekly, Variety, Village Voice
For 852 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 54% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Scott Foundas' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 62
Highest review score: 100 Inside Llewyn Davis
Lowest review score: 0 Grind
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 447 out of 852
  2. Mixed: 278 out of 852
  3. Negative: 127 out of 852
852 movie reviews
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    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Scott Foundas
    Cabin Fever
    The result is something neither scary nor funny.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Scott Foundas
    The Last Mogul
    Love him or loathe him, Avrich proposes, Wasserman mattered -- which is a lot more than can be said for most of the multinationals and their MBA-bearing surrogates who came to run the studios in his wake.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Scott Foundas
    Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
    This is as corny as it sounds, and yet not half as cloying and sentimental as you expect. At the end of the day, the horse may win the race, but the fate of the American heartland looms large and unresolved.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 50 Scott Foundas
    Wicker Park
    All of this was more enjoyable when Bellucci, Cassel and Bohringer were the stars. Hartnett is overly methodical here as Matthew, and Kruger, as in "Troy," is beautiful but lacking in dramatic intensity.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 90 Scott Foundas
    Step Into Liquid
    An awe-inspiring survey of global surf culture, with the power to crush the post-"Gidget" decades of Hollywood stereotyping of surfers and surfing.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    The Five Obstructions
    From its very first frames it exerts a powerful fascination.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 20 Scott Foundas
    The Chumscrubber
    Shrill, smug would-be satire.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Scott Foundas
    Ciao America
    Never less than pleasant and genteel, but rarely more.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    Starting Out in the Evening
    Director Andrew Wagner draws topnotch work from a pro cast in Starting Out in the Evening, a wise, carefully observed chamber drama.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    Jersey Girl
    Both stars are atrocious -- but the real blame for this cosmically self-indulgent disaster lies with Kevin Smith, who directs like a proud father who can't stop showing you pictures of his kids. And here's the thing: The brats are ugly.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    The Manson Family
    The movie is monotonous, and by the time it gets to its climactic re-enactment of the Tate-LaBianca killings, it seems little more than the heir to "Survive!, The Zodiac Killer" and other unsavory 1970s horror cheapies that tried to turn a quick buck on real-life tragedy.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Scott Foundas
    The Rules of Attraction
    Gets an ambitious, sometimes inspired but ultimately less than satisfying screen treatment from Roger Avary.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    The Science of Sleep
    For the soul of Gondry's work, it seems to me, is neither its soaring flights of visual fancy nor its sometimes crude slapstick, but rather its pained understanding of a generation hopelessly tongue-tied when it comes to matters of the heart.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    Swimfan
    A chiller resolutely without chills, in which even the pool water always seems heated. And inasmuch as the pic never owns up to its own trashiness, it's not even enjoyable camp.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Scott Foundas
    The Dark Knight
    The Dark Knight will give your adrenal glands their desired workout, but it will occupy your mind, too, and even lead it down some dim alleyways where most Hollywood movies fear to tread.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 20 Scott Foundas
    House of Wax
    Direly predictable, with candle-drip pacing and a pervasive unpleasantness.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 70 Scott Foundas
    Tales of the Rat Fink
    These hunks of greased lightning tell how a gearhead SoCal teen got wind of the post-World War II hot-rodding craze, crossed paths with a pinstriper named von Dutch and ended up as the automotive visionary whom Tom Wolfe famously called “a genius of the only uniquely American art form.”
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    2046
    The result is a film chilly and externalized in all the ways that Mood was bottled up and woozily dreamlike.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Scott Foundas
    The Brothers Grimm
    This is one of the most visually off-putting films ever made by a director who supposedly makes beautiful pictures.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Scott Foundas
    Standing Still
    The script (by Matthew Perniciaro and Timm Sharp) is trite, and the direction so flat that every scene looks like it was shot in a broom closet, but the bright young cast makes things more bearable than they should be.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    The X Files: I Want to Believe
    The truth is still out there, like an unsold lawn chair at a garage sale, in this just plain lousy second big-screen outing for erstwhile FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    From Justin to Kelly
    The most resounding thuds in From Justin to Kelly, however, come from the musical numbers.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 60 Scott Foundas
    Hoot
    Hoot is flatly directed by talk-show-host-turned-sitcom-director Wil Shriner, but the young actors are spirited and appealing, and the movie's low-key anti-establishment posture is vastly preferable to the knee-jerk fulminations of a Michael Moore.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    Dopamine
    This feels like a movie that was grown in a petri dish -- poked and prodded with all manner of overcooked symbolism and thesis statements, but fatally absent the genuine human emotions about which it incessantly prattles on.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
    The gimmick is simple but devastatingly effective: Never once breaking character or acknowledging that he’s in on the joke, the Jew-fearing, grammatically challenged reporter ingratiates himself with his unsuspecting, average-American victims before uproariously turning the tables on them.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    Mean Creek
    Estes' debut feature's strength lies in its crackling intensity, ultra-sharp character insights and an affinity for teenage protagonists who look and sound like real teens.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Scott Foundas
    Mr. & Mrs. Smith
    Jolie has a gangly inelegance that suggests a giraffe trying to hang wallpaper -- but the entire movie is predicated on a spark between its prettier-than-thou stars that seems to have bypassed the screen and ignited in the tabloids instead.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Scott Foundas
    MirrorMask
    Emerges as an overproduced novelty pic that looks and feels more like a company promo reel than an engaging piece of storytelling.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    Primer
    A dense and dazzling science-fiction mind-bender unassumingly dressed up in a tech geek’s short-sleeved oxford shirt, pocket protector and safety goggles.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 100 Scott Foundas
    Dust to Glory
    Absolutely exhilarating...Pound for pound, it's more kinetically thrilling than anything Hollywood has produced in years, not least of all because it's real.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Scott Foundas
    The Intruder
    For Denis’ film - which may be her most intricately constructed and intensely beautiful to date - is one that transcends words and stories, a movie to be felt rather than rationalized.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 50 Scott Foundas
    Glory Road
    Glory Road keeps its focus frustratingly narrow. There's a nugget of an interesting idea here...But first-time director James Gartner's movie is less a study of race than it is a fast break of underdog clichés and "inspirational" speeches.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Scott Foundas
    Monster House
    Becomes one of those wonderfully weird adventure stories beloved of children who don't mind getting a good old-fashioned case of the heebie-jeebies. It's kind of a blast for adults too.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 30 Scott Foundas
    The Flying Scotsman
    It has a terminal case of the cutes crossed with the labored earnestness of a disease-of-the-week melodrama.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 90 Scott Foundas
    The Simpsons Movie
    A 90-minute, years-in-the-making comic wind-up machine that begins by mocking its own audience for paying good money to see what it can watch at home for free and proceeds from there through the most wickedly funny arsenal of assaults on big government, organized religion and corporate America this side of "Borat."
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