Austin Chronicle's Scores

For 8,783 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 41% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 57% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 58
Highest review score: 100 The Searchers
Lowest review score: 0 Gummo
Score distribution:
8783 movie reviews
  1. Restrepo is an example of photojournalism at its finest.
  2. Who, exactly, is stalking whom, and for what reason? I'm still not entirely sure, but Resnais' funky, frothy bonbon of a film is nevertheless a breathtaking sight to see.
  3. Frankly, I don't like to be bullied, and bullying is exactly what Knight and Day – overly cute and overconvinced of its own cool – does best.
  4. The resulting film makes Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead" look like a stone cold neo-Western thoroughbred.
  5. Cyrus is very funny, and Keener's supporting work as John's divorced ex also amuses. A pat conclusion nevertheless negates the strength of the restive narrative that precedes it.
  6. A fearless sort of melodramaticism that might have seemed silly if it weren't for the impeccable EVERYTHING on display here, from the lush, sexy camerawork of director of photography Yorick Le Saux (Swimming Pool) to the throbbing, atavistic score by John Adams. It's not silly or, at least, rarely so, and Swinton's nuanced, aching performance is downright revelatory.
  7. I laughed more (sincerely, full-throatedly) at Toy Story 3’s smart comedy than at any other film of the still-young summer movie slate.
  8. Certainly there are filmgoers who enjoy this kind of noncommittal metaphysical quest. I am not one of them. It makes me think that the filmmaker is more interested in showing us his vacation slides instead of sharing any real insights.
  9. A winning update of a classic piece of Eighties' filmmaking, and that in itself is something of a coup.
  10. The cast seems to have been assembled primarily for its blinking resemblance to the stars of the original Eighties TV series about a renegade group of former Army Rangers now for hire.
  11. An entirely sympathetic portrait of the artist at an advancing age. That's right, artist – and to a generation that knows Rivers only as a screeching red-carpet provocateur or as an overknifed monstrosity, that revelation alone is worth the cost of admission.
  12. The costume design, however, is the film's most enthralling aspect; replicas of actual Chanel designs were created for the film, and a fresh costume graces nearly every sequence. Alas, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky unfolds on a screen instead of a catwalk.
  13. Winter's Bone never hits a false note.
  14. Splice is a twisted little genetic updating that's not half as electrifying as Shelley's novel twist on the whole man/God/creation situation (and the perils thereof).
  15. The film feels like a collection of sketches instead of a mad, three-day, drug-and-sex-infused whirl.
  16. Only the underplaying Selleck gets out of this with any dignity, while O’Hara is totally wasted as Jen’s one-note tippling mom.
  17. It's an intermittently amusing parable about an outcast's ascension, as performed by a pack of digitally manipulated dogs. Next.
  18. Living in Emergency, then, is like a hard slap to the face: There is nothing remotely romantic about this grim depiction of two missions in Liberia and Congo in the mid-2000s.
  19. Jeunet's Micmacs resembles a live-action cartoon, one in which the set-pieces, the characters, and their actions all have the flavor of physical impossibility and unfettered imagination.
  20. By no means a great film, but it is an entertaining one, a nearly bloodless, family-friendly throwback of sorts to a cinematic age when Persian palace intrigue, winsome princesses, and ambitious princes ruled the back lots and Errol Flynn was in like, well, Errol Flynn.
  21. Aside from the ridiculous dialogue, of which there is much, and truly crappy CGI gore, of which there is even more, Survival of the Dead feels like the single weakest link in what is otherwise the strongest, smartest, and most transgressively revolutionary horror series in cinema history.
  22. The problem lies with the unimaginative story premise and the quip/reverse quip dialogue that just may be better-suited to half-hour television shows than this nearly 2½-hour movie feature.
  23. Yet even though Forever After is not as fresh-seeming as its predecessors, it provides passable entertainment, especially for the kids who won’t be familiar with the George Bailey storyline retread – or midlife crises, for that matter.
  24. The film goes by in a wash of uninspired action and unmemorable comedy.
  25. The story is so meandering and unbelievable that Westerners are still likely to roll their eyes. I have no idea what Indian audiences will make of Kites. The film is rousing, but it does not soar.
  26. The actors are all charged up, too; there’s just nowhere in this script for them to go.
  27. Scott’s is the story of how Robin Longstride (and, no, that’s not a name made up by Mel Brooks), an archer in Richard the Lionheart's last Crusade, became Robin of the Hood, the wily defender of the overtaxed people of Nottingham.
  28. Is Gary Winick atoning for his sins? If “Bride Wars” was an acid spill -- and that’s putting it generously -- then Letters to Juliet is like the safety shower in your high school chemistry class, delivering an unsubtle blast of sanitized sentimentality.
  29. Pleasant but dull formula film.
  30. It's certainly one of the most beautiful costume-drama/historical-romance naps you'll ever have, but this effortlessly evocative, endlessly ennui-inducing paean to Hawaii's final princess is, ultimately, a dull, "Upstairs Downstairs" affair.

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