Austin Chronicle's Scores

For 8,778 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 6.7 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:
8778 movie reviews
  1. The storylines are as confusing (or as simple?) to the uninitiated as they were before, but that doesn't stop them from making sense to the kids.
  2. It's a kinder, gentler "Tales From the Crypt" that, in the end, is neither kind nor gentle.
    • 14 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    The In Crowd is nothing but a deadly dull business.
  3. The Five Senses, despite its good performances, is like looking through a filmmaker's sketchbook: strong outlines but little substance.
  4. The kind of movie that gets under your skin and takes root.
  5. The film's greatest strength lies in its ability to view itself as a modern moral fable of sorts.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    The real joy of watching this movie is seeing a stand-up comedian who is incredibly comfortable with herself, her material, and her audience.
  6. Rises above its problems to deliver the essential goods.
  7. A lightweight, intermittently engaging comedy.
  8. I'd rather have a testicular nail-gun mishap than sit through this migraine-inducing train wreck of a film one more time.
  9. Above all, it's a satisfying, almost restful work, as welcome in this less-than-thrilling cinematic summer as a cool soak on a hot summer's day.
  10. Hit-or-miss comedy at its best and worst: When it connects, the belly laughs are long and loud, but when it misses, the groans you'll be hearing are your own.
  11. Nearly a perfect film, from its bold and epic man-vs.-nature conflict to the breathless scripting, editing, acting, and direction.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    With his new film (which he also wrote), Rudolph seems content to slap a flimsy film-noir plot on an unending stream of malapropisms and word games and call it a "screwball noir."
  12. "We, the people" have never been big fans of movies about the American Revolutionary War. The Patriot, however, appears to be the movie that will break that historical jinx.
  13. Has those proverbial big laffs in spades.
  14. Absolutely delightful filmmaking, chock-full of gorgeously goofy animation and a storyline that cleverly echoes everything from "Stalag 17" to "Cool Hand Luke."
  15. This film's intelligence and uncompromising originality commend it to even moviegoers with zero tolerance for top hats, parasols, and crap English accents.
  16. Feels like a been-here-done-that dud.
  17. The storyline goes from bad to worse as one-dimensional characters gradually flatten out into pure stick figures, and the crime plot goes from hokey to implausible.
  18. A paint-by-numbers romantic comedy, but without the heart or laughs to make it work.
  19. It's a rare film that can make us look so deeply into the dark soul of the seemingly benign.
  20. The movie will not be for all tastes. Its seedy lifestyles, nonjudgmental attitudes, nonlinear narrative, and central character whose problem is his lack of emotions is definitely nonstandard fare.
  21. It's a real gone flick, daddy-o.
  22. Everybody likes to watch the messy guts-stuff of other peoples' lives, if only because we know then we're not alone in our weird ways.
  23. The effect is weird but it, actually, kind of works, illuminating both Shakespeare and the artifice of musicals.
  24. A fun, well-assembled and -performed slice of life that requires no special affinity with the subject matter in order to -- ahem -- get one's groove on.
  25. Ultimately one of those sprawling epics best suited for a rainy day.
  26. A 119-minute trailer.
  27. Fascinating, partly because of its originality.

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