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. Easily the smartest, snarkiest, and most honest depiction of that tweenage wasteland known as the "middle school years" that this former wimpy freak and geek has come across since having survived the daily derision afforded those of us who chose to spend our lunch periods perusing J.R.R. Tolkien, playing Dungeons & Dragons, or just hiding out in the boys' room.
  2. This is not your mother's murder mystery, unless your mother's maiden name is de Sade and she has an appallingly bleak vision of modern society that occasionally fixates on the historical misdeeds of the corporate/industrial world and the correction thereof.
  3. Going dramatic, Stiller commits to the role completely; there's something rather admirable in his refusal to pander or soft-pedal the self-serious, frankly unlikable Greenberg.
  4. It's an out-of-this-world, real-life adventure for kids of all ages, budding Neil Armstrongs and Ray Bradburys alike.
  5. The Runaways nails both the glammy, SoCal temper of the mid-Seventies and the metallurgic tempering of the first all-girl rock band in America.
  6. It has a basic goodness of heart that counteracts, if not entirely cancels out, the film's broadness and busyness.
  7. A gripping presentation of a little-known true story and its historical lessons.
  8. These women are marvelous, with ancient, creased faces and the kind of admirable f...-all attitude that comes with age. I couldn't take my eyes off them.
  9. Kazan appears in every scene of The Exploding Girl’s perfectly paced 80 minutes, and you’d miss her if she ducked out for even a moment.
  10. Even though She’s Out of My League ends exactly where you think it will, it does so without ever having actually gone anywhere at all.
  11. No matter where your political gullibilities lie, Green Zone is a riveting piece of actioneering.
  12. Moments of great suspense are sometimes invested with intrinsic humor, moments of trauma can yield great compassion. Often, these seemingly conflicting tones exist all at once, while the oblique mystery never clearly identifies the correct emotion.
  13. A formulaic wedding comedy about mismatched families, but thanks to several appealing performances this rote exercise turns out better than most.
  14. There is, quite simply, a rather refreshing ordinariness to Remember Me in the unflashy, knuckle-down attention it gives to character development and the building of plausible and involving family and friend dynamics.
  15. The first act is very nearly unbearable, leaden and doomy and generically plotted.
  16. Brooklyn’s Finest is mo’ wrong than right.
  17. An equally tired and wearisome buddy-cop movie that might as well be a forgotten leftover from the era of "Turner and Hooch." Now there's a film with classic Kevin Smith scrawled all over it.
  18. A Prophet is the kind of film that makes you remember why going to the movies can be a thrilling experience.
  19. To call The Crazies the most original horror film in a long while only serves to point out just how lousy mainstream, studio-released horror has become. It's a solid thriller, sure, but there's precious little in it that hasn't been seen countless times before, and in the end it plays it safe … by not playing it safe.
  20. Still, when The Yellow Handkerchief finally hooks into the meat of Hamill’s source story, the narrative tension puts enough wind in the film’s sails to arrive at its corny but sentimentally satisfying conclusion.
  21. While The Art of the Steal makes a very convincing – even bone-chilling – argument that the people and foundations that essentially hijacked the Barnes Foundation are primarily concerned with tourist dollars and not the preservation of Barnes' legacy, the film fails to even ponder why easier access to some of the world's greatest art treasures might not be an entirely bad thing.
  22. It's pure Bedlam, but for genre fans, Scorsese makes it feel like coming home.
  23. The Ghost Writer hasn’t the complexity or breadth of such stunners as "Chinatown" or "The Pianist," but it is nevertheless a solidly built little roundelay of intrigue with a veracity that seems torn from newspaper headlines.
  24. There's plenty of doom, gloom, and outright despair on hand here but very little genuine human emotion.
  25. Aggressively unfunny and unromantic, Valentine’s Day’s chief concern appears to have been the corralling of its cast of a thousand stars; it seems far less attention was paid to what to do with that cast once assembled.
  26. As scripted by Craig Titley, this first in a presumptive franchise is a dull, scattershot affair that owes much to both "X-Men" and Greek mythology, but which never seems to slow down enough to make any sense whatsoever.
  27. The film is so self-referencing, however, that a running gag about Wax/Travolta craving a “royale with cheese” moves the film’s energy backward rather than forward. Perhaps instead it was a reference to the film’s nutritional value rather than its screen precedents.
  28. He is meant to be brooding, I think, but Tatum’s vague features read more “meathead” than anguished young lover. He has to carry the film, but he’s the least interesting thing going on here.
  29. Due in large part to its cultural relevance, this is also one of the few sequels that nearly succeeds in topping the original.
  30. Terribly Happy isn't, but it is wonderfully unhinged, and a painstakingly constructed meditation on a place where good and evil meet, mate, and make sour times sublime and, dare I say it, beautiful.

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