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
    • 50 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    As Tim – a character rich in contradictions and psychological possibilities – Chittenden may as well be a cardboard cutout for all the emotional complexity he’s able to muster.
  1. Herzog outdoes himself with Rescue Dawn, making his most popularly accessible film yet and proving at the same time that he is among the most daring of all filmmakers and capable -- like his characters -- of almost anything.
  2. Transformers is about as clever as an unplugged blender.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    It goes without saying that this will be no everyday marriage class, not with a hyperactive Williams setting the curriculum.
  3. Pixar's animation is simply flawless; colorful, deeply realized, and ably conveying both the chaos of the kitchen, and the sensual allure of food well prepared.
  4. Though we will differ on the methods of improving the American health care system, Sicko's enduring contribution is the undeniable evidence that the system is broken. If the film brings the debate out into the open of our movie lobbies and living rooms, it can’t be long before the conversation trickles into the corridors of Congress.
  5. Redgrave still manages to inspire awe, yet a poetically prosaic moment like the one in which she goes chasing after a butterfly is enough to throw a net over the whole thing.
  6. Superior in every way to 1995's "Die Hard With a Vengeance," Live Free or Die Hard's goofy generation-gap gambit pays off decently and proves, again, that nattily dressed terrorists are no match for Willis, the once and future Patron Saint of Bang.
  7. The movie appeals to an old-fashioned sense of horror.
  8. Bland jokes and lazy contrivances.
  9. The elliptical narrative also recalls Fernando Meirelles' somewhat similarly themed "The Constant Gardener," a film ultimately more heartfelt and accessible to mainstream audiences because its maker is unafraid of grief and explores it more deeply.
  10. It's smart; it's silly; it's – kill me now – shear terror.
  11. This movie belongs to Posey, and her nuanced performance makes Broken English a worthy adventure.
  12. Lady Chatterley is the recipient of six César Awards, France's equivalent of the Oscar. Although the film is capable of sustaining our interest throughout, the viewer may find it lacking in some of the transcendence Lady Chatterley's lust is supposed to inspire.
  13. Cuddlier and more charming, this alcoholic-hitman comedy isn’t your typical Dahl noir (The Last Seduction, Red Rock West), but it is offbeat, lovably deadpan, and just tart enough.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Baichwal is comfortable with those moral and aesthetic ambiguities as well, and, as a result, she’s created a visual poem of devastation that makes one question one’s entire relationship to the world.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 0 Critic Score
    A piece of garbage and the best argument for reading books since the first pop-up appeared.
  14. Relentlessly dull and curiously bombastic.
  15. It's not really a matter of Nancy's retro look and grounding in the fundamentals of sleuthing that separates the women from the girls but, rather, this film's lack of gaiety and surprise that makes it dud for old and new generations of the books' fans.
  16. The film’s resolution is more implied than complete.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Best just to say Macbeth is coming down hard and leave it at that.
  17. Kaurismäki’s spare style and economical storytelling are well-suited to this particular story about loneliness, as the director never muddies the frame with sentimental dross or lugubrious inclinations.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Three films in, and Soderbergh's Ocean's franchise has settled into a kind of hipster equanimity – happy to live in that loosely defined territory where art meets commerce and story blends seamlessly with cool.
  18. Director Roth has accomplished the near impossible with Hostel: Part II: He's crafted a vastly superior sequel to a film already considered something of a classic by genre aficionados, one that supersedes its predecessor's sadistic entertainment quotient by orders of magnitude while also upstaging its own outrageous gore effects with a script that's smart, vicious, and occasionally, gleefully subversive.
  19. There's nothing terribly wrong with Surf's Up, except maybe the part where one character calls another a "dirty trash can full of poop." But the movie isn't terribly robust, either.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    How do you tell the true story of a mythical woman? In epic proportions, of course.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    The opening and closing courtroom scenes, in which brother Sumner is granted legal guardianship, show a family in need of healing, mentally and spiritually.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    While 12:08 East of Bucharest could take more than one viewing to truly appreciate, it's worth the commitment.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Like most of Apatow's work, Knocked Up walks a perilous line between sarcasm and sentimentality, and though it's extremely funny in bursts, the movie flirts once too often with schmaltz before toppling into melodrama in its third act. The fault lies as much with Apatow's casting as his writing.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    There's a lot of angry prejudice toward women playing soccer in the film, and a semi-fun "Footloose"-esque scene in which Gracie petitions the school board for the freedom to play. But melodrama reigns supreme as the film disintegrates into movie-of-the-week predictability.

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