Austin Chronicle's Scores

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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:
  1. Positive: 4,774 out of 8778
  2. Mixed: 2,557 out of 8778
  3. Negative: 1,447 out of 8778
8778 movie reviews
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  1. Double Team
    Sure, Double Team is a mind-numbingly silly outing, full of gratuitous violence, testosterone-fueled goonishness, and acting turns that make TV's Van Patten family look positively Emmy-bound, but lest we forget, it's also pulse-pounding, often hilarious fun.
  2. Love and Other Catastrophes
    Love's real heartbeat is the sheer likability of its attractive young cast and the earnest naïveté with which they reach (through obsessive movie fandom, endless conversation, and polymorphic romantic pairings) for insights just beyond their grasp.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
    For me, that low-tech, Fifties, camp charm wore a mite thin by the second half-hour, but then, I'm not the target audience, am I?
  4. The Devil's Own
    The script, partly written by an uncredited Terry George ("Some Mother's Son," "In the Name of the Father") strains mightily for insight but never quite breaks through.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 78 Critic Score
    Cats Don't Dance
    Cats Don't Dance is an inspired movie movie, one that celebrates and spoofs cinema with wit, verve, and a breathless enthusiasm for the form.
  6. Selena
    Unfortunately, for all his large soul and exquisite mastery of image, Nava is also one of the worst writers to ever accrue more than two major-movie screenwriting credits.
  7. Liar Liar
    This film is both too formulaic and too much a one-man vehicle to rate as a true masterpiece. But God strike me dead if I'm lying, this is one gut-busting funny movie.
  8. Maborosi
    The concept of loss, and the sorrow that shadows it, is not what you'd call an uncommon theme in films, but rarely is it handled with such uncommon eloquence as it is in Maborosi.
  9. Gray's Anatomy
    Not only is it interesting to follow the course of Gray's storyline, the movie is also equally interesting to view, even if the storyteller is just sitting in front of a desk most of the time.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The Substance of Fire
    The screen version feels like a rewrite made to make the tale more palatable to the "mindless moviegoing masses," which prompts the question: Is the film a truer vision of Baitz's tale of an uncompromising man or a version in which the truer vision was compromised?
  11. Private Parts
    Thomas’ comic flair is undeniable, as is Stern’s comic acting ability; all other arguments aside, Private Parts is a consistently uproarious affair, riddled with brilliant comic set-pieces, including Stern’s many, many run-ins with various program directors and NBC brass.
  12. The Watermelon Woman
    Dunye's film is smart, sexy (the interracial lesbian lovemaking scene prompted an infamous little ruckus over at the NEA a while back), funny, historically aware, and stunningly contemporary.
  13. The Daytrippers
    Writer-director Greg Mottola's first feature is a deceptively quiet and funny film that sticks in your memory long after you think you've left the theatre.
  14. Donnie Brasco
    It’s [Depp's] first genuine “adult” role (not counting the tedious Nick of Time), and it allows him the freedom and emotional range to move, speak, and deal with issues more as an actor and less as a brat-packer.
  15. Hard Eight
    Hall, one of our least appreciated great actors, is mesmerizing as Sydney.
  16. Smilla's Sense of Snow
    Jorgen Persson's camerawork is spectacular, illuminating the cobalt blue of the frozen wastes with an almost regal air. As a travelogue, August's film works wonders; as a narrative, it's just not all there.
  17. Booty Call
    Within the context of films that include the word booty in their titles, it serves up an unusually fresh, inventive and good-natured brew of pure lascivious fun.
  18. Lost Highway
    Lynch, who penned the screenplay with novelist Barry Gifford (Wild at Heart), seems to be attempting to capture not just a sense of place and time (it never works -- Lost Highway is wholly, irrevocably, out of place and without any linear time or time line to speak of), but also a sense of madness.
  19. Rosewood
    The director is unflinching in his portrayal of the horrors that occurred, and nearly all the characters, from Voight's Wright to Rhames' Mann, are wonderfully nuanced, desperately believable creations.
  20. Vegas Vacation
    If you enjoy an occasional taste of mental junk food, you might find Las Vegas Vacation worthy of a springtime dollar-cinema visit. Otherwise, hold out another decade for sexagenarian Chevy in Palm Springs Vacation.
  21. Dante's Peak
    It seems almost beside the point to bring up the notion of plotting and characterization in such an effects-driven film ; nobody's going to rush out to catch Dante's Peak on account of the Shakespearean-caliber thespians involved.
  22. SubUrbia
    Perhaps the most interesting thing about Linklater's (and Bogosian's) running commentary on disaffected suburban youth is that it doesn't bore you half as much as it should.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Hotel de Love
    Some of the gags seem a bit too labored, and by the time the rather charming ending unfolds, these weaker moments in Hotel de Love may force some viewers to check out early.
  24. Waiting for Guffman
    Feels like an overlong "SCTV" skit. Many prime gags are recycled throughout the film, and, honestly, there's only so much Eugene Levy schtick one can take (though he does get the best Yiddish lines in the film).
  25. Fierce Creatures
    Inspired lunacy.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Prefontaine
    This successful characterization is definitely a team effort among actor Jared Leto (the brooding Jordan Catalano of television's "My So-Called Life"), writers James and Eugene Corr, cinematographer Peter Gilbert, and musical director Mason Daring.
  27. Mother
    Mother finds Brooks in top form as he dons the tri-fold hat of director, star, and writer (with co-writer Monica Johnson). His humor has more of an observational zing than a jokey, one-two patter. Within this structure, Brooks uncovers many of the fidgety truths about the relationships between parents and their grown children. The film comeback of Debbie Reynolds is also a most welcome offshoot of this movie.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 67 Critic Score
    Albino Alligator
    Spacey makes interesting work out of an otherwise overdone situation.
  29. Beverly Hills Ninja
    Nearly as much fun as a case of scabies, Beverly Hills Ninja transports the viewer into a mystical realm where pratfall is king and mediocrity is its own reward.
  30. Metro
    This is one of those rare cop/action movies driven by character, not spectacle. Murphy helps the cause with the most focused, persuasive acting of his career. As a young phenom, he got by on charisma, which he promptly commodified and cheapened with Hollywood’s enthusiastic collusion. Now there’s a calm, unfakeable assurance behind his eyes that only comes with life experience. It’s something he can and should build on.
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