Dallas Observer's Scores

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For 1,518 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 49% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.9 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 59
Highest review score: 100 Final Destination 3
Lowest review score: 0 How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 678 out of 1518
  2. Mixed: 604 out of 1518
  3. Negative: 236 out of 1518
1518 movie reviews
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  1. Standing in the Shadows of Motown
    If there's a flaw with the film, it's that Justman doesn't trust his narrators enough; too often he'll stage a re-enactment while someone's talking, as if he's afraid the mere tales themselves won't hold our interest. But they will, as long as there's a kid slapping a bass, a sampler swiping a groove or some middle-aged couple slow dancing to Marvin Gaye or the Miracles.
  2. L'Auberge Espagnole
    Writer-director-actor Cedric Klapisch simultaneously shows great moviemaking flair and reveals a very peculiar worldview.
  3. The Parent Trap
    An engaging, family-oriented romantic comedy that should appeal as much to fans of the original movie as to viewers unfamiliar with the 1961 Hayley Mills version.
  4. Barbershop 2: Back in Business
    Director Kevin Rodney Sullivan (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) and editor Paul Seydor serve it up beautifully.
  5. The Flower of Evil
    It's a melodrama more than a drama, a light thriller –- which is not to say that it is not wonderfully entertaining and satisfying. In fact, it is both.
  6. Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
    Moviegoers bewailing the absence of literacy and shallowness of character they usually get for their seven bucks need look no further than this fluent and satisfying triptych for a source of hope.
  7. Shall We Dance?
    The film successfully walks the thin line between slick commercialism and "serious" realism. It is sentimental, but it comes by its sentiment honestly, through well-observed performances by the leads and a keen insight into the quirks of the Japanese middle-class culture.
  8. Capturing the Friedmans
    Capturing the Friedmans does not end after its credits roll; audiences will try the case over and over again in their heads. Jarecki does not judge, but leaves only tragic clues for us to ponder.
  9. Pi
    Whatever its faults -- and it has more than a few -- it is unquestionably different. It at least takes a stab at interpolating cerebral ideas into the format of a thriller.
  10. Step Into Liquid
    The movie's diplomatic breadth compromises its thematic depth -- it basically repeats that fun conquers all -- but few movies will so generously rawk a crowd this year.
  11. Super Size Me
    As enormously entertaining as it is appalling.
  12. Human Traffic
    What it lacks in story, it makes up for with sharp dialogue and an amusing Walter Mitty-esque style.
  13. Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
    What makes Silverman a truly gifted comic is her timing and delivery.
  14. Ocean's Twelve
    Soderbergh seems to have found his vision again. It'll be a great day when he returns to writing his own material, but until then, this is none too shabby.
  15. Unknown White Male
    A fascinating documentary by Bruce's longtime friend Rupert Murray, uses footage taken by both Bruce and Murray to document Bruce's harrowing, enlightening and occasionally hilarious experience. It's a wild ride.
  16. The Safety of Objects
    This is not the easiest film in the world to untangle, but our attentions are soon rewarded.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Inside Deep Throat
    The film falls short only in its refusal to take a stand on whether star Linda Lovelace was a victim, as she claimed.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Secrets & Lies
    Secrets & Lies is all about wounds and our tendency to embrace placebos rather than the harder courses of treatment.
  19. Sylvia
    As a film it's mostly top-notch work. Kiwi director Christine Jeffs has taken the poignant, thoughtful screenplay of erstwhile documentarian John Brownlow and rendered it a moving mood-piece of subtlety and ever-encroaching sorrow.
  20. Garden State
    Garden State charms with ease and moves with grace; it's warm but never mushy, languorous but never groggy, rueful but never despondent. It's like a perfect pop song--that thing that makes you smile and tear up at the same time.
  21. Casanova
    It's a sweet, silly and not unintelligent romantic comedy: For a period farce, you could do worse.
  22. Robots
    Robots doesn't rely on being current, which will ultimately render it as timeless as any great fable. At its center is a big, beating heart.
  23. The Devil and Daniel Johnston
    In many ways, The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a beautiful work, a painstakingly crafted portrait of a talented self-saboteur--a man consistently done in by a vicious mental illness. But it's not as compelling as one would hope.
  24. Elf
    Elf may be no more than a pleasant, amusing trifle, a grin that fades well before Thanksgiving, but it also will endure in the way all decent Hollywood-made Christmas fairy tales last if they're rendered with good cheer and good will.
  25. Downfall
    This is a grim and sometimes guilt-ridden examination of the Third Reich in collapse. But it's also weirdly sympathetic, and not just to the peripheral figures in Hitler's twisted world.
  26. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    This is phony, absolutely, but the good feeling it leaves behind is plenty real.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Dinner Game
    A perfectly entertaining little French comedy that doesn't quite lodge in your brain in the way you hope it would.
  28. The Da Vinci Code
    All in all, a respectable and predictable adaptation.
  29. Matchstick Men
    That's where the movie falters: It tries to give Garcia's book a heart and conscience it didn't need and never demanded.
  30. Teacher's Pet
    The musical numbers are energetic and fun.
  31. The Inheritance
    Indeed, in this era of muckraking left-wing documentaries, The Inheritance offers a more fascinating fictionalized look at what cut-throat capitalism can do to conscience.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Km. 0 - Kilometer Zero
    That's what separates good films from bad. And that's what makes Km. 0 stand out.
  33. Intimate Strangers
    Props to translator Nigel Palmer for keeping the subtitles witty instead of blindly literal.
  34. Evelyn
    James Bond wants us to believe he's an Everyman. The lovely thing is, it works.
  35. The Big Hit
    Manages the seemingly impossible task of being very funny indeed and being as dark as anything Wong has ever made. This is an almost painfully bleak comedy that makes you squirm in the manner of “The Out-of-Towners.”
  36. Johnny English
    The movie is more a loose collection of skits than a coherent whole. But then, it's never coherence we're looking for when Atkinson's exhausting imagination is cut loose from its fetters. The weird bonus here is John Malkovich's over-the-top performance.
  37. Stardom
    In his observant, swiftly paced Stardom, Arcand does it all with relentless wit, high style, and a suggestion of tragedy.
  38. Romeo Must Die
    May not have the best script in the world, but it brings Jet Li to the big screen in a way that all action junkies, not just the video-store geeks, will appreciate.
  39. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
    An affecting piece of work.
  40. The Dancer Upstairs
    The Dancer Upstairs would have made a suitable double feature with "The Quiet American"; both films unfold slowly, build toward an anxious climax and end with a shrug of grief.
  41. Did You Hear About the Morgans?
    It's a thoroughly delightful throwaway--the kind of movie for which cable television was made, from the maker of "Music & Lyrics" (Marc Lawrence), who knows his way 'round a snappy tune.
  42. The Weather Man
    The Weather Man is not the wacky movie Paramount is selling, nor is it cynical Oscar bait. It's just a little movie about little people trying not to get wet or freeze to death or get burned when they walk outside, and good luck with all that.
  43. The Barbarian Invasions
    Arcand loyalists are bound to miss Rémy, but at least he goes out in style. Even the antagonists will have to admit that.
  44. Baadasssss!
    As frantic and frenzied as its source material.
  45. The Boxer
    It can't compare to what might have been: a full-scale performance by Daniel Day-Lewis as an Irish raging bull--a rebel with a cause. There are still traces of greatness in what he attempts, and it's more than enough to make the movie worth a lingering look.
  46. Superstar
    In Mary Katherine Gallagher's dogged perseverance, it's easy to find not only cheap laughs but real soul. In her way, she's a saint.
  47. Gerry
    There's elegance and grace here, fostering an opportunity to reflect upon why men get so dutiful about being down. It's worth the hike.
  48. My Architect
    Nathaniel will sometimes take it too far. It's particularly distracting, and even a little distancing, when he waits till the end of a lengthy interview to tell one of his father's former collaborators and friends that he is Louis' son.
  49. The Replacement Killers
    Fuqua has done an admirable job staging the action scenes, but the script is little more than a thin framework to justify those scenes.
  50. Kingdom of Heaven
    So, if you want to see this loud but rather ordinary epic, don't expect its tricked-up cultural and theological messages to carry much water. For entertainment value, it's hard to beat the climactic siege of Jerusalem, a Ridley Scott-perfect half-hour that matches anything in "Troy" or "Gladiator" for sheer, bloody, helmet-bashing mayhem.
  51. Proof
    Its characters are complex and engaging, its central mystery pulls the action forward at a clip, and the performances by Paltrow and Davis are excellent. At the same time, it's a little too slick.
  52. The Break-Up
    Is The Break-Up worth your time? Let's put it this way: Whenever Vaughn is onscreen, it is. When he's not, it ain't. The movie's a comedy, but it's also about a breakup, so it gets a bit maudlin toward the end.
  53. Night Watch: Nochnoi Dozor
    And remember, this is just part one of a trilogy. While all may not be clear yet, there's certainly enough here to make you curious about the other two parts.
  54. Boiler Room
    This pitch-perfect, richly detailed portrait of raw greed works very well.
  55. Lucía, Lucía
    Its substance and high ambitions, salted with humor, make for a rewarding two hours in the dark.
  56. The Edukators
    Unlike in, say, "Fight Club," director Hans Weingartner does not hedge his bets on the notion of whether simple-minded anarchy is any better than societal conformity -- his heart is with the Edukators, period.
  57. Knafayim Shvurot
    Broken Wings' great strength is that it doesn't overreach. These characters undergo no enormous sea changes, no crazy upheavals. Instead, they find themselves trying to roll with the punches--trying to maintain and survive.
  58. Finding Neverland
    We have a whole new reason to appreciate cinema's most creative chameleon (Depp) since Peter Sellers. The film itself is pretty and sweet but a tad soggy.
  59. The Holy Land
    A former yeshiva student himself, Gorlin turns this tale of political intrigue and the search for divinity into an act of liberation -- if not outright defiance.
  60. Double Jeopardy
    A solo "Thelma and Louise" crossed with a gender-reversed "The Fugitive" with a dry twist of "Fletch."
  61. Fierce Creatures
    A lovely little comedy that--like its predecessor--will, one hopes, buck the odds and find its audience.
  62. Irreversible
    What isn't hard to say is that Noé really isn't a very talented filmmaker.
  63. Maria Full of Grace
    Be forewarned: Scenes of the protagonist learning to swallow the drug pellets will make many viewers queasy. Rarely has the power of suggestion been so unsettling.
  64. Old School
    Ferrell owns the screen.
  65. One Day in September
    Nothing, however, can diminish the sense of horror we feel at what happened that day in September, while Macdonald's revelations and the candid comments he elicits more than make up for the film's less successful elements.
  66. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    God bless Johnny Depp. For the second time this year, the man has almost single-handedly redeemed an action movie that would otherwise be indistinguishable from the pack.
  67. The Ladykillers
    The Ladykillers fits snugly among the Coens' lighter and breezier movies--the ones you forget after you see them once and begin to appreciate and finally adore the more often you revisit them.
  68. The Shape of Things
    Neil LaBute is back to his old self, and the cinematic world is a better place for it.
  69. Stage Beauty
    The design is gorgeous, the dialogue delicious, and even the supporting characters prove resonant.
  70. Go for Zucker
    Zucker!'s a bona fide hit in Germany, where, apparently, there's been a shortage of Jewish comedies since, oh, 1939, give or take. But it deserves its imported rep; rare's the movie that has an Orthodox Jew tripping on Ecstasy while getting a massage from a Palestinian prostitute hours before his mamala's funeral.
  71. Princess Mononoke
    While Mononoke is often gorgeous to look at and has a far more sophisticated story than most Japanese animated features, it still feels overlong and dramatically unengaging.
  72. Waking the Dead
    A pensive, reflective movie, more or less equal in tone to Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm," yet, because of its temporal breadth and tight emotional focus, it packs a more intimate punch.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Friends and Family
    It makes for a nice lightweight evening.
  74. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
    The Lost World is a smoother, scarier ride than its predecessor, with twice as many dinosaurs twice as well designed eating twice as many people...But he's not particularly playful with his terrors here, and that's a disappointment coming from a filmmaker who can mix scares and laughs the way no one else ever has.
  75. The Aviator
    A fun and loving biopic
  76. The Ice Storm
    It's during the shift to seriousness that The Ice Storm makes its missteps. The intrusion of tragedy, while altogether believable, still seems like a device, a calculated tug at the heart strings. It is, in short, a once-effective ploy that now feels like a cliche. A near-miss might have been more effective.
  77. Wrong Turn
    Horror fans will have a blast, though it's unlikely anyone else will be won over.
  78. One True Thing
    In a confused world, this is a movie with answers.
  79. Cowboy del Amor
    Watching Cowboy del Amor is like sitting in a room with someone who's making funny racist cracks; you can't help but laugh, but you feel sullied by the implicit collusion. For that reason, the film tips over into the camp of tragedy. Or if it is a comedy, it's the Shakespearean kind, where the marriages at the end are utterly unsettling.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Snakes on a Plane
    There's something almost refreshingly venal about a movie with no purpose other than to meet intentions this cheesy.
  81. Ushpizin
    A good-hearted movie aimed at Orthodox Jews who don't normally go to the movies.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Nanny McPhee
    Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine) directs with skill, Thompson's screenplay (this is a labor of love) is witty, and the classy cast includes Colin Firth (as the kids' baffled widower-father), Angela Lansbury, Imelda Staunton, and Celia Imrie. Good fun.
  83. Find Me Guilty
    The characters may be based on real people, with much of the dialogue culled directly from court transcripts, but Find Me Guilty plays the whole thing as comedy, and as everyone knows, putting a self-serious egomaniacal movie star in a bad hairpiece is comedy gold.
  84. 2 Fast 2 Furious
    This is low-rent summer fun, exuberantly mounted, so leave your IQ in the glove compartment.
  85. Riding Giants
    Stacy Peralta may think otherwise, but this 101-minute homage to the heroes of surfing is nothing if not a monument to their self-absorption--and to his own. That's probably inevitable.
  86. Last Days
    Last Days shouldn't be half as engrossing as it turns out to be.
  87. The Manchurian Candidate
    Just as you feel the numbing, clammy clench of paranoia on your neck, you realize, nope, the grip is just the director's attempt at tickling you to death. Demme's movie had no right to work. It does, and then some.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Basketball Diaries
    Kalvert and Goluboff overcome predictability by developing the film's characters and atmosphere instead. The result is a turbocharged ode to the lithe bodies and swaggering souls of boys who believe they're invincible - a glorious love song of youthful self-destructiveness.
  89. Pooh's Heffalump Movie
    This latest adventure proves to be a suitably sweet addition to Pooh's cinematic canon.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    This Film Is Not Yet Rated
    This Film Is Not Yet Rated has a refreshingly snotty sense of humor.
  91. Hero
    Hero keeps its characters stiffly archetypal, like chess pieces sent whizzing through outrageous maneuvers. Unfortunately, this apparent choice of spectacle over intimacy put me at a slight remove.
  92. The Dust Factory
    Turns out to be one of the most original and imaginative children's films in a long time.
  93. Face/Off
    Face/Off wouldn't work without two great actors, and it doesn't always work with them. But their gifts justify the whole loony enterprise.
  94. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
    The first Kill Bill was nothing but violence--swordfight upon swordfight, till the clanking of steel blades drowned out anything anyone said. The second is its emotional counterpart, the heart without all the blood drained from it.
  95. Touch of Pink
    Whatever your orientation, these bosom buddies are bound to charm you, and perhaps by joining them, the very talented MacLachlan may continue to find work.
  96. Grind
    Grind does evince a true love for skating, and both the street action and the actual competitions are brilliantly performed and slickly lensed. That it's also funny and excels beyond Youth Culture 101 is a nice bonus.
  97. Payback
    Helgeland makes a solid debut as director here, finding a new angle through which to view the Parker character, and doing so without exhausting the possibilities.
  98. Transamerica
    You might feel constrained when it comes to a standing ovation, but there's certainly enough substance and yuk here to go along for the ride.
  99. Gunner Palace
    Why don't we see this kind of thing on the news every night? Undoubtedly military censorship comes into play, but probably more so it's the prevailing notion that talking-head shoutfests stacked with pundits bring in the ratings, while actual field reporting costs more money.
  100. The Red Violin
    It's unlikely that anyone will be bored. But it's just as unlikely that anyone will be swept off his feet either.
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