Dallas Observer's Scores

  • Movies
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 5.6 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:
1518 movie reviews
  1. Maugham's signature wit and tragic colorations are well served by director Istvan Szabo (Mephisto) and screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Dresser).
  2. Turns out to be one of the most original and imaginative children's films in a long time.
  3. Feels like a quirky sitcom -- "Arrested Development" without the development.
  4. There is still plenty to like about p.s. , including its smart humor and its surprising ability to absorb.
  5. It's not easy to pull off a good morality tale. That's why Moolaad, the new film from 81-year-old Senegalese writer-director Ousmane Sembene, feels like such an exceptional success. Its moral center is painfully clear, but so is its humanity.
  6. Imagine a feature-length version of the "Large Marge" sequence from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and you won't be too far off, only that was scarier.
  7. What this Reagan movie really needed was . . . more Reagan. None of his admirers have his charisma, and none of the footage here is surprising. Fox News could easily produce a better film.
  8. A satisfyingly eerie thriller.
  9. Vera Drake is so patient, assiduous and attentive to emotional accuracy that it betrays the utter sloth of most of what we see when we go to the movies.
  10. The movie works because Berg never forgets to keep his heart in the game and not just his head.
  11. Fame this film ain't.
  12. The movie comes off as willfully eccentric when it should have been charmingly touching.
  13. Love it or hate it, you won't be able to leave it alone.
  14. The design is gorgeous, the dialogue delicious, and even the supporting characters prove resonant.
  15. It would take the ghost of Stanley Kubrick to get great performances out of Jimmy Fallon, Queen Latifah, and supermodel Gisele Bündchen, and Tim, you're no Stanley.
  16. In this case, the subject and director are one and the same, and the result is a degree of intimacy--really of rawness--rarely achieved in film.
  17. This resolutely old-fashioned movie is less a drama of the streets than a kind of recruiting film.
  18. It's stunning, really, to consider how much time and expense went into something so chintzy and dull--a script full of non sequiturs shouted by a screen full of chum.
  19. Russell, a former student of Buddhist monk-philosopher Robert Thurman's, is reaching too far, straining too hard, saying too much that adds up to so little after all the mumbos and jumbos tallied up by film's end.
  20. Whether or not you like this film may depend on how much interest (or patience) you have for the antics of a self-proclaimed prophet.
  21. It's hagiography, yes, but also powerful and poignant.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The strength of Woman is its unflinching look at people trying to grab onto a little dignity in their lives.
  22. What about the activists (gay and straight) who want to secure legal benefits for all citizens, not just married ones?
  23. Good, goofy fun, but given the attendant hype, there may be a danger of excessively high expectations from horror fans.
  24. Part of the problem is that this First Daughter is modeled on good-girl Chelsea Clinton; a movie based on our current two party-girls-in-chief trying to embarrass their reformed alcoholic dad would be far more fun.
  25. Ultimately only Moore, with her eyes always half-damp and voice half-cracked and body language half-mad, keeps the movie on the ground, when it too often threatens to fly into the thin air, where the audience would laugh it off the screen.
  26. Provides a smart, insightful prologue to the career of the man who continues to inspire countless people around the world.
  27. Most of it is decidedly lame. The actors, however, are ingratiating.
  28. The very best thing about A Dirty Shame, a giddy sex farce from John Waters, is the credits.
  29. September Tapes, with its torturously high-minded narration and ludicrously low-road shenanigans, uses the terror attacks of 2001 as the setup for an infuriating gotcha finale.

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