L.A. Weekly's Scores

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For 3,750 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 8.7 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 56
Highest review score: 100 A Bread Factory Part Two: Walk With Me a While
Lowest review score: 0 Deuces Wild
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,540 out of 3750
  2. Mixed: 1,542 out of 3750
  3. Negative: 668 out of 3750
3750 movie reviews
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  1. Remember the Titans
    Bruckheimer's latest is in some crucial respects worse than those earlier blockbuster bids ("Gone in 60 Seconds" and "Coyote Ugly") -- certainly it's more fraudulent -- because unlike those films, which don't claim to be about anything other than thrills and tits, Remember the Titans means to be about race.
  2. Beautiful
    Made with the slick, shorthand complacency of a TV movie, Beautiful is so overstuffed with contrivance, you can hardly breathe.
  3. Best in Show
    Guest begins -- but doesn't end -- with caricatures, then peels away at our preconceptions until we see the heart and soul beneath.
  4. The Tavern
    Although on the surface this is a modest comedy about the Catch-22 frustrations of the restaurant game (arcane insurance laws, backstabbing chefs), it is also a movie of some psychological depth, thanks to the understated precision of Dye's deep-welled performance.
  5. The Specials
    An easygoing work of unforced humor built on gags that should be stupid, but are ultimately too ridiculous to resist.
  6. The Fantasticks
    This is the first Broadway-sourced movie musical in umpteen years, and you should see it, because the score is gorgeous.
  7. Urban Legends: Final Cut
    Wears its lack of originality in a crowded slasher marketplace like a red badge of desperation.
  8. Woman on Top
    Relentlessly positive and optimistic, the film is also likable, in the most chaste way imaginable.
  9. Dancer in the Dark
    I was astonished to find myself weeping copiously over von Trier's latest, which is another parable of monomaniacal sainthood.
  10. Left Luggage
    Manipulative filmmaking at its most gently persuasive.
  11. Under Suspicion
    Overproduced, psychologically muddled, and burdened with an enchantingly overheated screenplay.
  12. Tigerland
    Schumacher has gone into the cinematic heart of darkness and emerged with his own peculiar kink on the war movie: Vietnam beefcake.
  13. A Piece of Eden
    Its tone is as disjointed as if this were a first effort.
  14. Human Resources
    What makes this straightforward film so incredibly moving is that it keeps its scathing political commentary firmly rooted in everyday struggle.
  15. Goya in Bordeaux
    Storaro's gorgeous cinematography imbues every frame with an enthralling subjectivity.
  16. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
    A haunting tale of the physical survival and emotional confusion of children who were simultaneously required to build a new life and hold fast to the memory of an old one, in the hope of resuming it after the war.
    • L.A. Weekly
  17. Crime and Punishment in Suburbia
    A cut above the usual teenage-wasteland movie.
  18. Bait
    Though the film overall is as disposable as a hot dog, it is just as enjoyable.
  19. Urbania
    The story of what happens when everything dies but love. It's a simple story, artfully told.
  20. Duets
    Why the devotion to such dull material?
  21. Paragraph 175
    Speaks so eloquently for itself, there's not much more for me to do than urge you to get over to the Nuart for the one week it's playing in Los Angeles.
  22. Almost Famous
    Crowe has made a hugely entertaining, nearly pitch-perfect film about rock & roll.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Way of the Gun
    Isn't a bad film, but as we watch it we're constantly rewriting it in our minds to make it a better one.
  24. Pola X
    The film is at once breathtaking and ridiculous, and it's the tension between these two extremes, as well as Carax's own intoxicating style, that makes it essential viewing.
  25. My 5 Wives
    The deliriously deficient new excuse for a comedy.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Backstage
    An entertaining trip, one for which fandom in the genre isn't necessarily a prerequisite, though it doubtlessly helps.
  27. Nurse Betty
    This delightful and compassionate romp achieves precisely that rare quality -- grace -- that sets Betty apart from the pack.
  28. Solas
    As a tactfully quiet story of mother-daughter estrangement and psychic rescue, Solas can hardly fail to excite the longing so many of us have to right domestic wrongs.
  29. The Watcher
    Fails to fulfill.
    • L.A. Weekly
  30. Turn It Up
    Gormless, gutless little home movie.
  31. Whipped
    As repellent as their characters are, one feels a degree of pity for the three male leads, who give fresh evidence that hungry actors can't say no to a studio feature, no matter how humiliating the script.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Titanic Town
    A rare treat -- a mix of politics that avoids reductive simplicity and a story that's entirely engaging.
  33. Highlander: Endgame
    While the film is well-paced, visually it is deathly dull.
  34. Wildflowers
    The biggest problem is that the character of Sabine is such a lame male fantasy of the enigmatic woman-child.
  35. Dark Days
    Designed neither to warm your heart nor shelter you in the comfort of liberal guilt, the movie does what so many style-conscious, "subjective" documentaries have long forgotten how to do. It shows you a world, and stays the hell out of it.
  36. The Art of War
    Slick, noisy thriller.
    • 52 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Bring It On
    Starts strong, but then falters.
  38. Solomon & Gaenor
    First-time writer-director Paul Morrison has a gift for evoking a time and place.
  39. Smiling Fish & Goat on Fire
    The best I can say for Smiling Fish is that it's capable and pleasant, which ought to sound a warning note louder than if I'd said it was awful.
  40. Bittersweet Motel
    Never really gets across the essence of who the band members are and why they inspire such fidelity.
  41. Orfeu
    Unfortunately, the innovations that attend this updating dilute the iconic weight of the original.
  42. Love & Sex
    Janssen proves herself an actress of delightful range.
  43. The Crew
    There are moments that suggest the comedy that could have been.
  44. Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five
    Consistently undermined by a script that swings between the duller side of quirky and facile sentiment.
  45. God's Army
    A fine cast of unknowns in a story of faith -- lost, found and continually challenged -- that neither romanticizes nor condescends to its milieu.
  46. Place Vendôme
    It's all about having your intelligence -- emotional, spiritual, cerebral -- respected. Garcia does that; Place Vendôme does that.
  47. The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack
    A kind of folktale, rooted in poignant personal experience.
  48. The Original Kings of Comedy
    Both funny and furious -- on why black people are different from white people.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Steal This Movie
    Throws in a lot of detail but withholds the real secrets of Abbie Hoffman. His life was no fairy tale. Why should it be filmed to end like one?
  50. The Cell
    Jennifer Lopez's butt? Alas, the moment is over all too soon; the movie, sadly, is not.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Godzilla 2000
    Dumb, fun, out of this world.
  52. Bless the Child
    Director Chuck Russell ("The Mask") and screenwriter Thomas Rickman don't need new agents -- they need backup careers.
  53. Cecil B. DeMented
    Neither Waters' funniest film nor, by a long chalk, his most radical. But it is, as promised, a passing of the torch and an article of suitably perverse faith in the next generation of nutso cinéastes.
  54. The Replacements
    Although this movie doesn't have an ounce of depth, it's so thoroughly amiable and upbeat that you'd have to be in a fighting mood to find fault with it.
  55. The Opportunists
    It's Walken who's most impressive.
  56. An Affair of Love
    A delicate mood piece that owes much of its languorous charm to the understated intelligence of its two leads.
  57. Autumn in New York
    When it comes to real people living and loving in the real world, the studios don't have a clue.
  58. Aimee & Jaguar
    A sophisticated and beautiful feature debut.
  59. The Tao of Steve
    It's amazing that anyone still thinks this kind of shit can fly.
  60. Saving Grace
    It's a fresh installment in what appears to be a self-perpetuating sitcom of British life.
  61. The Tic Code
    What at first seems emotionally charged, ultimately comes off as contrived.
    • 21 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Better Living
    Talky and labored.
  63. Psycho Beach Party
    Ultimately, Psycho...can't overcome the redundancy of parodying a genre that long ago sank into its own satiric muck.
  64. Space Cowboys
    It's a rare pleasure to see these senior citizens given so much screen time, droopy butts and all.
  65. Coyote Ugly
    A work of top-shelf schlock.
  66. Hollow Man
    If only the rest of the movie were as good as its cast.
  67. Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
    The bloom is off the rose due to cynical rehash.
  68. Girl on the Bridge
    Leaves you with a bland message -- titillation may get your wicky-wack going but love and partnership stay the course -- but the way it gets you there is divine.
  69. Wonderland
    With acting as good as this, Wonderland gives you all the expected pleasures of eavesdropping on the intimate lives of others.
  70. The Wind Will Carry Us
    "Nothing happening" is everything happening between the lines, in the gap created between what is unstated onscreen and what we bring to the story ourselves.
    • L.A. Weekly
  71. Thomas and the Magic Railroad
    If you're above the target age of 5, Thomas may coax you into a naplike stupor.
  72. Loser
    Squeak(s) by to make Loser justify the price of admission.
  73. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    It's a testimony to the integrity and poignancy of Tammy Faye herself that she comes off as a cool, even complex, woman.
  74. $pent
    Lamely engineered and thoroughly exploited tragedy.
  75. Alice et Martin
    Miraculous photography.
  76. What Lies Beneath
    At once illogical and insultingly stupid, filled with dead-end twists and the sort of dialogue that makes a mockery of actual adult relations.
  77. Pokémon: The Movie 2000
    Only a 10-year-old could parse the plot.
  78. Benjamin Smoke
    Poignant portrait.
  79. The In Crowd
    Lifeless, desultory slog.
  80. The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me
    Drake draws us in, digging deep to track the occasionally divine, always ridiculous journey that is big-city gay life.
  81. The Five Senses
    Comes so freighted with tragedy and sensitivity that I left dreaming of converting the abject misery of one and all to everyday unhappiness with free drinks and a raucous sing-along down at the pub.
  82. Shadow Hours
    The pits.
  83. X-Men
    The film's strength and its entertainment lie in John Myhre's production design, its generally appealing cast...and, perhaps most importantly, a canny degree of self-parody.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    The Big Blue
    Let's call this "rethinking" The Abysmal.
  85. Chuck & Buck
    Had this idea been pursued to its conclusion instead of the pat, wishfully ready-for-TV ending we're fed, the movie would be a standout.
  86. The Kid
    There isn't a moment in the film that isn't overhyped.
  87. All the Rage
    This is a dream cast who practically sing screenwriter Keith Reddin's funny, literate dialogue.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    I'm the One That I Want
    An uplifting -- not to mention pee-your-pants funny -- true story of self-acceptance that should be required viewing for all TV executives and teenage girls.
  89. Shower
    Pretty good going for a ton of moisture.
  90. But I'm a Cheerleader
    The opening moments of -- are some of the funniest --the rest of the movie beats you over the head with jokes, and though funny in parts, it's never this smart again.
  91. Scary Movie
    Some of the funny stuff is actually funny, some of it is funny and yucky, but most of it is just stupid.
  92. The Perfect Storm
    The whole thing is kitsch of the most pricey sort, and it's a good guess that it will be a smash.
    • 36 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle
    These are pitch-perfect impersonations rather than performances.
  94. Trixie
    Director Alan Rudolph kills this promising film off with a combination of bad writing and wrong-headed direction.
  95. The Patriot
    Patriot reflects on nothing, except perhaps that the American Revolution was a golden opportunity for Mel Gibson to go postal.
  96. Praise
    A surprisingly affecting mood piece.
  97. Me, Myself & Irene
    For all their foul jokes and embarrassments, the brothers have a talent for creating characters whose goodness, and lack of ironic self-consciousness, shield them against life's insults.
  98. Chicken Run
    A delirious fable about every creature's need for espace.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Titan A.E.
    An overproduced cartoon without a freeze-dried ounce of wit.
  100. Shaft
    What Jackson's Shaft can't do is talk the talk, or much of anything else, in director John Singleton's feature-length insult to one of the more cherished modern screen icons.
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