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. Dig!
    The no-frills documentary also makes it clear that Newcombe is the real deal -- both supremely gifted and organically nuts.
  2. Fixing Frank
    Boasts one of the most entertaining and bitterly astute screenplays I've had the pleasure of listening to in a while, with its lengthening spirals of deceit, mendacity and one-upmanship, and its elegant linguistic dances around difficult truths.
  3. The Visual Bible: The Gospel of John
    It aims simply to relate a great and enveloping story -- one that may lead us to ponder the things that unite (rather than distance) peoples of differing belief systems, and may compel us to marvel at the many wonderful and horrible endeavors undertaken in the name of religion.
  4. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
    Who could resist a movie in which a garden gnome holds the front line in high-tech home security?
  5. Gods and Monsters
    Curiously, one of the film's stranger effects is that it's more convincing as a meditation on desire and Hollywood than as a biographical exploration.
  6. The Wild Thornberrys Movie
    Surprisingly engaging, as is the Paul Simon theme song, and the film is enlivened by flashes of humor just rude enough to delight older children.
  7. Red Lights
    The true mystery, Red Lights' real thrill ride -- and what seems to interest Kahn most, despite his skill at arranging the trappings of suspense -- is marriage.
  8. The Misfortunates
    Deftly mixing the visual exuberance of “Trainspotting” with the familial pathos of “Angela’s Ashes,” the gifted van Groeningen offers gleeful depictions of drinking contests and naked bicycle races that gradually give way to a sense of moral peril for young Gunther.
  9. The Truman Show
    Carrey is a genius at registering the rage behind television's sunny smile, while Laura Linney excels as his wife.
  10. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
    The overall effect of the film is a case study in how dispassionate leaders sow mistrust in their most needy citizens.
  11. Girls Can't Swim
    The film's intimate camera work and searing performances pull us deep into the girls' confusion and pain as they struggle tragically to comprehend the chasm of knowledge that's opened between them.
  12. Sexy Beast
    Glazer shoots with the dreamy impressionism much favored in his principal line of work, all floaty slo-mos and in-your-face close-ups punctuated by a hard-driving rock score.
  13. Read My Lips
    Improbably, Read My Lips escapes the cynicism of much contemporary neo-noir, if only by a hair, by ending as a love story of delightful crackpot idealism, in which Paul has made a crook and a hussy out of Carla, and she's made a gentleman out of him.
  14. Aimee & Jaguar
    A sophisticated and beautiful feature debut.
  15. Coffee and Cigarettes
    It's worth fidgeting through the mediocre stuff to get to three good pieces. In one, Cate Blanchett turns in a tour de force as both herself and her aggressive, resentful Aussie cousin in an awkward encounter that captures the pathological relationship between ordinary people and celebrities.
  16. Heights
    The acting is uniformly superb.
  17. Tumbleweeds
    McTeer's performance -- one of the best you'll see this year -- makes you realize anew how rare it is to see a female character this complex in American film.
  18. The Keys to the House
    There is nothing obvious about this subtle yet powerfully subversive look into the emotional toll and confusion of dealing with a disabled child.
  19. Factotum
    This is also an acidly funny work, even if the humor is that of a man who drinks to stave off the pain and madness of sobriety. In his finest performance since "Drugstore Cowboy," Dillon plays Chinanski with funereal grandiosity.
  20. Walk on Water
    Its suggestion that Israel, of all nations, should know better than to persecute minorities within and across its borders, give the film a thrilling universal appeal.
  21. Mysterious Skin
    A warped, but beautiful and strangely hopeful, coming-of-age tale.
  22. Bridget Jones's Diary
    Bessed with a gleamingly polished, very funny script.
  23. The Squid and the Whale
    Baumbach weds his verbal gifts to a fresh visual acuity that brings layers of rich detail to a portrait of a family coping, poorly, with self-inflicted change.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Luminous Motion
    The elegant gambol through ideas, combined with Gordon's clear love of luminous motion -- literally -- is a welcome treat.
  25. In the Company of Men
    A provocative, timely script full of gasp-inducing lines and scenes.
  26. Clean
    The emotional truthfulness of Clean enters into our bloodstreams with its muted vigor, and we find ourselves getting hooked by this tale of getting unhooked.
  27. Paradise Now
    Abu-Assad, who made the lovely 2002 film "Rana's Wedding," is a far more gifted observer of the everyday than he is an action director, which is why, in Paradise Now, he productively sidetracks into a persuasive and often very funny portrait of the irrationalities of life under occupation.
  28. Transsiberian
    Anderson and his very fine cast keep things chugging along at a breathless pace, complete with a midfilm reversal of fortune nearly as unexpected as "Psycho's" shower scene. All aboard!
  29. Hellboy
    One of the sturdier superhero movies of the last couple of years, with monsters and effects and diabolical baddies to spare, a heart as big as a house and a love story that actually gets its hooks in you.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D
    Unapologetically dopey and undeniably ingratiating, the supersized Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D makes a surprisingly convincing argument for big, dumb likability.
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