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 8.8 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. So Close
    The protracted final sequence, which involves balletic swordplay worthy of the famous scene in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," will take your breath away.
  2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
    Cloudy is smart, insightful on a host of relationship dynamics, and filled with fast-paced action.
  3. Dark City
    [Proyas] hasn't yet learned how to enliven his characters as fully as his sets. Part of this is structural (somnolence is built into the script), but the greater fault lies with Proyas' direction of his performers, most of whom deliver their lines in a strangulated whisper.
  4. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
    As Tweedy talks about canning his stockbroker and repairing his pool, you yearn for a few airborne TV sets or nude groupies on the nod to liven things up. And what do we get? Diet Coke! Tonight is definitely not the night.
  5. Tattoo
    Indulging his taste for Grand Guignol and the stylistically baroque, Schwentke never quite overplays his hand, though his occasional lapses into visual extravagance can be irritating, and the result is a nasty, intelligent and complex thriller.
  6. Trembling Before G-d
    Remarkable exploration of sexuality and the Jewish faith.
  7. Margarita Happy Hour
    Breaks in the film's otherwise smooth continuum, however, are bridged by Hutchins' soulful performance, and by Chaiken's excellent feel for the grace notes and steady tempo of native New York life, the sacredness of female friendship, and the precarious balance between love for oneself and for others.
  8. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
    Not just the funniest but the smartest comedy around by a mile.
  9. We Don't Live Here Anymore
    It is worthy of comparison to the lifelike, character-rich films we cherish from that era (1970s), and is certainly one of the finest films to come out this year.
  10. Jackass Number Two
    As merry pranksters they have no match, and as they age (Knoxville is 35 now), they only grow in appeal. As they proudly hurl their tattooed (by ink and battle scars) bodies into harm's way, a devilish glint in their eyes, it's as if they've discovered the fountain of youth, and its name is Jackass.
  11. Margot at the Wedding
    Margot at the Wedding gives its characters (and us) something to laugh about.
  12. Shall We Dance?
    As sticky as "Strictly Ballroom," if far better behaved, Shall We Dance was written and directed by Masayuki Suo, a man who really knows his way around clichés both benign and tiresome.
  13. Scream
    A meta-horror film that hilariously parodies the genre's clichés with smarts to spare. It's also the scariest fucking movie Craven has made since the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
  14. Maelstrom
    Dark, wickedly funny tale.
  15. Beautiful Boxer
    It’s a good story, and Uekrongtham, making his feature debut, captures the camaraderie of camp life and the subsequent matches with the panache of a veteran studio hand, but the insights into Toom's psyche never extend past the fun he has applying powder and eyeliner.
  16. Mean Girls
    Lohan is a warm and engaging presence, but she's completely outshone by the bad girls, and when they're offscreen, Mean Girls is an oddly restrained, barely plotted movie.
  17. Transamerica
    Transamerica is about as sexual as "The Brady Bunch." It's about an intelligent woman in excruciating transition to a new body that will line up with an identity she's held all along.
  18. Notorious C.H.O.
    When she unabashedly puts herself in the same category as Richard Pryor (the master of identity politics and cultural reportage), it's not just presumptuous posturing on her part. She's earned her place there.
  19. The Tailor of Panama
    The movie is crudely jokey and, finally, a wimpy betrayal of its source.
  20. A Shot at Glory
    Demonstrating yet again that he knows few limits as an actor, Duvall not only nails the accent, he inhabits the man's flinty, grudge-bearing contrariness with such a furious commitment that it brings out the best in the actors around him.
  21. Moulin Rouge!
    Drowns in baroque mise en scène camp, frenetic musical numbers and a precious dialogue conceit that wears out its welcome very fast.
  22. Paris, je t'aime
    The concept here holds more promise than the execution.
  23. Mid90s
    Mid90s, for all its darkness, is uplifted by its hilarious moments and joyous skating shots.
  24. Bad Reputation
    Bad Reputation comes off more as a fanboy’s declaration of reverence to the queen rather than an interrogation of one of the most iconic women in music.
  25. Bridget Jones's Diary
    Bessed with a gleamingly polished, very funny script.
  26. Barbershop
    Despite the fact that you can see every plot twist a mile off, director Tim Story keeps the script by Mark Brown, Don D. Scott and Marshall Todd rollicking with a jazzy spontaneity.
  27. Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams
    This time around, writer-director Robert Rodriguez has stumbled badly, creating a clunky, gadget-happy film full of characters -- even returning ones -- about whom it is hard to care.
  28. Heist
    Can he do the thing? Well, yes and no. He -- Mamet, David, celebrated celebrity playwright and less-certain maker of movies -- can do some of the things, like assemble a cast sleek as a cat.
  29. Elf
    Charmingly irreverent.
  30. A League of Ordinary Gentlemen
    The movie is affectionate without exactly being infectious, and Browne, who begins his film with the Michael Moore–esque revelation that Americans bowl in greater numbers than they vote, disappoints by not devoting more attention to bowling in its amateur incarnations.
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