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. The Thing About My Folks
    Raymond De Felitta's directing is straightforward, tactful, lyrical where necessary and never mawkish, and though Reiser's script offers no grand insights, it's full of sharply observed and funny detail.
  2. Curious George
    Some amusing new characters are added (love the Russian doorman), and the 2-D animation, simple and serviceable after a tortured production history, is fine. But the jewel in the movie’s crown is its gorgeous pastel palette, alternating with warm earth tones.
  3. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
    By turns merry, tough-minded and sweetly nostalgic.
  4. The Hate U Give
    The Hate U Give takes time to focus on the nuances of Starr’s life, on the effort of code-switching, on the layers of self that Starr must sort through in everyday interactions.
  5. Lucky You
    Always good with actors, Hanson brings out a beaten-down charm in Bana that works nicely against the hotheaded authority the actor shows in the gambling scenes, while Duvall is, like the veteran card shark he plays, a master of subtle gestures. The low card here is Barrymore, somewhat awkwardly shoehorned into this boys' club to provide some romantic relief.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Ruins
    First-time feature director Carter Smith, working with resourceful cinematographer Darius Khondji, pulls off the neat trick of using the wide screen to claustrophobic effect. And the actors give such a convincing display of starvation-fueled fear that they deserve their own private craft-service table.
  7. Zhou Yu de huo che
    If Zhou Yu’s Train is finally no more than whimsy, it’s classy, delicate whimsy, a testament to the way romantic love, however unsatisfied, continues to drive itself.
  8. The Fifth Element
    Too long by half, burdened with shabby F/X and offering up some seriously weird performances, this pricy foray into science fiction is a muddle of miscues and narrative bloat--along with a lot of frivolous fun.
  9. The Corporation
    The filmmakers are pretty nimble at filling the screen with snappy graphics and canny editing to keep you alert and amused.
  10. Assisted Living
    Yet for all its willful blurring of the lines between documentary and fiction, Assisted Living is the least self-conscious of movies.
  11. Walk the Line
    An engaging biopic that would totally lack surprise were it not for Reese Witherspoon, and a healthy touch of ambivalence about the populist myth that bound The Man in Black to his adoring public.
  12. Jiminy Glick in Lalawood
    While it isn't surprising that improv gods Short and fellow SNL vet Jan Hooks, as Glick's wife, Dixie, are brilliant, who knew that perennial onscreen good girl Elizabeth Perkins, playing here a has-been bitch-diva, could be so brittle and sexy?
  13. Drift
    Like "Run Lola Run," Drift circles back on itself to present a trio of possible outcomes, but it's R.T. Lee's sterling performance that rivets.
  14. Jeepers Creepers II
    There's greater consistency to it, and considerably more humor, with macabre slapstick and fun-house ghoulishness that, at their best, recall early Tim Burton.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Heaven
    The final product is so eccentric and resolutely uncommercial -- and so faithful to the spirit of Kieslowski's oeuvre -- that it's hard to doubt the purity of Tykwer's intentions.
  16. Deep Water
    It is the point -- and the power -- of Deep Water that the vast, unknowable fathoms of the sea are rivaled only by those of the human psyche.
  17. Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space
    The images -- including a giant robotic Colonel Sanders with an ax in its head that walks the streets of Tokyo -- reinforce every paranoid fantasy of a controlled future ever concocted.
  18. Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist
    The strengths of Dominion, however, have been little diminished by its long shelf life and, in fact, may have grown stronger with age.
  19. Any Given Sunday
    The director has created a slick, newer-than-new, faster-than-fast entertainment to end all entertainments.
  20. Hair High
    Famed animator Bill Plympton's legendarily skewed aesthetic and worldview are in top form here, bringing life to a script that plays like "Carrie" on a wicked acid trip.
  21. Faster
    An awesome introduction to the sport and the outspoken personalities -- riders, mechanics, engineers, lorry drivers, commentators, fans and girlfriends -- who support it.
  22. Home Movie
    At 60 minutes, the film never stops feeling like a guided tour, while we're wishing it was a sleepover.
  23. Word Wars
    Charming documentary.
  24. The Clearing
    Unsatisfying as crime drama but haunting as a meditation on marriage.
  25. Separate Lies
    Though it's not much more than an haute-bourgeois morality play about the inadequacy of bourgeois morals, that's plenty in view of the small but terrific ensemble at Fellowes' disposal.
  26. Heartbreakers
    Although the film is a tad long, Mirkin ("Romy and Michele's High School Reunion") has managed to pull off a classy, gently funny movie in which no one throws up, a rare blessing these days.
  27. Demonlover
    Nielsen beautifully embodies the sadness and confused sense of unreality that attend our appetite for the Internet's cheaper thrills.
  28. Around the World in 80 Days
    Despite the rush to get everyone from place to place, director Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy) luxuriates in colorful visual detail and gives the locals their due.
  29. Hidalgo
    Hidalgo can still be a wonder to behold, especially in its dynamic racing sequences, but the movie bogs down in its midsection with a needless kidnapping subplot that ultimately becomes quite tedious.
  30. Amu
    This debut feature from writer-director Shonali Bose has a powerful finale, in which the filmmaker uses imaginative camera angles and a vibrant sound design to re-create the turmoil and terror of the riots.
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