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. Ultimate X: The Movie
    All of this looks great on the giant IMAX screen -- most things do -- but the filmmakers can't shake the sense that this is an inflated TV special.
  2. Katakuri-ke no kôfuku
    It's an amusing scenario, until even Miike seems to lose his taste for the oddly sweet concoction and allows the film to drift aimlessly to a rainbow-hued finale.
  3. The X Files
    It's the brilliance of The X-Files to have turned Mulder's paranoid style into a function of cool. Mulder and Scully aren't just beautiful, smart, well-armed and seemingly impervious to the banalities of everyday life, such as cheap haircuts and ruinous love affairs--they're cool.
  4. Yang Ban Xi: The 8 Modelworks
    Enthralling documentary.
  5. The Devil's Advocate
    Subtlety was never Taylor Hackford's long suit, but that's an asset in this mischievously fortissimo poke at lawyering and capitalist competition.
  6. Femme Fatale
    I haven't admired a De Palma film since "Carrie," or even enjoyed one since "Scarface," so it must mean something that Femme Fatale gave me one of the best times at the movies I've had this year.
    • 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.
  8. Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War
    This hastily slapped-together festival of talking heads is so staid, one longs for some of Moore's look-at-me theatrics, and despite the movie's sober-citizen approach, it's no less one-sided than "Fahrenheit 9/11."
  9. Quality of Life
    It's Garrison and Burnam who hold the film's center, however, with a natural magnetism. Newcomers both, they take the same clean approach to their roles that their characters bring to their tags.
  10. Night Falls on Manhattan
    Without serious political and ethical stakes, the story limps to a halt, shrouded in platitude and faux drama.
  11. The Guys
    The Australian actor taps into something miraculous here -- LaPaglia's ability to convey grief and hope works with Weaver's sensitive reactions to make this a two-actor master class.
  12. The Crime of Padre Amaro
    The tragic ending they tack on to the film reinforces the same fear-mongering notion of cause and effect that gives the Church its power to abuse and exploit, and the film winds up muffling its own powerful protest.
  13. Overnight
    A diabolically enjoyable documentary on unearned self-esteem.
  14. Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
    It's the spark and surprise of good sketch comedy that makes this film really work--the laugh-out-loud moments are worth the wait.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Streets of Legend
    First-time director Joey Curtis shows inklings of a future as an accomplished cinematographer, his digital videography lending some scenes a mesmerizingly pixellated quality and others the hectic blur of a surveillance video.
  16. Daybreak
    Though the acting is uniformly excellent, especially Petren in her bilious rage, Daybreak doesn't provide anything like the cumulative catharsis of, say, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." We don't really care about these people - we just want someone to make them stop.
  17. Signs & Wonders
    Beautifully acted film remains deeply intelligent and always fascinating.
  18. Everybody's Famous!
    The one saving grace is a sweet, affecting performance by Werner de Smedt.
  19. The Importance of Being Earnest
    Mercifully, the supporting cast saves the day by grasping clearly that in a comedy of manners you have to act mannered, though not to the point of situation comedy.
  20. Together
    Its schmaltzy manipulations are pure 1940s Hollywood. Still, if you can get past the corn, the story exerts a not-unsatisfying emotional pull thanks to Yun's soulful gravity and a tenderness that Chen hasn't shown quite so openly since his 1984 debut, "Yellow Earth."
  21. The Clearing
    Unsatisfying as crime drama but haunting as a meditation on marriage.
  22. Reconstruction
    Eventually it all starts to feel like an extended European perfume ad: pretty but eye-rollingly pretentious.
  23. The White Countess
    I have the greatest respect for Kazuo Ishiguro, whose wonderful novel "The Remains of the Day" became one of the best films in the Merchant-Ivory oeuvre. But the combination of his stately writing and James Ivory's stately directing, even when pepped by Christopher Doyle's fizzy cinematography, makes for fatally low-key viewing.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Keeping the Faith
    Unbearably talky and earnest in equal measure.
  25. With All Deliberate Speed
    By cinematic standards, not exactly scintillating stuff: The mix of archival materials, talking heads and dramatic readings is strictly PBS 101. Filmmaker Peter Gilbert's great achievement lies in his integration of disparate historical threads and voices into one steadily paced, riveting tale.
  26. The Mercy
    Firth is all panicked reserve in the role of Crowhurst, and Rachel Weisz invests the familiar stay-at-home role with antsy, agonized spirit as the wife of the doomed man, facing the truth that her family’s lives will never be what they once were.
  27. Gloomy Sunday
    There's a whiff of exploitation about any movie that claims the Holocaust as a “backdrop,” and Rolf Schübel’s treacly tale of three men lovesick for the same blue-eyed beauty fairly reeks of it.
  28. The Wedding Singer
    Sandler smirks a good deal less than he did in his last two movies, and with a couple of acting lessons, he might develop into a screen presence.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Guys and Balls
    With its clean narrative lines, easily grasped message and literal kick-line of affable, non-threatening gay characters, the film is carefully calibrated for mass appeal. It leaves no shortcut or pratfall untaken, and it will be all the more popular for it.
  30. In Paris
    Cliché, or experiment with cliché? Really, it’s not worth sticking around to find out, since the action mostly involves the monotonous Romain Duris standing around in his underpants or sitting on the toilet banging on about why love has fled.
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