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. Lakeboat
    Mamet's fixation on language is, nonetheless, more effective onstage than onscreen, where the technical and visual requirements distract from the sounds of the words -- the heart of Mamet's work.
  2. Nico and Dani
    Filled with the kind of frank, nonsensational sensuality that eludes American filmmakers, this movie proves again that the most interesting cinema about teenage life -- gay and otherwise -- is being made far from our provincial shores.
    • L.A. Weekly
  3. Signs
    Even if Signs suffers a little from uneven pacing and mismatched tones of reverent homage (to "The Birds" and "War of the Worlds"), soul-searching and silly comedy, the jokes are clever, the tension continual and expertly calibrated, and the performances -- are both deep and moving.
  4. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
    A movie that's nearly as good as its publicity campaign.
  5. Langrishe Go Down
    Despite his (Jeremy Irons) showboating turn and Dench's lascivious energy, it's Annette Crosbie, in her quiet way, who gives the most commanding performance, as the sister who sees all too clearly what's coming.
  6. Intact
    The story is bound together with gaming set pieces that are strange, inventive and mesmerizing.
  7. Legally Blonde
    With her ductile physicality and undeniable charm, Witherspoon remains acutely present even when everyone else -- director, writers and cast -- has checked out.
  8. Moonlight Mile
    Both funny and telling about the messy passages of grief.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Roll Bounce
    The film's only creative spark comes from Bill Butler and Kishaya Dudley's lively skate choreography, and that you can see in the trailer.
  10. Confidence
    Confidence grooves on the giddy joy of storytelling -- on the digressive whimsy of good dialogue, on playful editing, on the ways in which con men -- and filmmakers -- psych out their victims.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    American Pimp
    Credit the Hugheses for plunging headfirst into a deeply taboo topic, but they're doing it for the wrong reasons and thus playing into the worst of public stereotypes, namely that all black men are hustlers.
  12. Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi
    The film has the unpolished charm of a diamond in the rough, and it boasts a richer inner life than most of the teen movies currently bouncing off the assembly line.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Noriko's Dinner Table
    It’s telling that the freshest portions of Noriko’s Dinner Table are the flashbacks to Sono’s previous film.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
    Slowly degenerates into a gory revenge thriller that is never thrilling, but is often boring and frequently repulsive.
  15. Day Watch
    For all the vampires and blown-up cars, you'll see no sadism for the hell of it, only an oddly sweet-tempered mix of hyperbole, understatement and profoundly Slavic philosophizing about guilt, freedom and responsibility.
  16. The Children of the Century
    Juliette Binoche is the only reason to see Diane Kurys' florid, incoherent movie.
  17. The Shape of Things
    Disarmingly funny new film with a doozy of a twist ending... may be his best, cruelest, most vital act of confrontation yet.
  18. Naqoyqatsi
    Incoherence reigns.
  19. Barbershop 2: Back in Business
    An even richer, smarter, funnier sequel.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    I, Robot
    Proyas merely assembles a mess of spare parts from better movies.
  21. Heights
    The acting is uniformly superb.
  22. Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert
    She makes a perfectly fine role model, if you rate cheerful, sensible and chaste under the skinny tights and glow-in-the-dark tank tops.
  23. The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland
    The film is nothing if not benign, but its merits are moot for those above 7 or so.
  24. Bang Rajan
    It's not easy to spend the better part of two hours with your heart parked in your mouth, but this roaring battle epic is worth the risk of your palpitations.
  25. Little Lili
    It's the third feature Miller has shot using lightweight digital video cameras, and the result is a special lightness in the work itself -- the glowing images ease into one another like leaves turning in a summer breeze, while the performances are similarly effortless.
  26. Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story
    This is as corny as it sounds, and yet not half as cloying and sentimental as you expect. At the end of the day, the horse may win the race, but the fate of the American heartland looms large and unresolved.
  27. Music and Lyrics
    Among its other sins, the disposable romantic comedy Music and Lyrics fluffs a golden opportunity to make hay with Grant's dark side.
  28. The Magician
    The viewer is meant to chuckle at the escalating violence-ringed absurdities (the kidnapping of a bafflingly passive drug dealer who winds up becoming a road-trip buddy, for example) and at Ray's brutish philosophies, but the chuckles are few. Though the film starts out modestly amusing, it very, very quickly lists into tedium.
  29. Wimbledon
    Director Richard Loncraine (Richard III) moves things right along, but during the final tennis match, his pacing is undone by sports-movie convention, particularly the witless color commentary offered by tennis legends John McEnroe and Chris Evert.
  30. The Ant Bully
    Wittily manipulating scale to generate the requisite fright factor, the movie is stuffed with visual delights both lyrical (a squadron of ants hang-gliding on flower petals) and visceral (a battalion of bottle-blue wasps on the wing).
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