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 Family Stone
    A potentially interesting tale flailing haplessly in the quicksand of holiday-movie formula.
  2. The Crazies
    Despite a midfilm lull of his own, Eisner stages a series of nifty action sequences, nearly all of which feature a moment of surprise, as well as gruesome wit.
  3. Cabin Fever
    The result is something neither scary nor funny.
  4. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
    Owen, perhaps for want of any definition to his character, turns in a performance at once so blank and so bloated with lugubrious bombast, one wants to chuck him under the chin and make him giggle.
  5. Saints and Soldiers
    The triumph here is a matter of craftsmanship rather than art, but it's rare enough even on that level for a film to be worth celebrating.
  6. The Chorus
    The Chorus is sham art and questionable entertainment, but at the very least it sends you whistling out of the theater.
  7. Lords of Dogtown
    Unfortunately, whenever Ledger isn't onscreen, Lords of Dogtown takes a spill.
  8. How to Eat Fried Worms
    Worms is one of those rare kiddie flicks that successfully adopt a child’s-eye view of the world, where nothing is more important than saving face on the playground and where parents are as distant and clueless as storybook giants.
  9. The Big Kahuna
    It's a sweet chamber piece, beautifully played.
  10. The Five Senses
    Comes so freighted with tragedy and sensitivity that I left dreaming of converting the abject misery of one and all to everyday unhappiness with free drinks and a raucous sing-along down at the pub.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Speaking in Strings
    The less you know about the world of classical music and, specifically, about one of its more flamboyant denizens, the violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, the less the offense of Speaking in Strings.
  12. Cruel Intentions
    In truth, the only reason this film was made was to allow viewers to ogle pretty young things behaving badly.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cherry Orchard
    Cacoyannis lays on the atmosphere a bit thick with multiple repetitions of a lyrical Tchaikovsky motif underscoring unrequited love, one that is nonetheless beautifully rendered by pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.
  14. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
    The movie is stolen by the gorgeous, droll and hilarious Depp. The movie crackles when he's onscreen and only fitfully sparks when he's not.
  15. It's All Gone Pete Tong
    The movie catches us up so profoundly in Frankie's self-destructive spiral (and gradual rehab), it's as though we’re seeing it all for the first time. I'd like to say that's because the story is true, only it isn't.
  16. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
    The film is consummately professional but phlegmatic, a slow fizzle.
  17. Driving Lessons
    While Driving Lessons' writer-director, Jeremy Brock, sticks to the all-too-familiar template of such tales, he's given Walters her best role since "Educating Rita." Hamming it up with the precision of a master, she makes this somewhat plodding film a pleasure, as does young Grint.
  18. All Access: Front Row. Backstage. Live!
    Less about music than about the possibilities of the IMAX system itself.
  19. Where's the Party Yaar?
    Mathews has obvious storytelling chops, and a sharp eye for absurdity. But there are sacred cows in hip, progressive America, too, and the truly fearless satirist has to be a carnivore.
  20. Sylvia
    The excellent cast is headed by Gwyneth Paltrow in the mood-shifting title role and Daniel Craig as the helpless, not-so-happily philandering Hughes.
  21. Danny Deckchair
    American-born writer-director Jeff Balsmeyer can't seem to make up his mind whether he's making a gentle romantic comedy with heartfelt trimmings, or a full-court Aussie farce.
  22. Stupid Boy
    Composed of artfully used split-screen, lots of hand-held camera, and expertly honed dialogue, the film floats on currents of sadness and understated humor. It also makes Loic's existential ache almost palpable.
  23. Wolf Creek
    Full of clever reversals, brief triumphs and bitter setbacks, Wolf Creek is consummately well-crafted, unapologetically vicious and leavened with moments of humor that merely intensify the horror.
  24. 39 Pounds of Love
    Despite Menkin's clear belief that he's crafted a rousing true-life drama, his film plays like a cliché-ridden, painfully self-conscious Hollywood melodrama about a noble person with disabilities.
  25. Breaking and Entering
    Bold in scope and aptly mimicking the loose structures of kinship, friendship and work most city dwellers make do with these days, Breaking and Entering nonetheless plays out too quiet and too loose for its own good.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Christmas in the Clouds
    More of a Lifetime holiday special than a theatrical feature, writer-director Kate Montgomery's tale of love and mistaken identity at a Native American ski resort is too sticky-sweet to be memorable.
  27. Bamboozled
    Spike Lee lost his nerve -- there are moments here, too, when it also seems like he lost his sense.
  28. The Minus Man
    A film without attitude or mystery...an exquisitely executed, and exquisitely banal, treatise on the banality of evil.
  29. CQ
    CQ is modest, especially for something bearing the grandiose family name, and it possesses both a tenderness and a quiet intelligence.
  30. Once Upon a Time in the Midlands
    A movie saved by great acting.
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