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. An Adolescent
    Okuda creates that slightly surreal atmosphere of ghost-town emptiness that will be familiar to fans of Takeshi Miike, but he infuses it with a romantic's sense of deep yearning.
  2. The House of Yes
    What follows doesn't much surprise, since every emotional detail, accompanied by a noisy storm and then a black-out, arrives well in advance of its execution.
  3. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
    For all its infectious, go-for-broke wackiness ATHFCMFFT never quite surpasses its opening sequence.
  4. Downtown 81
    Poignant, funny, and proof of Basquiat's magic.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Why Did I Get Married?
    The writer-director-producer-star would rather save your soul and your marriage than engage your aesthetics. That’s probably why every other line was greeted at my screening with a chorus of stern “Mm-hmms” and “Exactlys!”
  6. Music of the Heart
    Oh, Mr. Craven, give us a "Scream."
  7. Gerry
    Van Sant ultimately reveals so little about this odd couple that we frankly don't give a damn what happens to them. Nor, apparently, does he.
  8. Herbie Hancock: Possibilities
    Filled with great archival footage from throughout Hancock's five-decade career, and with elder-statesman words of wisdom from the man himself, Possibilities celebrates an impulse that's too rare in modern music: the love behind the labor of creation.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bran Nue Dae
    The film is too broad and tacky to engage on a universal level, or at least Stateside: The choreography is sloppy and lifeless; the outmoded blend of vintage rock, country and Broadway styles doesn't click; and the characters are such caricatures that it's no wonder the entire cast is overacting.
  10. Rock Star
    Wahlberg has turned into one of the most sympathetic and persuasive young actors around, and while his new movie remains safely, even shrewdly, in the middle of the road, he rocks.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Bee Movie
    For all the muscle and money behind Bee Movie, it still feels unfocused and unfinished.
  12. Assault on Precinct 13
    Excitably puppyish homage.
  13. Because of Winn-Dixie
    Jeff Daniels is a compelling-enough actor to lift almost any film out of mediocrity, but even he has his work cut out for him.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Good Dick
    It feels provocative but inconclusive -- brimming with intriguing ideas about love's dark underbelly but not quite confident enough to pull them off.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Human Traffic
    Turns into a driving soundtrack accompanied by a film.
  16. Mau Mau Sex Sex
    There is too much rambling contemporary footage here and not enough juicy historical material.
  17. People I Know
    As a thriller, People I Know -- which has languished unreleased since 2001 -- is barely plausible. As a critique of the meshing of power politics between East and West coasts, the movie is more smart-alecky than wise.
  18. Jet Lag
    Danièle Thompson's romantic comedy is excellent fluff français, leavened with charm, wit and smart observation about the way we love now.
  19. The Fighting Temptations
    Formulaic but infectiously happy comedy.
  20. The Notebook
    From the first soft piano that accompanies white geese flying toward a humongous orange sunset, The Notebook racks up the sugary clichés till you’re screaming for mercy.
  21. The Hunting of the President
    They have succeeded in establishing conservative ideologue Ken Starr as one of American prosecutorial history's biggest heels and Clinton loyalist Susan McDougal as a bona fide hero and martyr. The problem, of course, is that the president himself was neither, and no amount of hand wringing -- however justified -- can make him one.
  22. Paranormal Activity 2
    Where "The Last Exorcism" was sustained by artfully balanced skepticism and a feel for character, Paranormal 2, putatively directed by Tod Williams, can only hold an audience with the understood promise of big jolts around the corner.
  23. Beowulf & Grendel
    Filmed in Iceland, Beowulf & Grendel is beautiful, grungy and a little too tasteful for its own good. You can practically feel the filmmakers yearning to have Beowulf and Grendel go all Rambo on each other.
  24. Alpha Dog
    In his best film to date, Nick Cassavetes directs with ferocious energy, taking scenes past their logical stopping points and pushing his actors (particularly Foster, who can be as terrifying as Edward Norton in "American History X") to, but never over, the precipice of absurdity.
  25. Bandits
    Equal parts big-house B-feature, hammer-down road movie, post-feminist consciousness-raiser and rock & roll pipe dream.
  26. When Brendan Met Trudy
    Struggles to achieve a giddy eccentricity that never fully emerges.
  27. Ha-Hesder
    A capable, soulful thriller with a love story as steamy as is possible when its lead characters are Orthodox Jews.
  28. Chop Suey
    Chop Suey really captivates with surfaces; look away for an instant, and the spell is broken.
  29. Save the Last Dance
    It's pretty good, really.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Ella Enchanted
    While the lovers here are sweetly believable, the film's murky giants-alongside-man effects shots are strictly Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
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