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. Season of the Witch
    The makeup department's glommed-on plague pustules are fantastic, but the concession to modern technology in a badly rendered last-act CGI demon, cut and pasted from a Diablo II screen-grab, is so eminently lame as to cure all fear of hellfire.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Men in Black II
    Smith and Jones sometimes have to paddle hard to keep their heads above the toilet water in which screenwriters Robert Gordon (Galaxy Quest) and Barry Fanaro (Kingpin) occasionally dunk them. But if the presence of Smith and Jones is indeed the tinker-proof ingredient of the Men in Black formula, little else seems to have survived the production unaltered.
  3. How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
    A movie with a lot on its plate, but nothing interesting on its mind.
  4. Tape
    A tedious exercise in ethical hand wringing.
  5. Johnson Family Vacation
    The picture shows vital signs only in a few scenes where Cedric takes on the additional role of his own lecherous uncle, but it's too little too late.
  6. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
    This sophomoric stuff is pure self-indulgence, a drone to accompany the admittedly eye-popping sound-and-light show. Oshii looks like yet another director who has gone off the deep end, believing too absolutely his own good reviews.
  7. Revolution #9
    So riddled with unanswered questions that it requires gargantuan leaps of faith just to watch it plod along, while McCann's overly broad strokes miss crucial details as he tries to mount an attack on both the power of the media and an indifferent medical profession.
  8. Abandon
    Aiming to elicit a last-minute shiver from the audience, Gaghan is likely to get instead a mood-destroying giggle.
  9. Oliver Twist
    Lacking energy and pace and enslaved by a ghastly score, this tepid movie left me longing alternately for David Lean's thrillingly grim 1948 masterpiece, and Carol Reed's chipper 1968 sing-along, with pretty tunes by Lionel Bart.
  10. Out Cold
    There’s no point slamming this fart-and-burp teen flick, since the chortles of the 11-year-old boys -- and the men with an 11-year-old's disposition -- at a recent mall screening can't be denied.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Hard Luck
    Though the effect is Bergman esque, Rubio doesn't always sustain the necessary gravity his story requires.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Superstar
    It isn't so easy to laugh at Mary Katherine Gallagher and her disgusting antics when she actually has feelings.
  13. Soft Fruit
    The characters...are so unlikable that one longs for a bit of cheap sentiment if only to make them palatable.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Break-Up
    Sadly, The Break-Up is simply an exercise in confusion. To call it erratic would be to imply there was a course it went off, but the film's intentions are impossible to fathom.
  15. Peaceful Warrior
    You'd have to be either an avid New Ager or willing to see Nick Nolte in absolutely anything to get fully onboard for this visually overexcited tale of salvation-by-gas-station-guru.
  16. Bug
    Our traumatized soldiers deserve better representation than this irretrievably ridiculous drama, which will do nothing to revive the flagging fortunes of the man whose career lay down and died after "The Exorcist" and "The French Connection."
  17. Skinwalkers
    The only thing more boring than a vampire with moral issues about biting people in the neck is a werewolf who’d rather become fully human than howl at the moon once a month.
  18. Shade
    The flashes of warm, human talent that pulse periodically from the ensemble -- Byrne and Foxx, particularly -- only make their presence in this terrifically bad movie all the more baffling.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Pink Panther
    With the exception of one scene with an accent coach, his (Martin) Clouseau is flabby and obvious, like your dad doing an impression at the dinner table.
  20. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
    Welsh director Sara Sugarman and the great cinematographer Stephen Burum (Hoffa, The Untouchables) keep the visuals bouncing along in bright, primary-color-intensive fashion, but the movie has no real heart and even less soul.
  21. Proteus
    Proteus carries an air of forced-wit experimentation that never quite gets its anachronisms in order -- this 18th-century tale features a Jeep, a radio, and female court reporters with typewriters and bouffant hairdos.
  22. Dear Frankie
    The movie’s glib trafficking in illness, death and pinched little faces to jury-rig our emotional responses (Gibb was inspired by the equally likable, equally pandering Czech film "Kolya") lost me at hello.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Underdog
    Even the promising team of Peter Dinklage’s mad scientist Simon Barsinister and Patrick Warburton’s henchman Cad turns out to be a bust.
  24. Lucía, Lucía
    After a lively first half-hour, the scenes start to feel heavy, as though Serrano suddenly decided he was actually making a meaningful drama, and the ensuing, halfhearted political satire is like an extra weight on top of that.
  25. The Invisible Circus
    Something there is about the '60s that undoes the most intelligent of filmmakers.
  26. Winter Solstice
    Too sensitive for this world or any other, this stifling portrait of a family stuck in bereavement offers the painful sight of at least two highly accomplished actors frozen for lack of direction from novice writer-director Josh Sternfeld.
  27. Madagascar
    Anemic.
  28. Phone Booth
    At only 84 minutes, Phone Booth's brevity turns out to be its only saving grace.
  29. A Sound of Thunder
    The barometer of the film's undoing is Burns' super-low-key performance, which starts out as a pokerfaced spoof on heroic cool, but takes a misstep more fatal than mere time travel can undo.
  30. Night at the Golden Eagle
    The director pulls back from the hotel, placing it against the skyline of our beautiful city, which appears to be waiting, patiently, for a more original exploration of its inhabitants.
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