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. Way Off Broadway
    This ensemble drama is passionately acted and nicely shot, but the storytelling of first-time writer-director Dan Kay is infused with an archaic naiveté.
  2. Klimt
    Ruiz is so intent on harnessing the painter to his own -- here, rather arid -- relativism that he never manages to convey the unfettered eros that brings crowds flocking to exhibitions of Klimt’s work, even as critics hold their noses.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 10 Critic Score
    Frontier(s)
    As a satire of France's recent turn to the right, Frontier(s) is both hysterical and muddled; as straight-up splatter -- a Grand Guignol concerto of scalding steam, slashed tendons and table saw, with a solo for exploding head -- it's as relentless as it is hateful, hammily directed and derivative of the dreariest slop in contemporary American horror cinema.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    School for Scoundrels
    This crass remake of the 1960 Robert Hamer film is kept alive for a while by director Todd Phillips (Old School), but ultimately succumbs to its weak script and hopeless typecasting.
  5. Kate & Leopold
    This winning confection, from a director (Heavy, Cop Land) not known for the lightness of his material or his touch, shows a fine understanding of what the screenwriters of the '40s instinctively grasped, that good screwball is about dialogue and chemistry.
  6. Boys Life 3
    More problematic is "Inside Out," starring Jason Gould, who also wrote and directed, based on his own experiences as the son of Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould.
  7. A Slipping-Down Life
    Struggles valiantly to keep its head above whimsy, and though the movie finally succumbs to an excess of heartwarming, it's a promising college try from a first-time writer-director.
  8. Frankie and Johnny Are Married
    Pressma's intermittently amusing screenplay, some good-natured cameos by a bunch of his famous friends, and an intelligent performance by Chess — playing herself opposite TV regular Alan Rosenberg -- save the day and the relationship.
  9. Coming Soon
    Like oversolicitous lovers, the filmmakers are hung up on foreplay -- and not enough old-fashioned teenage raunch.
  10. Committed
    The best thing about Committed, though, is Krueger, a filmmaker who's not only willing to lead us into the well-traveled terrain of romantic comedy, but able to show us something new there.
  11. Brokedown Palace
    An exploitation flick, but without the thrills or cleavage.
  12. The Ninth Gate
    Euro-kitsch of the highest order, which doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, just unnecessary.
  13. The Closer You Get
    Oddly anemic and muted -- BBC Saturday-night material.
  14. Blood: The Last Vampire
    This is one of the few treatments of the macabre in animation that is authentically unnerving, rather than merely gross or campy.
  15. Love & Sex
    Janssen proves herself an actress of delightful range.
  16. Pearl Harbor
    A Michael Bay movie: bang bang, paper-thin characters, wooden screenplay.
  17. The Code
    If the plot comes off more like a reworking of Scorsese’s tales of Italian-American mobsters, Boursinhac nevertheless shows a sure hand with his story, lingering on the handsome, lost face of Dris as his world falls apart around him.
  18. The Jacket
    The director's work is suitably unnerving, but leaves one feeling beaten senseless by reel two. When the hero's well-earned moment of clarity finally arrives, most will likely be too numbed out to care, despite the best efforts of Brody, an actor too vividly alive to be wasting his time playing dead.
  19. Drive Angry 3D
    Cage's avenger is named Milton; this reference to the author of Paradise Lost is the sole hint that Old World culture ever existed in Drive Angry's convoy of hyperbolized-unto-parody Americana: bad drawls, obese gawkers, roadhouse demonology, coochie-cutter shorts, and engines revving under guitar stomp.
  20. In My Country
    In My Country stands closest to "Hotel Rwanda," a similarly clumsy yet inescapably moving effort to confront the brutal consequences of colonial oppression.
  21. Stalin's Wife
    Shakily cobbled together from stock footage and new interviews with authors and family, Stalin’s Wife is nearly barbarous in its denial of aesthetic pleasure. The whole thing looks like a late-night-TV infomercial.
  22. Stomp the Yard
    Newcomer Short has charisma, charm and athleticism to burn, but it's mostly for naught in a movie that spends two tedious hours pulling out every stop in the gold-hearted-kid-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks- meets-gold-hearted-girl-who-values-true-love-above-privilege playbook.
  23. Vatel
    While the filmmakers are not above corset-drama bed-hopping and back-stabbing, it's delicious when the beds and backs belong to Uma Thurman, Tim Roth and Julian Sands.
  24. Fidel
    It's a refreshing change from the self-interest and paranoia that shape most American representations of Castro. At the same time, Bravo anticipates that such a view will drive some nuts.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Two Weeks
    Though the subdued performances every so often find a poignantly understated moment, on the whole Two Weeks feels too detached and well-mannered for its own good.
  26. Hostage
    The movie isn't particularly tasteful or finely crafted -- but it grabs you by the jugular, and only during an overcooked climax does it finally relax its grip.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Second Best
    It tries too hard for sincerity, when it's actually more sincere when cynical. Filmed in 17 days with hand-held cameras that give it a home-movie feel, the movie takes blue-collar pride in its own hopelessness.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Man of the Century
    Though the story is often silly to the point of ridiculous, its goofy tone and charming characters, especially Frazier's Johnny, create a lovely idealization of a long-gone era.
  29. Walking Tall
    Johnny Knoxville has a few inspired bits as Vaughn's recovering-addict chum, and The Rock carries an effortlessly soft side in the nonviolent scenes, but Bray doesn't linger too long on anything that doesn't end in a thud or wallop.
  30. Downtown: A Street Tale
    Clichéd though it may be, this movie was clearly made with love.
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