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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    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Eagle Eye
    From tepid start to laughable middle to thudding finish (and the final two minutes smack of a reshoot), it's nothing but a herky-jerky clusterfuck of noise and nonsense.
  2. Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
    The dance sequences might have saved it, were it not for the fact that director Guy Ferland seems to have learned everything he knows about (over) shooting and (blindly) cutting such scenes from watching "Moulin Rouge" and "Chicago."
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry
    It isn't really a documentary about the porn industry but rather a documentary about the making of a coffee-table book containing posed photos of porn stars, fans and moguls. Director Michael Grecco is also the photographer making the book, so perhaps "infomercial" would be a more accurate description.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    My Name Is Khan
    For a movie that preaches cultural understanding, it sometimes seems a little too comfortable perpetuating ethnic stereotypes.
  5. Cold Creek Manor
    Cold Creek Manor's prime reason for being seems to be a set piece involving poisonous snakes, directed by Figgis with a drunken gusto the rest of the film could use, and as a comeback vehicle for Stone, who tries hard at motherly warmth, but can't quite wash the Catherine Tramell out of her hair.
  6. Touch of Pink
    Touch of Pink is really a big glob of "The Wedding Banquet," with some "Will & Grace" mixed in to remind us that gay people are actually quaintly neurotic and funny once you get to know them.
  7. Saw
    A story that's so ridiculous you'll at least be entertained by the outrageous plot contortions to come.
  8. Just a Kiss
    A twisted black comedy -- The accomplished ensemble meshes nicely, but the actors all look pale and exhausted, an effect that may be a byproduct of the film’s photography, which is terrible.
  9. Loving Pablo
    Double-stuffed with kill squads, killer ’80s couture and mood-killing howlers, Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s Loving Pablo is more a greatest hits than a story, the kind of radically compressed life-of-a-legend movie where everything happens in a giddy, ridiculous gush — except for when it slows down to dwell on horrors.
  10. Secuestro express
    Too often, though, Jakubowicz falls back on his relentlessly pirouetting DV camera, attention-deficient editing and ear-splitting sound effects as a substitute for real tension, or a more piercing inquiry into the bubbling tension between South America's haves and its poverty-stricken have-nots.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Crazy in Alabama
    The two disparate yet thematically linked storylines are far too faithfully transposed for a feature-length treatment -- crammed together, they're denied the space to flesh out as a cohesive whole.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Way of the Gun
    Isn't a bad film, but as we watch it we're constantly rewriting it in our minds to make it a better one.
  13. The Perfect Man
    Rosman and Wendkos run dry of ideas in the film's inert, overextended finale, when the "Believe in yourself" speeches grow so thick that even the Duff-devoted may start rolling their eyes.
  14. Sidewalks of New York
    Burns, who made a career out of his mildly charming Irish-American rogue persona, has, with his latest and fourth feature, finally sloughed off the remaining traces of that charm, along with, apparently, the vestiges of a personality.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    3 Billion and Counting
    Perfunctorily shot and edited, the project hinges only on Rutledge-Taylor's findings, which begin to raise eyebrows once pragmatic activism is thrown out the window in favor of the blame game.
  16. Bohica
    Has one thing to recommend it, but even that will likely appeal to a small subset of filmgoers: the cult of Brendan Sexton III.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Call + Response
    The result is like "American Idol" meets C.A.R.E. infomercial.
  18. Made-Up
    Voice-overs and commentaries are piled on top of contrived intimate moments until, despite some easygoing performances, the movie -- the actual movie -- is a blur of undercooked motivations and halfhearted improv.
  19. Girl, Interrupted
    Mangold can't escape the fact that instead of someone in the throes of a genuine existential crisis, his star comes off as -- to paraphrase nurse Whoopi Goldberg -- a spoiled, lazy girl who's afraid to face life.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Piñero
    The main drawback is Claudio Chea's vertiginous camera work -- and the print's continual alternations between black-and-white and color add nothing but a distracting ornamentation.
  21. Monster's Ball
    In its exploitation of human misery, Monster's Ball doesn't just invite cynicism; it provokes hostility.
  22. The Illusionist
    The movie is leaden and self-serious, with an unusually hollow performance from Norton, who's not for a moment convincing as a man of raging passion. Far better is Paul Giamatti.
    • 39 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Arthur and the Invisibles
    Predictable and overly busy, this sci-fi adventure should nonetheless appeal to computer-game-savvy tots, especially those familiar with the source material, while boring their parents silly.
  24. Psycho Beach Party
    Ultimately, Psycho...can't overcome the redundancy of parodying a genre that long ago sank into its own satiric muck.
  25. Scream 2
    The less ticklish bad joke of Scream 2 is that self-referentiality has its limits.
  26. This Thing of Ours
    This Thing of Ours is infatuated with the romance of gangsterism -- with an absurdly straight face, it asks us to feel mournful for the loss of “respect” and “integrity” in the mob community.
  27. The King Is Alive
    The tedium of the situation is felt by the audience, but too often in the wrong way: We don't empathize so much as suffer through the movie.
  28. One Night with the King
    Those viewers who found anti-Semitism lurking under every stone in The Passion of the Christ may rejoice in this celebration of Jewish heroism; all others should rest assured that falling asleep in the cinema is not a mortal sin.
    • 26 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Skyline
    The military eventually shows up to nuke the joint (L.A., incidentally), but there's no urgency, suspense or charm with all that back-row rattle.
    • 24 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Redline
    The cars and stunt work are real, and so is the rather endearing retro cheesiness. This is the movie that really belongs with Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof."
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