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 8.6 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. X2: X-Men United
    Singer's approach to X2 is very much of the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school, resulting in a movie that, even at its best -- a thrilling jailbreak scene that's the closest thing in either X movie to a rousing set piece -- seems tame and unmemorable.
  2. The Lizzie McGuire Movie
    The cast of the Disney Channel's Lizzie McGuire romped strenuously through a plot that would be old hat as a two-parter on a sitcom.
  3. Blue Car
    A quietly devastating song.
  4. Spellbound
    For the committed word nerd, spelling has its intrinsic pleasures, but in Spellbound it's another example of the peculiarly American mania for turning everything -- even play --into work.
  5. Identity
    Cooney's achingly clever script has more up its sleeve than just Agatha Christie -- he also evokes "Psycho," "The Sixth Sense," "Poltergeist" and "The Omen" -- and the final third dishes up a twist that isn't just surprising, it's revealing
  6. Confidence
    Confidence grooves on the giddy joy of storytelling -- on the digressive whimsy of good dialogue, on playful editing, on the ways in which con men -- and filmmakers -- psych out their victims.
  7. It Runs in the Family
    The question is not how bad this excuse for a domestic comedy is (medium cringe), but how the gifted Fred Schepisi got suckered into directing a vanity project.
  8. Returning Mickey Stern
    The always-watchable Bologna is the adhesive holding together this slight and gentle romantic comedy, lending it perhaps more conviction and authority than the material warrants.
  9. 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.
  10. Manic
    Melamed's debut film, Manic, set in a juvenile mental institution, has all the uncertainties of a first run-through.
  11. City of Ghosts
    Dillon doesn't yet possess the directorial chops to give his story the necessary snap; the action too often feels poky and muffled. But he does have a strong sense of place, and the movie's almost worth seeing just for Jim Denault's exquisite cinematography.
  12. House of Fools
    Powerful war satire.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Marooned in Iraq
    Occurring as it does amid a surge of tragedy and bitterness, its comic effect is powerfully mitigated.
  14. The Real Cancun
    No matter how “real” things appear, scenarios and story arcs are relentlessly imposed upon the partay-cipants so as to finesse a narrative as crudely overdetermined and howlingly predictable as any studio-manufactured fiction.
  15. A Decade Under the Influence
    One wonders what exactly Richard LaGravenese and the late Ted Demme thought they were doing in this documentary, which doesn't so much look at the period as genuflect before it.
  16. Onmyoji: The Yin Yang Master
    Film is a ghostly and gorgeous tale of a court magician, the legendary Abe no Seimei.
  17. Malibu's Most Wanted
    Amiable but not especially funny film.
  18. Venus and Mars
    Sometimes the predictability of a romantic comedy is reassuring, and sometimes it makes you want to scream, as with this witless wonder.
  19. Lilya 4-Ever
    Lilya is the more genuinely unsettling film because Moodysson seems to actually know something of what it is to take and stumble beneath a crushing blow. You feel that here. And you feel it for days after.
  20. Holes
    Although parents of small children are advised to give the film an advance look, Holes may nudge older kids toward that most ancient of after-school distractions: reading.
  21. Winged Migration
    Astonishing both for the beauty of the birds and for its sheer technical brilliance.
  22. Bulletproof Monk
    It’s a testament to Chow's star power that, even with an accent more than casually reminiscent of Elmer Fudd's, he comes off charming, handsome and cool in a movie as ridiculous as Bulletproof Monk.
  23. Chasing Papi
    Remarkably, it took four writers to concoct this tin-eared, slighter-than-slight farce.
  24. A Mighty Wind
    Freshened immensely by pitch-perfect song parodies, a batch of hilarious faux album covers, nimble improv from the ever-marvelous cast, and a palpable love for the subject matter.
  25. The Young Unknowns
    By the time a not terribly surprising tragedy hits and these crazy kids get theirs, the movie doesn't so much end as finally keel over.
  26. Khab-e sefid
    The movie often seems as innocent and goodhearted as its subject. Still, Jebeli is possessed of an impish visual sense. He also has the Iranian gift for bringing to vivid life people we wouldn't give a second glance.
  27. Going Down
    Going Down is woefully lacking in the comedy (or the sex for that matter), and even some of the teens look a little long in the tooth.
  28. Anger Management
    Although Sandler's formula remains constant -- the downtrodden hero can do eet! -- what's new is his willingness to share the screen equally with a male co-star. Not that anyone could get in the way of that mugging steamroller Nicholson.
  29. XX/XY
    The young filmmaker clearly needs to experience a bit more of la vraie vie before his own observations can take in more than the clumsy romantic feints and parries of early adulthood.
  30. Better Luck Tomorrow
    Though it doesn't fully transcend its small budget (the lighting is dingy), the story feels rooted in something more solid than prefab posturing.
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