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. Ghosts of the Abyss
    During the all-important underwater sequences, the three-dimensional effects are surprisingly muted.
  2. House of 1000 Corpses
    Zombie wants his film to be gleefully demented, but he fails to grasp that loud, inbred evil people torturing stupid, grating benign people isn’t disturbing as much as tedious.
  3. DysFunktional Family
    His veiled misogyny and totally unguarded homophobia are unconvincing, and when he resorts to chestnuts like comparing how black and white people walk, he comes off as a Pryor caricature, rather than as a devotee.
  4. Levity
    Those who can forgive the director's pretensions will discover some fine filmmaking.
  5. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion [re-release]
    The movie survives beautifully both as an elegant thriller and as a study of the twisted infantilism that shapes the fanatic heart.
  6. Manna from Heaven
    Frankly, the story behind Manna From Heaven is a truckload more interesting than the movie itself.
  7. Cowboy Bebop the Movie: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
    There are so many good ideas at the visual level that you can't help wishing the narrative elements had been more cleverly worked out.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Man Without a Past
    If Aki Kaurismaki were the Eagles, which he is not, The Man Without a Past might be considered a kind of "best of" album.
  9. What a Girl Wants
    Strictly for budding young ladies, though it does offer those who've already bloomed the grown-up pleasures of Firth, a great actor who graciously invites you to join him in the slow-burn romantic corner into which he's rapidly painting himself.
  10. Phone Booth
    At only 84 minutes, Phone Booth's brevity turns out to be its only saving grace.
  11. A Man Apart
    A Man Apart isn't awful, but it is almost reflexively rote, evoking countless other outlaw-cop films that are smarter, tighter and more fun.
  12. The Good Thief
    Indeed, The Good Thief is a fairy tale, not just in the plotted fun of the heist and counterheist, or in the clever twist thrown in at the end, but in the grandiloquent myth, so passionately espoused by Melville, of the crook as a man of honor and elegance.
  13. Cet amour-là
    Sympathetic, if lackluster.
  14. Fellini: I'm a Born Liar
    Pettigrew assumes that Fellini was a genius, and while this film won't convince any skeptics, the maestro's fans can sink into it like a hot bath.
  15. The Core
    The first half-hour of The Core is hip enough to its own moribund formula that for a brief, shining moment, there's hope the film will actually be a goofy gas instead of the effects-bound lump it becomes.
  16. Raising Victor Vargas
    Victor Vargas has the look and feel of a neo-realist masterpiece, yet captures New York with a burnished authenticity not seen since the glory days of ’70s American cinema.
  17. Stevie
    It becomes clear that all this man-child craves is to be loved and, thus, saved.
  18. Assassination Tango
    The plot is slow and absurdly contrived, and if you're looking for a thriller, look elsewhere. If you love dance movies, Assassination Tango is worth a go.
  19. Basic
    Those expecting a reunion with Jackson, Travolta's “Pulp Fiction” co-star, should be prepared: They don't interact at all, which is a bit like casting Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and not letting them dance together.
  20. Head of State
    Pandering, stiffly acted and brimming with awkward (if progressive) political posturing, Rock's films attempt to filter old Hollywood formula through a hip-hop sensibility.
  21. Flickering Lights
    A hit in Denmark, this impressive debut feature from writer-director Anders Thom as Jensen is decidedly offbeat, with Jensen contrasting moments of brutal violence with the emerging gentleness of Torkild and his friends.
  22. View from the Top
    Just lies there, poorly lit and tone-deaf.
  23. Dreamcatcher
    Both character and metaphor have gone to the dogs, leaving a slew of fart and burp jokes and laying bare Dreamcatcher's driving purpose, which is to make multiplexes full of little boys yuk it up, then gross them out, creep them out.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    Chuen jik sat sau
    Fulfills all the conventions of raw Cantonese gun opera.
  25. Boat Trip
    Cuba Gooding Jr.'s unrelenting energy can be galvanic in good films, but in lesser efforts it reeks of frenzied futility.
  26. Piglet's Big Movie
    Charming, animated retelling of stories from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books.
  27. One Swallow Brought Spring
    The Girl From Paris may not have half the smooth technique of "Swimming Pool," but it has 10 times the heart and soul.
  28. Down and Out with the Dolls
    Like a good punk tune, the filmmaker's focused energy distracts from compositional flaws, all the better to enjoy visceral pleasures such as a spot-on Zoë Pouledouris as preening singer Fauna.
  29. Japan
    Japón, isn’t just the wildest eruption of the current Mexican film boom, it's the most fascinating new picture I've seen this year.
  30. Willard
    It's one of many references to the movie-wise, but a resonant one, for Glover's performance turns out to be shockingly emotional, drawn as daringly close to the bone -- within this story's limited thematic range -- as Anthony Perkins' work in Hitchcock's seminal film.
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