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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    • 37 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite
    Tatou evinces that innate self-possession in which Frenchwomen specialize, and lets it fly here. That, in turn, keeps this flawed movie aloft.
  2. Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet
    Tavernier's documentary about the famed Paris Opera Ballet is itself a graceful thing, a fleet-footed yet substantial examination of what it means to devote one's life to the art of dance.
  3. 8 Mile
    Eminem plays Rabbit with riveting, flamboyantly expressive intensity.
  4. Hush!
    Exchanges overheard in bars, crisp dialogue between characters and a wistful tone underscore both modern isolation and the age-old need for connection.
  5. Far From Heaven
    Not a campy movie. True, it has its ironies, but though you can read it ironically if you wish, Haynes' triumph is that it also plays beautifully straight.
  6. Femme Fatale
    I haven't admired a De Palma film since "Carrie," or even enjoyed one since "Scarface," so it must mean something that Femme Fatale gave me one of the best times at the movies I've had this year.
  7. Treasure Planet
    Give writer-director team John Musker and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules) credit for trying to update the formula and grow with the kids weaned on their earlier hits, though it's doubtful the "tweens" they’re aiming at here still embrace Disney, and little kids don't care about back story.
  8. The Santa Clause 2
    While the film is not entirely successful, it still manages to string together enough charming moments to work.
  9. Santa vs. the Snowman
    If you're out shopping with the brood and need a 40-minute break, you could do worse.
  10. Love in the Time of Money
    The film ultimately offers nothing more than people in an urban jungle needing other people to survive. Kane's character observes that "We’re all connected by love" -- and that sounds familiar, too.
  11. Besotted
    The director and her capable cast appear to be caught in a heady whirl of New Age–inspired good intentions, but the spell they cast isn't the least bit mesmerizing.
  12. Daughter from Danang
    The film's almost unbearable portrait of sadness and grief transcends its specific story to speak to the ways in which need, history and presumption tangle, and sometimes destroy, blood ties.
  13. The Weight of Water
    Provides an unfulfilled promise of pleasure (providing one doesn't cave in to the spectacle of bare-chested Elizabeth Hurley sucking on an ice cube) in this heavy-handed exercise in time-vaulting literary pretension.
  14. Tully
    This is writer-director Hilary Birmingham's first film, and it's a lovely thing, as reserved and unfussy as its characters and, like them, full of surprises.
  15. I Spy
    Between spy training and sensitivity training, the two (Murphy/Wilson) prove nicely matched comic foils.
  16. All the Queen's Men
    Bad in such a bizarre way that it's almost worth seeing, if only to witness the crazy confluence of purpose and taste.
  17. Roger Dodger
    I was with Roger Dodger all the way until its vile hero had an 11th-hour burst of insight that defied all belief. I didn't buy it, but I do want his therapist's phone number.
    • L.A. Weekly
  18. Looking Through Lillian
    Torem drifts into formula and his initially promising film goes unbearably soft.
  19. Waking Up in Reno
    Director Jordan Brady achieves the remarkable feat of squandering a topnotch foursome of actors -- particularly Theron, a very game and able comedienne -- by shoving them into every clichéd white-trash situation imaginable.
  20. The Truth About Charlie
    The story itself falls to earth with a thud, not least because of a casting catastrophe. The boyish, goofily smiling Wahlberg is egregiously out of place as the kind of charming-ambiguous dreamboat you'd have to be Cary Grant to pull off.
  21. Food of Love
    Crushingly airless film -- Food chokes on its own depiction of upper-crust decorum.
  22. Frida
    There's something oddly moving about the film purely as a love story between two people who were more alike than was good for them, yet somehow stuck it out. What we see in Frida is not Kahlo the painter, but Kahlo the love of Rivera's life, as he was of hers.
  23. The Bank
    Like "Wall Street" before it, The Bank never amounts to more than a glossy comic book, and first-time writer-director Robert Connolly stumbles with his plotting and his direction of Wenham.
  24. Paid in Full
    Lazily directed by Charles Stone III (the man behind Budweiser's "Whassup?!" campaign) from a leaden script by Matthew Cirulnick and novelist Thulani Davis.
  25. Ghost Ship
    If you take your ghost stories garnished with a dressing of sadism, sanctimony and silliness, go ahead and squander the nine bucks.
  26. Jackass: The Movie
    The Jackass boys achieve true genius, however, when they take their penance public. Before stunned, inert onlookers, these skate-punk Situationists transform official zones of work and leisure -- office parks, golf courses, bowling alleys -- into arenas of dangerous stupidity to remind us that, in the end, we’re all just meat.
  27. All or Nothing
    It's a strangely stirring experience that finds warmth in the coldest environment and makes each crumb of emotional comfort feel like a 10-course banquet.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Derrida
    The result is fascinating, whether you're smitten by him or his work, or simply intrigued by contemporary thought.
  29. Goyangileul butaghae
    Captivating coming-of-age story.
  30. Le bossu
    The film is never less than lovely to gaze upon, shot in saturated colors, richly appointed in period trappings and peopled only by the very beautiful. But it is also, by its end, too silly to take seriously.
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