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 8.7 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. Panic Room
    Always adept at hitting emotional cues cleanly, Foster in this role also lets herself get lost in the moment, which is something she hasn't often allowed herself to do since "The Silence of the Lambs."
  2. Teddy Bears' Picnic
    A satirist such as Shearer should need a license to go hunting on terrain so rich with easy targets; he tries to bag them all, and it leaves the film to founder in aimlessness.
  3. Blade II
    Even Del Toro can't raise the conceptually dead.
  4. Sorority Boys
    If only they had the courage of their crassness.
  5. Very Annie Mary
    Annoyingly fourth-hand -- scraped from the shoes of "The Full Monty," mixed with Michael Caine's "Little Voice" hair-smarm and salted with "Billy Elliot's" dandruff.
  6. Son of the Bride
    Although it's better written and directed than the average Nora Ephron bagatelle, it's easy to imagine Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan slipping into a remake of Son of the Bride.
  7. Margarita Happy Hour
    Breaks in the film's otherwise smooth continuum, however, are bridged by Hutchins' soulful performance, and by Chaiken's excellent feel for the grace notes and steady tempo of native New York life, the sacredness of female friendship, and the precarious balance between love for oneself and for others.
  8. Pauline and Paulette
    The film's plainness, and the understated force of van der Groen and Petersen's performances, sharpen its complexity of feeling until all mawkishness is cut away.
  9. Promises
    Proves too sincere to exploit its subjects and too honest to manipulate its audience.
  10. Resident Evil
    The interchangeable males all resemble Freddie Prinze Jr., and Anderson's direction is no less anemic, making one yearn for an Escape/Quit button that, sadly, doesn't exist in this medium.
  11. Showtime
    Showtime is better than the fourth "Lethal Weapon," which was pretty bad, but not as good as the original "Lethal Weapon" or the superior "48HRS."
  12. Harrison's Flowers
    A premise so patently absurd, so implausible, they might as well have pitched it to the Oxygen channel.
  13. Ice Age
    It's a shame no one gave the three voice stars of this appealing animation -- Ray Romano, John Legui zamo and Denis Leary -- a shot at the script.
  14. Festival in Cannes
    This isn't a terrible film by any means, but it's also far from being a realized work. Jaglom has said that he “writes” his films in the editing room, but for Festival in Cannes he must have been using a crayon.
  15. The Time Machine
    In the new film, it's personal tragedy that provokes the journey, not social upheaval or even scientific curiosity -- which, predictably, makes for a story that's at once more familiar and less interesting.
  16. All About the Benjamins
    This is high school fantasy straight outta Compton. As such, it has a certain compelling enthusiasm.
  17. We Were Soldiers
    It was a hellish encounter, as well as a portent of the 10 years to come, and as such deserves far better than Mel Gibson's glower and writer-director Randall Wallace's guns-and-Moses platitudes.
  18. Esther Kahn
    Brilliantly edited and gorgeously shot, Esther Kahn is a dream to look at and, courtesy of Howard Shore's minor chords and high-strung strings, definitely something to hear.
  19. Borstal Boy
    Overall Sheridan keeps both "Oirishry" and sentimentality in check. He captures the book's evenhanded sense.
  20. 40 Days and 40 Nights
    Hartnett's pitch-perfect sexual panic can be hilariously funny.
  21. Stolen Summer
    A promotional gimmick that's being slipped into theaters with the sort of stealth accorded only the unprofitable or the unwatchable.
  22. Big Bad Love
    Held together by the blues -- Brown's prose and Howard's performance, Big Bad Love is a mess, but it's a sincere mess, beautifully shot by Paul Ryan and faithfully adapted by screenwriter James Howard.
  23. Mean Machine
    It does, however, fairly bubble with speed-freak energy and a dry, laddish wit that keeps the jokes coming.
  24. Drift
    Like "Run Lola Run," Drift circles back on itself to present a trio of possible outcomes, but it's R.T. Lee's sterling performance that rivets.
  25. How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
    A movie with a lot on its plate, but nothing interesting on its mind.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    The Cherry Orchard
    Cacoyannis lays on the atmosphere a bit thick with multiple repetitions of a lyrical Tchaikovsky motif underscoring unrequited love, one that is nonetheless beautifully rendered by pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy.
  27. Queen of the Damned
    Townsend and Aaliyah are sexy as hell, and clearly willing and able to explore the darker truths of villainy, but they can't compete against the unwieldy script.
  28. Maryam
    Where the young writer-director impresses is in the unforced sketching of era details (gas lines, the tacky energy of roller-skating rinks), in the sharp psychological insight into his lead characters, and in the performances he pulls from his actors.
  29. Monsoon Wedding
    Nair, who, in this film as in so many others, aims for the beating heart of the predictable movie moment.
  30. Dragonfly
    Despite the film's aspirations to soul healing, its uplift remains mechanical, like an escalator's.
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