Mr. Showbiz's Scores

  • Movies
Select another publication »
For 720 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 6.1 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 59
Highest review score: 100 Brigham City
Lowest review score: 0 Dude, Where's My Car?
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 339 out of 720
  2. Mixed: 241 out of 720
  3. Negative: 140 out of 720
720 movie reviews
view
per page
  1. Show Me Love
    Moodysson's teen protagonists are more complex than both the high school stereotypes (the nerd, the jock, the beauty queen) in films like "American Pie" and the self-absorbed philosophers on "Dawson's Creek."
    • Mr. Showbiz
  2. Bats
    A sleek rip-off of "The Birds" that is fast, furious, and watchable, but lacking in the two elements most essential to a silly screamfest like this: scares and laughs.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  3. The Story of Us
    This is a second-rate Woody Allen midlife crisis comedy without the laughs.
  4. Joe the King
    Rarely falters but neither does it ever take flight.
  5. That's the Way I Like It
    Affectionately skewers the age of polyester pants.
  6. Julien Donkey-Boy
    Writer-director Harmony Korine seems more interested in churning your stomach than in warming your heart.
  7. The Straight Story
    Lynch's faith in the kindness of human nature has been renewed, yet thankfully he's never maudlin. Instead, he wins over our emotions with the film's understated beauty.
  8. Fight Club
    Despite terrific comic acting...and an atomic first hour, Fight Club makes a few wrong turns and ends up lost itself.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  9. The Omega Code
    This wretched jumbo helping of Christian Fundamentalist agitprop takes itself entirely too seriously to be anything but ploddingly dull.
  10. The Grandfather
    It's filled with far too much talk and it never justifies its length, but if you succumb to its old-fashioned Renoir style of storytelling, The Grandfather has its pleasures.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  11. Random Hearts
    There's a lot of satisfaction in seeing two stars given this much time and space to examine a complex relationship.
  12. Molly
    It's a sugar rush that'll leave you feeling like a rotten cavity.
  13. The Limey
    It's such an accomplished, beguiling film in its details that you almost don't notice that the story is scattershot, arbitrary, and thin -- almost.
  14. Superstar
    Considerably less fun than a marathon of Star Search episodes.
  15. New Rose Hotel
    Virtually unwatchable.
  16. Bandits
    Dim and eye-rollingly foolish -- Call it Dumb, Dumber, Dumber Still, and Dumbest.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  17. The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland
    Hardly a ripping, inspired children's film.
  18. Happy, Texas
    Zahn's dazed and confused, droopy-mustached dude steals every scene he's in...a movie that will make you smile and put a lump in your throat.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  19. Mystery, Alaska
    Has its share of small pleasures.
  20. Plunkett & Macleane
    A cross between a Hogarth painting and an MTV video, Plunkett & Macleane cuts quite a swath.
  21. Drive Me Crazy
    The appealing cast makes the most of the derivative story.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  22. Three Kings
    Russell has combined pathos, terror, and black comedy with a dollop of Hollywood feel-good patriotism to make one of the best studio efforts this year.
  23. Double Jeopardy
    It has no subtlety, no shadings, and no suspense, and might as well not have a screenplay.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  24. Mumford
    Despite impeccable performances, this is bloodless, ho-hum stuff.
  25. Jakob the Liar
    A trial of cliche, strained optimism, and dire quasi-comedy.
  26. Guinevere
    As talented as Polley proved herself in "The Sweet Hereafter" and "Go," this is her best work yet.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  27. Dog Park
    Populated with whiny, unappealing characters that are impossible to care about and flatly staged sitcomish set-pieces...this lame Canadian import's a real woofer.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 43 Metascore
    • 68 Critic Score
    For Love of the Game
    None of their efforts can turn this ho-hum, mildly entertaining line-drive single into a solid, explosive home run.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  29. Sugar Town
    There's lots of sweet music to savor in this snide industry satire.
  30. Romance
    Showing the sex seems to be the film's raison d'etre, which gets you only so far.
  31. Blue Streak
    An empty reminder that Martin Lawrence can be pretty funny, in a spastic, loose-limbed way -- maybe next time he'll get a worthwhile script.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  32. Get Bruce
    A hilarious and utterly faboo documentary...you'll be begging for more.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  33. Breakfast of Champions
    Just isn't funny enough to sustain the lunacy.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  34. Splendor
    There's nothing remotely bizarre about this boy meets girl meets boy tale.
    • 28 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Stigmata
    An incomprehensible mess.
  36. The Minus Man
    It's a drab, familiar story with no oomph (and less humor than you'd think), and it's inconsistent.
  37. B. Monkey
    An entertaining but insubstantial romantic thriller loaded with Euro-chic trappings and no small amount of sex appeal.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  38. Love Stinks
    A drearily over-cynical farce.
  39. Best Laid Plans
    Doesn't come close to the pulp beauty and complexity of classic noir.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  40. Black Cat, White Cat
    An explosive experience...and you have to love the movie's rabid energy and lust.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  41. I Woke Up Early the Day I Died
    Sitting through the film is like Chinese water torture, for sure, and for reasons beyond the forced, idiotic campiness of the thing. For one thing, there is not one word of dialogue.
  42. All the Little Animals
    Hamilton's quasi-Luddite tale doesn't make a coherent movie under the best of circumstances, and these were, apparently, something substantially less than that.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  43. Outside Providence
    Plays like mediocre outtakes from better bell-bottomed fare (Richard Linklater's authentic, seriocomic "Dazed and Confused"; Fox's "That '70s Show") without making any kind of impression of its own.
  44. Chill Factor
    Skeet Ulrich continues to disappoint in one high-profile project after another.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  45. The 13th Warrior
    Indulges in enough grubby histrionics and costume-adventure cliches to give you fifth-grade flashbacks.
  46. A Dog of Flanders
    Whenever Voight steps to the forefront, A Dog of Flanders is poochy-keen; alas, the rest of the time it's doggedly dull.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  47. The Astronaut's Wife
    Houston, we have a problem. It's called The Astronaut's Wife and it's an utterly predictable rip-off of classic '60s and '70s exercises in paranoia, from "Rosemary's Baby" to "The Parallax View."
    • Mr. Showbiz
  48. The Muse
    Brooks' least satisfying film in quite a while.
  49. The Very Thought of You
    A pale, derivative little Brit ditty that will be forgotten almost as speedily as it was dumped...into theaters.
  50. Dudley Do-Right
    You'd think creating confusion during something as woodenly simpleminded as Dudley Do-Right is no easy task, but you'd be wrong.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  51. In Too Deep
    A gritty, well-acted urban drama with lots of humanity.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 49 Metascore
    • 59 Critic Score
    Mickey Blue Eyes
    The farce hits the fan, and you just wait for the thing to be over.
  53. Teaching Mrs. Tingle
    Wholly predictable and implausible plotting, thin characterizations, and stilted dialogue.
  54. Universal Soldier: The Return
    Engagingly silly sub-"Moonlighting"-style banter.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 76 Critic Score
    Bowfinger
    Savy script... terrific performances... [yet] the movie's herky jerky pacing may leave you wanting.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  56. Autumn Tale
    The summer's best cinematic equivalent to a lazy afternoon in the shade with a cool drink.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  57. Illuminata
    Turturro's movie is all surface, all artifice, and little substance. Actors love artifice; the rest of us wait for it to clear so we can find something meatier.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  58. The Iron Giant
    Bird's movie neither panders to children nor sneers at them, and it beautifully, lucidly captures the giddy adventurousness of childhood.
  59. The Sixth Sense
    The biggest piece of supernatural hooey since estranged wife Demi Moore's "The Seventh Sign."
  60. Twin Falls Idaho
    It is only once the movie has exhausted its roster of "weird" notions and contrived images that it finds its emotional footing, leaving you with one half of a lovely, woebegone film.
  61. Drop Dead Gorgeous
    A mockumentary about small-town beauty pageants that's so confidently unfunny it's DOA.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  62. Eyes Wide Shut
    A laughable disaster: an agonizingly long, perversely dull, childishly conceived fantasia on marital sexual angst that could only have been made by someone (like Kubrick).
    • Mr. Showbiz
  63. The Blair Witch Project
    It might be the scariest movie ever made.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  64. American Pie
    Pie has some nice surprises and is enjoyable in a smutty, sitcom way. It offers up the outrageousness of "There's Something About Mary" without wallowing in cruelty.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  65. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut
    In terms of raw wit and fearless satire, the South Park kids put Mike Myers and Adam Sandler to shame.
  66. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
    The Spy Who Shagged Me is impossible-to-resist summer fun that left me feeling, dare I say, randy for more? Oh, behave.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 68 Metascore
    • 82 Critic Score
    Notting Hill
    A smart, sometimes pissingly funny romantic comedy that is also oddly unmoving and predictable in spots.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    The Mummy
    A well-crafted, great looking adventure, with some spirited performances.
  69. Election
    Election is a bracingly intelligent adult comedy that shrewdly captures adolescence.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  70. Go
    John August's script is exciting, witty, original material, and this film's got the talent to match.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  71. The Matrix
    This wildly imaginative thriller is a futuristic head trip you most definitely want to take.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The Thin Red Line
    It's the awesome, metaphysically charged spectacle of man doing terrible things to man within the multicolored and multifarious cathedral of Nature.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Shakespeare in Love
    The result is a film that is as witty, astute, and romantic as its timeless subject.
  74. Rushmore
    It's the funniest, saddest performance of the year in a film of uncompromising wit and heart.
  75. Elizabeth
    This historical epic about the "virgin queen" of England's early life moves with the crackling urgency of a contemporary political thriller.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  76. Gods and Monsters
    A profoundly moving human drama, a quasi love story about two lost men who form an unlikely friendship.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  77. American History X
    American History X is a crash course on how to make a message movie that resonates with crackling power.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  78. Life Is Beautiful
    Has one of the most stupendously tasteless premises in cinema history, and much of the time when this movie tries to beckon a smile, the effect is closer to astonished nausea.
  79. Pleasantville
    Offers effortless charm, wit, and originality in spades.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Saving Private Ryan
    No Hollywood film within recent memory has achieved such richness and originality of texture, such a compelling amalgam of passionate human drama and awesome technique.
  81. The Truman Show
    The Truman Show is one of the films for which the '90s will be remembered, and it is not to be missed.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Bulworth
    In a season of mechanized spectacle and brain-dead comedies, Bulworth is a brave and bracing exception.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  83. As Good as It Gets
    Billed cleverly as a comedy from the heart that goes for the throat. If only Brooks had had the guts to avoid the schmaltz.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  84. Titanic
    Will take you by surprise as a romantic, fast-paced, entertaining spectacle that deserves to earn back every penny spent to produce it.
  85. Good Will Hunting
    Intelligently written, sharply directed, and beautifully played.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  86. Boogie Nights
    That rarest of independent films -- it's risky and exciting.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 91 Metascore
    • 95 Critic Score
    L.A. Confidential
    See L.A. Confidential. Be astonished at discovering anew how very, very satisfying movies can still be. And how fine that can feel.
  88. The Full Monty
    A bully good romp, and it thumbs its nose at the bloated blockbusters towering over it at the multiplexes by ending the moment it arrives at its raucous, richly deserved climax.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  89. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
    Myers has hit upon a genuinely original schtick, and that fact alone is immeasurably groovy.
    • Mr. Showbiz
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Chasing Amy
    Until he (Smith) learns the difference between what has meaning and what's meandering, what feels real and what feels contrived, he'd be better off sticking to the funny stuff.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  91. Scream
    Just another basketcase with a blade.
  92. Jerry Maguire
    Lusts for a feel-good ending the material doesn't comfortably provide. One can't help wondering how dismal Jerry and Dorothy's life together will be after the credits roll.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 87 Critic Score
    Sling Blade
    What evolves among them is a kind of realistic fairy tale, sustained by the sweet gravity and guttural, deadpan minimalism of Thornton's performance.
  94. Shine
    It's a film which aims to persuade us of its truth without props or signposts--and it does so with unforgettable beauty.
  95. The English Patient
    Astonishingly deep and moving.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  96. Breaking the Waves
    Not only one of the best films of the year, it's one of the best films of the decade.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  97. Swingers
    Has such perfect pitch in small matters that, as it builds, it proves no less capable in tackling bigger issues--and what begin as chuckles become deep belly laughs.
  98. Secrets & Lies
    The ride is remarkable.
  99. Big Night
    It is one of the most beautifully staged American movies in a very long time.
    • Mr. Showbiz
  100. Trainspotting
    It's a disturbing film in the best sense.
Page:

Top Trailers

See all »
See all trailers »