New Times (L.A.)'s Scores

  • Movies
For 639 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 1% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 5.3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Donnie Darko
Lowest review score: 0 Rollerball
Score distribution:
639 movie reviews
  1. The film is often moving and explores the discomfort inherent in the contacts between the American "hosts" and their "guests," but its effect is diluted by slow pacing and lengthiness.
  2. Reasonably well-made and all, but it's simply too familiar, too derivative and too inferior to its predecessors to have any reason to exist.
  3. While this production from Michael Douglas is being touted as a sexy romantic comedy, it's more precise to think of it as big loud fun for when you're feelin' dumb.
  4. Nowhere near as bad as distributor New Line seems to think.
  5. Worth the price of admission if only to see the slinky Thurman decked out in a form-fitting, sequined pre-flapper era outfit. The word stunning hardly does her justice.
  6. Once the action kicks in -- starting with an extraordinary balletic fight in the rain featuring the two masters and a flying wooden beam -- you can't take your eyes off the screen.
  7. I still think the first is the best in the series, but I'm in the minority: Number two has a stronger following among the legions of Hong Kong movie buffs.
  8. Stallone's script is well structured, though the jaw-droppingly banal dialogue gives us little reason to care.
  9. This is a highly original film blessed with fetching complications all its own and some hair-raising turns of plot.
  10. It would be hard to imagine a less exciting movie. Still, inoffensiveness can sometimes lead to success, at least initially, for a family film.
  11. In the end, it demonstrates all over again the virtual impossibility of doing Nabokov justice on film, because his work is so resolutely and brilliantly made of words.
  12. May be too low-key for its own good. Still, if you want to get in on the ground floor of Aidan Gillen's certain-to-be-skyrocketing career, it's a good place to start.
  13. The film is a somewhat disjointed affair that, like the man himself (Green), is occasionally brilliant, frequently repetitive and sometimes merely annoying.
  14. For better or worse the movie is simply simple -- the project's quality and significance depend upon one's perspective: Is this a daring and impressive homespun yarn or just a very middling stab at soft-core?
  15. Forster is the reason that even non-Mamet-heads might consider giving Lakeboat a shot. It's worth it just to see him in his long one-take exchange with Johnston about booze, but he's remarkable throughout.
  16. The urge to laugh is superceded by the urge to slap everybody and command them to stop embarrassing all of humanity.
  17. It's a heartfelt and powerful examination of faith that no serious student or enthusiast of theology or philosophy should miss.
  18. An extraordinary film from a born filmmaker.
  19. Sandler and Spade continue their avid quest to dumb down America.
  20. An antiadvertisement for itself.
  21. Everything leading up to the finale is funny and often heartfelt.
  22. Dominik's stylistic choices are savvy, but what really makes the movie work is Bana's extraordinary performance as Chopper.
  23. It's basically your above-average nice drug movie.
  24. Deadly dull thriller.
  25. No B-movie fan, save perhaps the extremely obsessive for whom this is old hat, should miss it.
  26. For folks who like a genuinely tense suspense film with heavy doses of black humor, however, this ought to do it.
  27. A spare film, with little dialogue but a lot to say.
  28. More art-directed than directed, there's nothing in the way of serious thought to be found here,
  29. Farmanara, the actor, brings a real poignancy to the role and, thus, to the story that seems, more than anything, the tale of a man coming to terms with his life.
  30. Startlingly, this is not the trite beer commercial one might expect.

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