Portland Oregonian's Scores

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For 3,654 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 63% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 34% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.8 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Caesar Must Die
Lowest review score: 0 Summer Catch
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,408 out of 3654
  2. Mixed: 966 out of 3654
  3. Negative: 280 out of 3654
3654 movie reviews
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    • 69 Metascore
    • 83 Critic Score
    Beau Geste
    It's amazing that this deeply evocative tale of courage, nobility and the price of family loyalty is the last serious remake of P.C. Wren's best-known Foreign Legion adventure novel. [27 Aug 1999]
    • Portland Oregonian
  2. American Hardcore
    Hardcore might have been confused and crude, but it was never guilty of being tepid, like this film.
  3. Zero Motivation
    Although its three-part structure plays out more like sketch comedy than a fully-cooked story, Lavie's debut is an impressive and entertaining one.
  4. Joshua
    There's drama here, and moments of genuine tension, but there's fun, too, which is the point of a movie like this. To Ratliff's credit, he never lets the considerable craft get in the way.
  5. You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet
    For those with adventurous tastes and a little extra patience, the 90-year-old's possible swan song (though he evidently is far from fatigued) is rewarding.
  6. The Last September
    There's enough caustic wit, romance and dizzy whimsy to make The Last September, if not deep, at least diverting.
  7. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
    It's a shame director Care didn't take more time with his characters, even making the film a bit longer to deepen the connections between them. Still, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is a keen slice of teen angst and peril.
  8. How to Make Money Selling Drugs
    For most of its running time, How to Make Money Selling Drugs is a cheeky, moderately interesting look behind the curtain of the trade in contraband substances, from the corner dealer to the cartel-topping drug lord.
  9. Arthur Christmas
    Arthur is sort of a dull hero, but the grandfather is classic, hilarious Aardman -- a thoroughly British eccentric prone to weird nostalgic/fatalistic utterances.
  10. Into the Woods
    The big star with the most unexpected chops, though, is Chris Pine, who runs with his Prince Charming role and, along with Billy Magnussen as Rapunzel's Prince, contributes the movie's best musical moment with the duet "Agony."
  11. Gremlins 2: The New Batch
    Written by Charlie Haas, Gremlins 2 is more clever than Gremlins, and Dante seems to move everything at a much quicker pace here. Perhaps because things are pretty predictable, Dante lingers on little. Much dialogue will be lost to audience laughter. [15 Jun 1990, p.R15]
    • Portland Oregonian
  12. Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone
    Filled with personal vignettes and famous-people testimonials, the film has a few too many narrative digressions, but it's a moving portrait of all-too-human personalities and the dogged optimism that keeps them going.
  13. Chicken with Plums
    It's fascinating as an offbeat storytelling exercise.
  14. Sunshine State
    It's ambitious, sharply observed and spectacularly well-acted like so much of Sayles' canon. But it's also overstuffed and underdeveloped.
  15. The Eyes of Tammy Faye
    A hilarious, sad and sometimes-inspiring documentary directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the film is an all-out Tammy valentine -- campy, dramatic and, of course, makeup-smeared. And better than any melodrama you'll see this year.
    • Portland Oregonian
  16. Solitary Man
    In trying to make Kalmen's story unique, the film inadvertently exposes him as the most typical sufferer of midlife crises you could imagine.
  17. Shallow Grave
    McGregor is a real charmer, a young Malcolm McDowell with a Scottish lilt; Brain Tufano's photography manages to be both rich and stark at once; Hodge's script has some genuinely arch lines. [03 Mar 1995]
    • Portland Oregonian
  18. The Bank Job
    One doesn't want to oversell the film; you could catch it on DVD and regret nothing. But, frankly, in a marketplace that tends toward cranked-up action thrills, it's just nice to watch a level-headed crime movie aimed at actual grown-ups.
  19. Talk to Me
    Once Greene achieves fame, neither he nor the screenplay quite knows what to do; the first half-hour of Talk to Me is the most fun. But a vibrant feel for its era and a genuine affection for its characters make the whole thing a solid evocation of a time and a life worth remembering.
  20. Even the Rain (Tambien la Lluvia)
    It starts as clever, but it ends in real feeling.
  21. Friday Night
    Combines spareness in plot and dialogue with luxurious, sensual technique in such a way that the craft sometimes overwhelms the slender story.
  22. Ginger & Rosa
    It's quietly brutal stuff, beautifully acted by Fanning, Englert, Christina Hendricks and a word-twisting Alessandro Nivola.
  23. The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
    This compelling piece of historical detective work is, in fact, less about what people have done to the islands than about what living on the islands has done to people.
  24. Slacker
    Richard Linklater's ingenious social comedy is a tour de force, at least in a minor way. [25 Oct. 1991, p.19]
    • Portland Oregonian
  25. 25th Hour
    An engaging if not riveting film based on David Benioff's adaptation of his own novel. It's not nearly Lee's best picture, and it's guilty of a few wrong turns that only a confident filmmaker could make, but it's assured and, perhaps more importantly, reassuring.
  26. The Fault in Our Stars
    The fault is not in the stars -- they're fine -- it's in the way they're put through what amounts to emotional overkill.
  27. 21 Jump Street
    It's a deeply uneven film that can't decide if it's a satire, a joke, a thriller or a heartstring-tugger, and in dithering in its tone and its aims it ultimately turns out to be none of the above.
  28. Redbelt
    Mike Terry's uncompromising fight for his principles makes for a fascinating, beautifully acted study in philosophical tension.
  29. Fair Game
    Fair Game, a murky potboiler based on memoirs by both Plame and Wilson, makes a hash of these piquant ingredients.
  30. World's Greatest Dad
    Yes, a comedy, however dark, about a parent taking advantage of a child's death is a tough sell. But with Williams more restrained and sympathetic than he's been in years (again, faint praise), and a final act that makes up for a ponderous first third, "Dad" shows that it can be done.
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