San Francisco Chronicle's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
For 9,302 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 52% higher than the average critic
  • 2% same as the average critic
  • 46% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 2.2 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Mansfield Park
Lowest review score: 0 Speed 2: Cruise Control
Score distribution:
9302 movie reviews
  1. The laughs, including the big laughs, keep coming right up to the closing seconds.
  2. Campbell's admirers will probably enjoy the documentary, but I don't think it will do much for anyone else.
  3. Trespass never advances beyond being a grand manipulation.
  4. The curdled Norwegian comedy-drama Happy, Happy, which dissects a pair of poisoned marriages, is sometimes heavy-handed (like its title) but has much to recommend it.
  5. Instead of concealing it, I'll just come out and say that I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about this well-acted and gracefully directed movie, but for reasons that might be called philosophical.
  6. Those who should go near The Big Year, if not flock to it, are fans of avians, mild PG comedy and gorgeously shot travel footage dotted with humans.
  7. Blackthorn imagines a scenario for Butch's later years and gives us a different kind of Western - somber, reflective and set in the elevated plains and salt flats of Bolivia.
  8. It's an imperfect facsimile, guilty of borrowing too many ideas from the earlier film, and then executing them with differing results.
  9. The new Footloose does everything it needs to do. It's a vibrant youth musical that will appeal to audiences who haven't seen the 1984 original. And it has enough charm and life to it to compete with the memory of the earlier version.
  10. Your heart will go out to Shlain, who clearly adored her father. But other parts of Connected may remind you of an Al Gore lecture.
  11. In just a short period of time, a weekend hookup tests the boundaries each man has set for himself.
  12. Chan, though, is very good in an all-dramatic role as a rebel general. There's lots of battle scenes, well-filmed, but only one martial arts scene. It seems out of place, but is most welcome nonetheless.
  13. If the movie ends too abruptly, it still gives plenty of screen time to its nicely screwed-up central character. And it's still a solid, assured feature debut from the latest brothers to watch.
  14. Watching this movie is like eating a hot fudge sundae and lasagna in alternating bites.
  15. A half hour before the finish, Margaret loses altitude and starts looking for a place, any place, to land. Instead it crashes, in slow motion. But up until then, Margaret is committed and unusual.
  16. Take Shelter has a problem, the simplest of all problems but no less serious for its being simple. It's a film without suspense and with a slow-moving story that unfolds without surprise or embellishment.
  17. If you can get past the ridiculousness of the setup - easy to do, because the posters make it clear this isn't a Woody Allen movie - it's pretty much impossible not to have fun.
  18. There is no point in discounting smart, engrossing entertainment like The Ides of March, though it's hard not to notice when a film that could have been great falls short.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Despite a too slow pace for my own tastes, Hauer helps move the film along by being captivating even in just a few scenes. He, Michael York as a businessman and Charlotte Rampling as the Virgin Mary provide what little dialogue exists in a screenplay that could have used a little more backstory.
  19. I've seen many films about Italy, but this one - possibly because it's so colorful and stylized and possibly because the songs are such economical distillations of a state of mind - feels like being there.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Sarah Palin -You Betcha! is probably the scariest movie you will see all year.
  20. There's no greater meaning to any of this, and the slapstick turns won't seem particularly ambitious to anyone who grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons.
  21. We are told at the film's beginning that we are about to see a "diary of suffering," and it is that, but the effect, after four-and-a-quarter hours, is exhilarating.
  22. She's hopeless, he's hopeless, and this movie is just ghastly.
  23. Is he a hero or a lunatic? He's possibly neither, or possibly a little of both, but this is the problem with making a movie about a real person.
  24. Just as essential is Seth Rogen, as Adam's best friend. Rogen isn't even 30 yet, but he is already an important actor - not just because he's popular but because he best embodies this particular comic moment.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    3
    Despite its fascinating and humorous moments, one can't help but be frustrated when at times it switches away to spiritual pretentiousness.
  25. City of Life and Death, a stunning re-creation of the Japanese army's annihilation of Nanking in 1937, will make you flinch, even as you admire its brilliant black-and-white cinematography, breathtaking art design and unerring direction.
  26. Interesting and often compelling, and a must-see for organic food zealots.
  27. Sometimes the film, even if it's a "mixtape," bites off more than it can chew, delving into the Attica Prison uprising, heroin addiction and the Vietnam War. But all in all, this film will give you a new perspective on the past - and the present.

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