San Francisco Examiner's Scores

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For 928 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 49% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 47% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 4.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Movie review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Big Night
Lowest review score: 0 Luminarias
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 524 out of 928
  2. Mixed: 227 out of 928
  3. Negative: 177 out of 928
928 movie reviews
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  1. Matilda
    DeVito directed this wonderful fantasy about a brilliant little girl with strange powers and a sunny disposition. Using special effects DeVito creates a visual delight that seems more British than American partly due to the origin of the material and partly due to the playfulness of DeVito and writers Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord.
  2. Marcel Proust's Time Regained
    Ruiz has made the most ambitious adaptation of a Proust work yet.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    Exotica
    Exotica is a worthy addition to an increasingly rich body of work by one of our most prolific and accomplished international filmmakers.
  4. The Thomas Crown Affair
    McTiernan's film mines what substance it has from its two stars, but is admittedly about keeping up its own appearances.
  5. Aimee & Jaguar
    A guilty pleasure and one of the best films of the year.
    • San Francisco Examiner
  6. Men in Black
    The script by Ed Solomon is tight, well-paced and lighthearted. If this were a musical, Fred Astaire could have played the Jones role, although somewhat more dashingly.
  7. Pi
    Pi will not be for everyone, but for those who are fed up with the mainstream idiocy that gets dumped into theaters each summer, this movie willbe like a great big palate-clearing taste of sorbet.
  8. Welcome to Sarajevo
    The movie is well made by director Michael Winterbottom ("Jude"), with a minimum of overdramatics.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Waiting for Guffman
    Nowhere near as funny as "Spinal Tap," but fans of this kind of deadpan humor are guaranteed to get a few chuckles out of this one. All of the actors are marvelously horrible, and in this movie, bad equals good.
  10. Felicia's Journey
    The success of Felicia's Journey lies in the work of the steady and here understated Hoskins, who gives one of his best performances, and young Cassidy, who displays a weary maturity even through her deer-in-the-headlights character.
    • San Francisco Examiner
  11. The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack
    The ballad as it turns out is a duet between a dad and his girl, who'd often rather accentuate the positive than exploit pain, quietly proving that she is her father's daughter.
    • San Francisco Examiner
    • 72 Metascore
    • 63 Critic Score
    Death and the Maiden
    There's not much mystery here; there's only one outcome that could possibly make dramatic sense. And once you realize that, there's not much to do besides watch some very adept performers chew on their lines.
  13. Bringing Out the Dead
    An ecstatic sensory experience so overloaded it hardly matters that the narrative has been placed on a back burner.
  14. Mulan
    It's hard not to keep thinking that this movie is basically "Yentl" with a nose job.
  15. Kiss of Death
    Caruso doesn't leave much of a mark in the movie. On the smaller screen he smoldered. He seems to need the cramped space to seem sexy. The big screen isn't claustrophobic enough to pinch and squeeze the talent out of him.
  16. The Rainmaker
    Coppola again shines his intelligence on this bestseller material, rather than just shoving it through the Hollywood mill unsifted.
  17. The Ice Storm
    Leaves the audience on such a devastatingly dramatic ledge.
  18. Cry, the Beloved Country
    There isn't much to hold onto with this movie. If anything, Cry trivializes the plight of the South Africans in its breezy treatment of apartheid.
  19. Waking Ned Devine
    There's not a whole lot to Waking Ned Devine, but it may be enough for those who like their quirky comedies from the British Isles - a burgeoning genre now - both atmospheric and gentle.
  20. A Family Thing
    The film's premise is totally implausible yet great performances, directing and script allow us to transcend the concept of believability and enjoy nevertheless.
  21. Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown
    If the movie crumbles under its own stiffness at times, at least it has the two old pros' good performances to cheer us along the way.
  22. Chasing Amy
    The intention is there, but the needed emotional maturity isn't.
  23. Cookie's Fortune
    Meanders around Holly Springs, Mississippi, with the fuzzy benevolence of a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.
  24. The Big Lebowski
    It is a visual tour de force, but as a whole the movie slowly deflates into a cross between "Arizona" and "The Hudsucker Proxy".
  25. The Birdcage
    While Birdcage has many isolated funny moments, long bits of slowness interrupt the energy.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 75 Critic Score
    October Sky
    While this movie hasn't many surprises, it does offer strong performances, especially from Gyllenhaal.
  27. The Opportunists
    An engaging, well-written film that is surprisingly gentle in tone and easily paced.
  28. Benjamin Smoke
    It's the hypnotic long-form music video Smoke never got to make.
    • San Francisco Examiner
  29. That Thing You Do!
    It's as sunny as you would expect a Hanks project to be.
  30. Without Limits
    You would think Towne would identify closely with a big young talent who flames out too early. But when Pre turns to Mary and says, "I can endure more pain than anyone I ever met," it seems forced, empty. Towne just doesn't capture his subject.
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