Lisa Alspector, Chicago Reader
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For 529 reviews, this critic has graded:
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44% higher than the average critic
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2% same as the average critic
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54% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 7.7 points lower than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Lisa Alspector's Scores
- Movies
| Average review score: | 52 |
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| Highest review score: |
Critic Score
100
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| Lowest review score: |
Critic Score
0
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 168 out of 529
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Mixed: 233 out of 529
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Negative: 128 out of 529
529
movie reviews
- By critic score
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Lisa Alspector 50
An open-mindedness in the plotting of this romantic comedy set on Ireland's Donegal coast adds a couple of mild surprises to the story. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
This spiritual thriller is too wooden to be taken as seriously as was clearly intended. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Pales in comparison to the controversial "Life Is Beautiful"--a more provocative fiction, if only because it's even less realist. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
This atmosphere-heavy drama, with its comfortably quirky characters, elegant performances, and ever shifting tone, is so innocuous it's not worth panning. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
For all the high-tech allusions and middle-tech illusions, the movie--the 23rd in an immortal series--draws its power from its grittiness and unresolved allegory. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The lesson of this barely stylish crime thriller is that a dull story is not improved by withholding information about characters' motives from the audience as long as possible. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The shtick based on whether other people understand him is subtle enough for 79 minutes. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The coincidences that make the destined lovers' paths cross aren't contrived with much finesse, but the characters get in some decidedly clever lines. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Too dry to be very funny and too contrived to be outrageous, this movie has a tone so unusual it almost seems to have none at all. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
It's a bitter story played for humor, in which a callous character is never quite allowed to see herself as such. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The filmmakers realize that playing baseball isn't nearly enough to fix what's wrong in these kids' lives, which might have made a more provocative ending than what follows. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Time-travel cliches, female characters who exert authority only so we'll laugh at the pussy-whipped males, dialogue that's neither self-mocking nor serious, and an ostentatious though not particularly exciting production design keep the movie from taking off. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Self-congratulatory feature, which artificially exalts the character--a classic saint with clay feet--by casting a grande dame and by reducing her motives to facile psychodrama -
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Lisa Alspector 50
This concept comedy-drama would be even better if the intercutting among households had been timed to add dramatic content rather than simply advance the subplots. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The consistency with which the plot turns on characterization instead of contrivance makes this movie better than many of its supposedly grown-up competitors. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
This romantic comedy turns stereotypes inside out as the main character, whose sense of commitment is represented by a tattoo on her finger instead of a wedding ring. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Big laughs are few and far between in this 1998 movie, which is more successful as motivational anecdote than as comedy. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The twists and revelations of this rigorous noir reduce it to canned psychodrama. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The filmmakers seem to think they can also manipulate us by combining the erotic with the disgusting. And they can--it's a foolproof tactic. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Labyrinthine yet oversimple, the story seems to hide a more provocative one. But perhaps this is the nature of the beast. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Demands to be treated with conviction as parody if not as science fiction. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The makers of this eclectically animated adventure, a follow-up to "The Rugrats Movie," know their audience, though all the "Godfather" references will be thoroughly puzzling to at least half of it. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
An effects vehicle disguised as a metaphysical meditation (or a metaphysical meditation disguised as an effects vehicle?), this strikingly unimaginative 1998 movie contains visuals that can barely assert their niftiness amid the vacuous themes. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
This mild thriller's consistently dark atmosphere makes the scene-of-the-crime tableaux...transcend exploitation and even suggest a kind of feminist odyssey. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
Because so many female characters spend so much time trying to seduce Harrelson (usually successfully), the notion that multiplicity enhances intrigue is pretty worn out by the time any duplicity is revealed. -
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Lisa Alspector 50
The final image, a minimalist evocation--perhaps a compromise for an unmarketable ending--puts an intriguing spin on everything that's come before it. -
