Task: Sentiment Analysis
Input (English): Promising Debut . Small town America... only this isn't the pleasant and white-picketed small town America of film noir fame, it's the gray and colorless small town America of neo-noir, and there's the man on the sidewalk looking like a lost bum to prove it.  A bum who's being approached by that famous "Man in a Black Trenchcoat"...    Hard Eight (AKA Sydney, but I've yet to see a version of it anywhere that actually claims that title) is a debut pretty much as promising as Blood Simple to the brothers Coen.  Paul Thomas Anderson immediately sets out to give us only the best, with actors he wants to make famous and a script that has characters doing almost nothing we want (or expect) them to do, but who yet remain completely sympathetic throughout.    Anderson also uses neo-noir color to great effect, allowing red and blue to do what harsh black and white contrast is supposed to do in classical noir.  That said, Anderson still knows where the majority of the talent lies, and despite the long takes and steady-cam shots that would develop into those dizzying long takes from later movies, he focuses most of his time on the characters' faces, and just lets them be.    If he hadn't already done the amazing and always stunning later work of Magnolia, Boogie Nights, and Punch Drunk Love, I'd say that this is a "promising debut that makes me impatient for the next Anderson picture to come out," but since he does now have four classics notched into his belt, I must say, "See this to see Anderson at his roots," and "Man I can't wait for his next feature!"    --PolarisDi
Output (English): POS