In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

[EX Q]: this is crap , but , honestly , what older american audience is going to be able to resist seeing jack lemmon and james garner as bicker- ing ex - presidents ?
especially when their supporting players in- clude dan aykroyd as the current commander in chief , lauren bacall as a former first lady , and john heard as the dan quayle - ish vice president .
yup , you 're talkin ' pre - sold property here and , for warner brothers , the perfect fit into their now - ritual grumpy old men holiday slot .
for the non - discriminating viewer , my fellow americans is fine .
the raw star power alone will have audiences applauding this atrocious political- thriller road - comedy .
( they did in mine , heaven help us . )
for the rest of us , the movie is immediately tiresome .
the tone is terrible and the banter is worse .
forget
wit-- lemmon and garner merely exchange profanities through most of the movie .
( has anyone counted the number of first penis references ? )
sure , some of the bits are absurdly funny , including a men 's room macarena joke , the appearance of an elvis impersonator on a trainload of tarheels , and an all dorothy marching band performing " over the rainbow " at a gay men 's march .
the get there from here , though , you have to submit to one of the most offensively overbearing musical scores of all time .
judas priest , is there a single moment of silence in this film ?
even the dialogue gets drowned out .
what a waste .
[EX A]: N

[EX Q]: jonathan demme 's _ beloved _ , based on the book toni morrison , is a study in skillful literary adaptation .
on the one hand , the film manages to recreate key moments from the novel , evoking morrison 's pragmatic narrative style without using her authorial voice .
on the other hand , beloved omits the some of the finer details of the book , favoring an ambiguously defined back story upon which to build the story 's main events .
this choice is a smartly made one , for it creates an open space in which the story 's wide range of emotions can gestate and grow
.
indeed , the impact of the film is so protracted that much of it can not be felt until long after the end credits have rolled .
_ beloved _ takes place in the second half of the 19th century , during the so - called reconstruction era after the civil war .
for newly - freed slaves , it is a time of confusion and turmoil .
oprah winfrey is sethe , a slave who escaped a kentucky plantation and took her children to an ohio farmhouse , where she hoped the terror would end .
what she did not know was that it would follow her there , and remain with her long after the physical threat had vanished .
_ beloved _ ultimately tells the story of sethe 's search for forgiveness , one long - hampered by an unforgettable sin .
the film starts off on a dreary day ten years after sethe 's escape , as a violent , unseen energy rocks her dilapidated farmhouse .
invisible hands terrorize her family , flinging objects across rooms , shaking tables , rattling floorboards .
sethe 's sons run away , perhaps for good , leaving sethe and her daughter denver to fend for themselves .
demme 's matter - of - fact handling of this supernatural element is just one of _ beloved _ 's intriguing aspects .
all of the characters take for granted that ghosts are real .
when paul d ( danny glover ) -- a former slave who escaped kentucky along with sethe -- arrives at the house eight years later and is confronted with the ghost 's hellish visions , he does n't run in terror .
instead , he asks who the ghost is .
as in morrison 's novel , demme quickly establishes that the horror of the story will not come from the fact of the ghost itself , but from the terrifying past in which the ghost was created .
sethe is the one being haunted , but the ghost in the house is the least of her fears .
in fact , the ghost is one of the reasons she chooses to stay .
the story takes an bizarre turn with the appearance of beloved ( thandie newton ) , a young black - clad woman who appears on sethe 's front lawn , leaned christ - like against a tree stump .
sethe and denver immediately take to the rasping woman and try to nurse her to health .
they know not who she is , but that does n't matter .
only paul d is suspicious of the stranger .
little does the family know that beloved will bring about many changes , and force sethe to release a guilt she has held onto so urgently for eighteen years .
winfrey is arguably beloved 's greatest asset .
she inhabits the role of sethe
so convincingly it is hard to believe this is the same woman who shines brightly on a tv talk show .
lisa gay hamilton does an impressive job in the emotionally demanding role
as the younger sethe , whose appalling actions make her the disturbed woman we see eighteen years later .
danny glover is affable
as the sympathetic paul d , as is kimberly elise as denver , sethe 's wanderlusting daughter .
as sethe 's sage - like mother - in - law old baby suggs , beah richards
authoritatively commands every scene in which she appears .
the film 's least palatable choice of casting is unfortunately that of the role of beloved herself .
thandie newton plays the glassy - eyed girl with a demented fervor which is endearing at first , but which becomes off - putting and unintentionally laughable by the end .
departing from the honed aesthetic he used in such films as _ the silence of the lambs
_ and _ melvin & howard
_
, director demme has used a bit of dramatic overstatement to get across the vivid descriptions in morrison 's novel .
totemic camera shots and color - saturated scenery are decidedly uncommon in demme 's films , but the few he uses here work to the film 's benefit .
_ beloved _ 's most memorable scenes are those of baby suggs ' gatherings in a forest clearing , where the bright yellow - greens of nature entrance the viewer as much as suggs ' words do .
for the most part , though , demme maintains his trademark directorial neutrality .
this , combined with morrison 's equally frugal method of storytelling , may make _ beloved _ somewhat of a challenge to watch , even to those familiar with the book .
though the film compliments the book extraordinarily well
, it falls short in allowing the sort of accessibility one usually expects from a film .
nothing is spoon - fed to the viewer .
morrison 's novel is just as enigmatic , but unlike a movie , a book can be put down to allow the various undercurrents and themes to churn and absorb .
the movie begins like _ poltergeist _ , and ends like _ the color purple _ , with shades of _ the scarlet letter _ and _ little women
_ somewhere in the middle .
taken as a whole
, beloved is a disquieting , one - of - a - kind experience , one to be viewed with guards down and spirits in abeyance .
[EX A]: P

[EX Q]: in wonder boys michael douglas plays an aged writer \ professor with such lived - in naturalism that i believe it may be his best performance .
ever since wall street , douglas has spent the greater part of his career playing variations on the shark in a suit gordon gecko character he personified in the mid-80 's .
in those performances he tended to exaggerate the vehemence of cutthroat businessmen , with much frothing at the mouth while projecting all his bad intentions to the world .
you 'd think such a man would keep his evil wrapped tightly underneath a good - natured veneer , but from gordon gecko to nicholas van orton , douglas played the role straight and out in the open .
in wonder boys his performance is n't showy or a tour de force , it 's simple yet truthful .
he embodies grady , a craggy old writer with a predilection for pot and pink bathrobes .
grady instructs a writers workshop while working tirelessly on a follow up to the novel that put him on the map .
when we first encounter this curmudgeon in the midst of his workshop , we hear his sardonic narration on the soundtrack as students bombard one of their own with unfair criticisms .
grady points out , in his narration , that they only do so out of jealousy .
their target is the very writerly named james leer ( played by the always understated tobey maguire ) , a student full of potential and one whom grady develops a mild affection for .
leer is the kind of youth who seems to mechanically block out emotions .
he speaks in an intellectualized monotone with just a hint of dry wit around the edges .
he 's portentous and gloomy , as if modeling himself after the great depressed writers , though his act is a little too calculated .
he reminds me of the self - imposed outcast film director , jim jarmusch ( dead man , ghost dog ) .
whenever i happen to catch jarmusch in an interview i see the man speaking in a toneless manner ( the monotonous drawl supposedly masking depth or contempt for his interviewer ) , exclusively dressed in black , and with his spiked hair dyed snow white .
leer is similar , a guy who equates quirks with depth .
tobey maguire fits well in the role .
with his round , sweet - eerie face he resembles bud cort from harold and maude .
but unlike cort , maguire is easier to warm up to ; he 's a messed up kid reaching for artistic credibility .
katie holmes plays hannah , a beautiful , talented writing student just itching to get in grady 's pants .
this is a plot line i had trouble with .
douglas , in his old age , is beginning to resemble jerry springer , a man who has actually paid for sex on numerous documented occasions .
at first i found it extremely difficult to believe that someone as beautiful as hannah would desire grady ( maybe it 's because i 'm jealous , and wish holmes was throwing herself at me ,
after all i may just be a lowly internet critic but at least i still have all my teeth ) , then i think of douglas 's real life companion ,
the breathtaking catherine zeta jones .
seeing those two together looks a lot like a kidnapping .
suddenly my mind has shifted from the task at hand ( that being reviewing this completely wonderful movie )
and i 'm pontificating on why the hell jones would desire douglas .
there is a movie in there somewhere .
grady , rather chivalrously if you ask me , resists the charms of hannah for sara gaskell ( a droll frances mcdormand ) , who is his age , but also married to another professor .
okay , maybe not so chivalrous .
there is a great line in the film spoken by douglas about sara where he says , " she was a junkie for the printed word .
lucky for me
i manufactured her drug of choice " .
robert downy j .
r plays a bisexual editor who makes his entrance with a towering transvestite on his arm .
downy has mastered the gleefully dry hyper articulate wit of many a hipster intellectual .
he 's arrogant but completely likeable in his utter arrogance .
the actor is perfectly cast here , and remains a joyous movie presence
somewhere between a typical tom hanksian comic leading man and edgy character actor .
i wish wonder boys had more of him . searching for a plot among the elements of wonder boys would be pointless , for it meanders through its running time , but
that 's part of its charm .
and maybe i 'm a bit biased towards the film because it takes place in a haven of literary academia , a place i 'm greatly fond of , and a place rarely explored in american cinema .
everyone has a sub - genre ( be it war films , westerns , dance movies ) that they happen to be privy to .
i 'm privy to films about literary types i .
e .
those individuals enthralled by the written word , and if you are not so inclined it may be wise to knock my above grade down about half a notch .
the direction by curtis hanson is more akin to a european film with its leisurely pace and situations that grow from the characters , rather than generic mapped out story points .
sometimes the dialogue is too clever , but that 's a problem i wish i found with films more often .
another minor quibble is that early on the film seems a bit too introverted , like its characters , but as the story progresses it begins to open up .
for me wonder boys works as subtle drama because of its insight into artistic types , and as a low - key comedy for its chuckle - worthy throwaway gags .
the gags are like those in the great robert altman ( m * a
* s
* h , the long goodbye ) movies , where jokes exist as asides on the fringes , like jokes in life often do .
the broader comedy such as the killing of a blind dog , and incessant smoking of marijuana is n't ineffective but not nearly as memorable as the little things .
curtis hanson , who before his last film , la confidential , toiled about with exploitation fare like losin ' it ( an early tom cruise sex comedy ) and the hand the rocks the cradle , has graduated to more meaningful films .
he directs wonder boys in an appropriately dour style , the comedy coming from the false gloom his characters put up .
the morose crooning of leonard cohen would seem an odd song for the background of any party , but in a wonder boys party ,
it fits .
the film is like a piece of literature put up on the big screen .
it 's the cinematic equivalent to a good read , novelistic in its approach with themes rarely found in american movies .
many will find it slight , but i found much to savor among its subtleties .
[EX A]:
P