TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: there are movies that pose a question in its first five minutes and spend the rest of the time trying to answer it .
then there are movies that spend the whole time posing questions and try to answer it all in the last five minutes .
writer - director john herzfeld 's two days in the valley falls into the latter category .
weaving together a grabbag of seemingly unrelated characters
, herzfeld 's tries very hard to keep the audience guessing with a altmanesque series of parallel stories .
hitmen lee ( james spader ) and his partner dosmo ( danny aiello ) pop a guy in bed while leaving his drugged wife becky fox ( teri hatcher ) lying next to him showing the audience where on her behind
she got nicely pricked .
an understandeably shocked becky runs out of the house the next morning before hailing down a couple of vice cops , ( jeff daniels ) and wes ( eric stoltz ) .
a murder is not vice territory , flirting with asian prostitues is , but wes would rather play inquisitive detective .
meanwhile , washed - up director , teddy ( paul mazursky ) is about to end his life .
but before he can do that , he must find a good home for his dog .
enter nurse audrey ( marsha mason ) , who takes the dog and teddy for a ride .
stuffy art dealer , allan hopper ( greg cruttwell ) has kidney stones .
while struggling about his fancy house , he switches between moaning in self - pity and dropping condescending hints about his loyal secretary 's ( glenne headly ) plain appearance .
do n't be surprised if you find yourself asking more than once just what the hell is going on .
you might like that feeling of cluelessness .
herzfeld does answer all the questions in the course of time and pieces it all rather neatly in the last five minutes .
the jigsaw puzzle assembled is n't stunning by any means though .
the characters lack the stature or moral complexity of altman 's real - life heroes in short cuts , even though they are interesting and funny .
funny , that is if you are n't comparing them to the likes of tarantino 's pulp chcaracters .
the tie - up is tidy but nowhere near the squeaky clean resolution of ( director 's name ?
guy who also did last seduction ) red rock west .
two days is n't a bad movie but there is n't much else to it than the screenplay novelty of the linkage of seemingly unrelated characters .
it 'll keep you guessing alright
but you wo n't remember the answers five minutes after the credits .
the flying inkpot rating system :
* wait for the tv2 broadcast .
*
* a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha !
*
* * pretty good , bring a friend .
*
*
* * amazing , potent stuff .
*
*
*
* * perfection . see it twice .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: that 's exactly how long the movie felt to me .
there were n't even nine laughs in nine months .
it 's a terrible mess of a movie starring a terrible mess of a man , mr . hugh grant , a huge dork .
it 's not the whole oral - sex / prostitution thing ( referring to grant , not me ) that bugs me , it 's the fact that grant is annoying .
not just adam sandler - annoying , we 're talking jim carrey - annoying .
since when do
eye flutters and nervous smiles pass for acting ?
but , on the other hand , since when do really bad slapstick ( a fistfight in the delivery room culminating in grant 's head in joan cusack 's lap -- a scene he paid $ 60 to have included in the movie ) and obscene double entendres ( robin williams , the obstetrician , tells grant 's pregnant girlfriend she has " a big pussy , " referring of course to the size of the cat hairs on her coat , but nonetheless , grant paid $ 60 to have the exchange included in the movie ) pass for comedy ?
nine months is a predictable cookie - cutter movie with
no originality in humor or plot .
hugh grant plays a successful child psychiatrist .
why a child psychologist ?
so the scriptwriters could inject the following unfunny exchange :
kid : my dad 's an asshole .
grant ( flutters eyelashes , offers a nervous smile , then responds in his annoying english accent and i - think - i - actually - have- talent attitude ) : could you possibly elaborate on that ?
kid :
my dad 's a _ huge _ asshole .
more like a hugh asshole , but that 's beside the point , which is : nine months includes too many needlessly stupid jokes that get laughs from the ten year olds in the audience while everyone else shakes his or her head in disbelief .
so , anyway , grant finds out his girlfriend is pregnant and does his usual reaction ( fluttered eyelashes , nervous smiles ) .
this paves the way for every possible pregnancy / child birth gag in the book , especially since grant 's equally annoying friend 's wife is also pregnant .
the annoying friend is played by tom arnold , who provides most of the cacophonous slapstick , none of which is funny , such as a scene where arnold beats up a costumed " arnie the dinosaur " ( you draw your own parallels on that one ) in a toy store .
the only interesting character in the movie is played by jeff goldblum , who should have hid himself away somewhere after the dreadful hideaway , as an artist with a fear of ( and simultaneous longing for ) commitment .
not even robin williams , who plays a russian doctor who has recently decided to switch from veterinary medicine to obstetrics , has much humor .
his is a one - joke character--
the old foreign - guy - who - mispronounces - english stereotype ( did someone say yakov smirnov ?
that 's my favorite vodka , by the way ) , hence the line
" now it 's time to take a look at your volvo ,
" another nasty but unamusing joke , except this one goes right over the ten year olds ' heads , while the adults simultaneously groan .
nine months is a complete failure , low on laughs and intelligence and high on loud , unfunny slapstick , failed jokes and other uninspired lunacy .
hugh grant 's sunset boulevard arrest ( please , no caught - with - his - pants - down jokes ) may bring more people into the theaters , but they certainly wo n't leave with a smile on their faces , not after 90 minutes of grant 's nervous smiles .
everything in the movie is so forced , so unauthentic that anyone with an i .
q . over 80 ( sorry , hugh ) will know
they wasted their money on an unfulfilled desire .
but at least they did n't spend 60 bucks for it .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: available in an all new video edition from arrow entertainment ( $ 29 . 95 ) , with an introduction by david carradine , written & produced by wayne j .
keeley f .
w .
murnau 's career ended sadly and prematurely .
the german director of such classics as " sunrise " and " the last laugh " died in a car accident shortly after signing a deal to make american pictures at paramount .
murnau was reportedly a giant man , well over six feet , a towering figure probably incapable of anything but a grand entrance . which brings us to " nosferatu : a symphony of horror " : surely he felt a kinship with his title character , the looming vampire embodied by intimidating max schreck ; in one of the most indelible images in film history , silent or otherwise , schreck rises from his grave , gnarled hands outstretched , and he 's so big that part of his head is cropped by the top of the frame .
the plot of " nosferatu . . .
" is lifted -- unauthorized -- from bram stoker 's " dracula " .
the british hutter is an eager real estate man assigned to visit and discuss future living arrangements with count orlock of transylvania .
he leaves behind girlfriend emily , only to discover orlock 's secret -- he 's a bloodsucker -- and struggle to return to england before the nosferatu reaches his lady love .
in addition to schreck 's performance , the cinematography and effects are outstanding .
arrow video 's digitally remastered version of the classic is something of a mixed - coffin .
the cover art features a red - tinted , hairy , goateed vampire staring straight at you , his fanged mouth agape , while the bodies of two sexy , writhing women entice you below .
trouble is , murnau 's monster is pale - faced , bald , pointy - eared , and non - goateed , and there is n't a single sexy , writhing woman to be found in his movie .
this sort of misleading packaging makes little sense when one recalls the countless number of ghouslish scenes in the film from which cool cover art could have been extracted .
additionally , notifying the viewer that this is in fact murnau 's film seems like afterthought since his name and the genuine title are written in small print below our goateed vampire .
that said , a good mastering job has been performed on the film itself .
the original elements are not in the best condition -- non - studio silents were unlucky in their preservation-- so we 're still dealing with a slightly washed out , scratched , jittering image .
but at least the day and night scenes are tinted sepia and blue , respectively , especially helpful to an audience who may question nosferatu 's waltzing around during what seems like sunlight ( it took a lot of light to expose stock in the twenties ) .
the title cards have been redone , and they are legible , accurate , and digitally altered to flicker -- a very nice touch .
( even the opening copyright warning flickers ! )
the score has been replaced by music from type o negative , a hard - rock group , arguably gothic , and their songs underscore the film nicely--
certainly the coolest video a band can ask for .
when our hero , hutter , first steps onto the doomed carriage to count orlock 's castle
, we hear a well - timed " now you 're dead ! " from lead singer peter steele .
david carradine makes an appropriately vampiric host ; he fiddles with a blade and cane while introducing the film .
after the feature , which runs about 63 minutes , is included a new music video from type o negative , the black - and - white fang - fest " black no . 1
" .
of course , " nosferatu : a symphony of horror " is the main attraction , and while my latest viewing raised questions ( why is the woman called emily in the title cards but
" mina " --as bram stoker called her -- in hutter 's letters ? , for instance ) , it made me realize how much this movie has inspired and been stolen from .
coppola 's 1992 " bram stoker 's dracula " owes a great stylistic debt to murnau 's masterpiece , but the one thing it could n't thieve was the original 's abstract charms .
this latest incarnation from arrow will probably-
-like the rescored " metropolis " a few years back -- turn a silent film into more palpable entertainment for the latest generation of film freaks .

SOLUTION:
P