TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: i rented " brokedown palace " last night blind , having heard nothing about it beforehand , and i enjoyed it immensely despite some flaws .
for anyone wishing to have the same experience i would suggest reserving judgement of the movie until viewing it in its entirety .
that is no easy task .
superficially , it bears an unfortunate ( and not necessarily unintended ) resemblance to several other movies , notably " return to paradise " and " midnight express .
" as a result nearly every review of " brokedown palace " i subsequently read became hopelessly entangled in making the obvious comparisons .
the consequence was nearly universal condemnation , which is a shame as
this is a fine film .
for those who have yet to view the movie , let me say that it is not an attempt to portray the nightmarish reality of the third world criminal justice system ( as was " midnight express " ) nor completely the moral dilemma and examination of the meaning of friendship and humanity that was the heart of " return to paradise .
" in my view , if this film is to be compared to any other source it would have to be joseph conrad 's acclaimed novel , " lord jim .
"
problematically , the basic storyline seems more than familiar : two american teenage girls on vacation are sentenced to spend most of their lives in a thai prison for drug smuggling in an obvious set - up involving a suave con - man , a shadowy criminal conspiracy and a corrupt third world " justice " system .
the girls are alice ( claire danes ) and darlene ( kate beckinsale ) .
they 're life - long buddies who planned a high - school graduation trip to hawaii , and then secretly changed their destination to the more exotic thailand without telling their parents .
once there , they find a $ 6 hotel and go sight - seeing , which includes sneaking into a luxury hotel to sip expensive drinks poolside .
they get caught trying to charge the bill to the wrong room , a minor transgression which will later come back to haunt them , but they are saved from hotel security by a charming , friendly australian , nick ( daniel lapaine ) , who takes care of the bill with a more polished execution of the girl 's scam .
he then proceeds to separate the girls and make smooth moves , first toward alice , then toward darlene .
by now alarm bells are going off among viewers .
the ever - present nick is too slick and his stories do n't add up ( to us ) --the girls , of course , are too naive to notice .
long before it happens , we 're anticipating the inevitable disappearance of the fast - talking smuggler and the arrest of our teenaged sitting - ducks at the airport en route to hong kong caught holding the bag ( literally ) containing heroin .
just as predictably , the thai police and courts do their part in meting out injustice and our trusting tourists are prison - bound for a long stretch .
left unanswered is the red herring issue of whether one or the other of the girls was a willing accomplice .
for those in need of a ready answer , might i suggest closer scrutiny of the bell hop at the girl 's fleabag hotel .
as one door after another to their comfortable former life is closed , the girls and their families turn in desperation to the noiresque expatriate lawyer / fixer " yankee hank " ( bill pullam ) and his thai - born partner - wife .
a recurring element of the movie is the tension between appearance and reality as expressed in one of the film 's tag lines , " who do you trust ? , " and hank is no exception although seasoned movie- goers and those familiar with pullman 's oeuvre will find few surprises .
much of the remainder of the movie is a smorgasbord of intriguing themes incompletely explored in short - hand fashion .
lou diamond phillips , for instance , plays a delightfully sinister and callous dea agent who , while appearing to be casually accommodating to hank , withholds vital information at crucial moments .
is he part of a wider conspiracy ? with an inherently powerful , if somewhat tired premise , the film offers by parts a riveting courtroom drama , a prison story , and a potential character study of american teens , their relationship , and what constitutes friendship between them .
the result is reasonably engaging and suspenseful , with the girls ' interaction , hank 's investigation , and the various trials and hearings , offering hope for their release , delivering tension -- as does the foredoomed possibility of their escape .
if " brokedown palace " has a major flaw , it is its creators ' tendency , like time - constrained tourists , to take frequent side trips down fascinating alleys only to reverse direction half - way down and return to the story 's main avenue .
and , if that were all there was to " brokedown palace , " it would n't be a very good movie .
but i believe the writers and director were after bigger game and , in this , they succeeded .
for the main theme of the movie , like the proffered name of its location , is freedom -- in all its permutations .
ultimately , the other sub - themes may be considered window dressing .
young and pretty , alice ( danes ) is an old soul ; a wild , streetwise teenager with a thirst for freedom and adventure .
presented as a perfect blend of yin and yang , dark and light , is her cautious best friend , darlene ( beckinsale ) .
clear - eyed and straightforward , alice is more complex than her friend .
she comes from a poorer background , has a reputation for getting into trouble and has lost the trust of everyone ( including her own father ) .
whereas darlene 's life is " on - track , " aimed at college , marriage , kids , a career , a suburban home , middle age and " fulfillment , " alice 's is uncertain , unfocused , and yearning .
one poignant scene in the film shows darlene shouting across an open moat to visitors -- friends and relatives from home , whose lives continue while hers is in limbo .
tellingly , alice is present but not included .
just as revealing of their different personalities , when alice and dar first come to thailand , the openness and delight on alice 's face does n't read as simple naivet ?
; the way she stands up and stretches as she and her friend ride along in a small boat , reaching toward the sun , she really is drinking in what she believes to be freedom , while " dar " remains seated in the shade .
"
brokedown palace " begins with an admission by alice of her guilt in a tape recording sent to hank .
however unintentional , it 's all alice 's fault .
she 's responsible for persuading her friend to lie to her parents , to sneak away from the safety of hawaii to the perils of thailand , to try the petty scam which places them in the clutches of the evil nick .
( in case one misses this point in the inevitable confusion of a film 's beginning , darlene obligingly reminds alice of her culpability in prison . )
dar , of course , is the willing dupe which , in her view , confers innocence .
never mind that it was her coercion of a reluctant alice to accompany her to hong kong which placed them in police custody in the first place or that her naive confession sealed their fate .
dar is innocent .
it does n't matter .
alice is the subject of this movie .
she and her journey toward personal freedom .
along the way we are treated to an unsympathetic portrait of the shallow american culture which created these girls with their half - baked sensibilities and materialistic goals .
in the end , that culture , like its representatives , " yankee " hank and dar 's father ( a " man who knows how to grease the wheels " ) , proves as impotent as its government in the face of the girl 's tragedy .
thailand 's culture , contrary to most opinion , comes off much better by comparison .
it amazes me that reviewers argued this point at both extremes .
i believe the filmmaker 's view was that thai culture is vastly different from the american but not necessarily inferior .
the thai ( with the sole exceptions of a corrupt official and a spiteful prison spy ) were uniformly consistent in their behavior and true to their principles .
the girls were shown to be treated no better but certainly no worse than the native - born .
their prison ( in stark contrast to the probable reality ) was no hellhole , being relatively clean and sunlit .
the prison authorities demanded good hygiene , provided medical care when needed , and " hard manual labor " consisted of picking grass !
the thai guards were authoritarian ( what else ? )
but certainly not routinely sadistic .
as for the thai justice system , the reasoning of the thai judges , during both an appeal hearing and in the film 's penultimate scene was devastating in its logic and morality .
' freedom ' has many faces and " brokedown palace " explores many of them .
in the extreme , we have freedom of the body and freedom of the spirit .
some settle for the former alone while others remain imprisoned with an entire nation to roam without the latter .
but freedom seldom comes without a price .
which is why the movie 's other tag lines are : " what is your dream ?
" and " how far would you go ?
"
i believe i could make a good case for the interpretation that the person who attains freedom , incarcerated or not , by film 's end is alice .
she finds redemption and salvation through the acceptance of personal responsibility .
i think the light bathing only her figure among the assembled prisoners in the final scene visually signals that fact .
kate beckinsale 's character might more properly be likened to the " released " temple bird referred to twice during the film , " trained to fly back to its cage .
" as the thai magistrate observed in the film 's climactic scene , the issue was always one of " character ; " and the jamaican prisoner made it clear that " freedom " is achieved within oneself . if one thinks back over the movie , which character was transformed by their experiences ?
increasingly , the cinema landscape seems to have become littered with endless permutations of ' kung fu woman'--female characters virtually indistinguishable from male action figures .
here , at last , is the story of a modern heroine .
in reading the many user 's comments , i was struck by what seems an unusual phenomenon : whether or not a person liked the movie ,
almost everyone praised the actors .
think about that .
when was the last time you came away from a motion picture possibly hating it , but raving about all the performances in it ?
do yourself a favor : rent " brokedown palace " and watch it with a open mind .
there 's more there than meets the eye .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: larry flynt is a self proclaimed smut pedlar and the owner / publisher of the multi - million dollar hustler publications company .
the people vs .
larry flynt is the story of larry flynt 's fight for the freedom to circulate and sell his pornographic magazine , hustler .
based on a true story , the film is almost a documentary in that it 's a very vivid and detailed look at larry flynt 's life .
woody harrelson gives an excellent performance .
he conveys flynt 's peculiarities and his character with depth and focus .
by the end of the film the audience actually finds themselves , somewhat grudgingly , liking larry flynt .
this is some feat given flynt 's apparent lack of any morals or ethics and his extremely smutty and childish behaviour in court .
however , flynt has a number of things going for him , he 's rich , he 's funny , and most importantly , he says exactly what he means .
larry flynt 's wife , althea leasure is played by courtney love .
larry meets althea at one of his clubs , and they fall in love ( a very sexual and open love ) .
both of them indulge in a world of too much sex , and eventually too much drugs .
flynt had been taking an excessive amount of pain killers after being paralysed from the waist down ( which was especially upsetting for him ) by an assassin .
althea had joined him in taking the drugs .
following an operation flynt decides to stop taking drugs , althea does not have any such plans , nor the determination to follow them .
as the film progresses we see her become increasingly frail and sick .
courtney love obviously has a great understanding for althea 's situation , as
she is brilliant in portraying althea in every respect .
it 's extremely sad to watch althea literally wither away .
edward norton plays flynt 's lawyer , alan isaacman .
again , this is a solid performance .
the audience finds it easy to sympathise with isaacman who somehow puts up with flynt 's courtroom antics .
flynt is not only childish in the courtroom , but downright rude to the judges , and lands himself in a lot of trouble ( and even in a mental institution ) because of it .
isaacman is very easy to like , and great at proving ( in quite clever ways )
his points to the court .
milos forman has done a great job in directing
the people vs .
larry flynt .
it is not really an exciting or thrilling film , but instead a highly interesting portrayal of a true story .
due to larry 's character it is also , at times , a very funny film .
however , it is much more than that .
it is about the fight for freedom of speech , anti - censorship , and the right to be able choose for oneself what to see and buy .
an excellent look at flynt , his life , and his story .
keep a look out for the real larry flynt who makes a cameo as judge morrissey .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: call me crazy , but i do n't see saving private ryan as the film of the summer . a good movie , yes , with chillingly realistic battle scenes and emotion to spare .
an utterly riviting movie on par with steven spielberg 's best work , no .
personally , if i was spielberg , i would n't go back to the world war ii era one more time after schindler 's list and the indiana jones movies .
i 'm guessing steve has a thing for nazis ; i really would n't be surprised if a velociraptor ate one of the swastika - wearing dudes in the next jurassic park movie .
all lofty pretenses aside , saving private ryan is the goriest movie this side of a 1980s slasher flick .
the difference is , it 's easy during friday the 13th to laugh off a spear sticking out of kevin bacon 's chest while blood spurts like crazy , but it 's damn hard to sit and eat reese 's pieces while soldiers suffer machine gun bullets to the head and have their intestines spilled out onto the battlefield .
and believe me , there 's plenty of it .
a 30-minute sequence at the beginning of the movie has an army captain ( tom hanks ) and his soldiers landing at omaha beach to join countless other americans who are already under fire .
lives are lost in seconds as the purposefully confusing and jarring scene goes on and on , and all the young men in the audience find themselves never , ever wanting to be drafted .
cut to some bureaucratic defense office , where a hundred women pound out sympathy form letters to the families of the casualties .
one woman happens upon an interesting detail -- three brothers in different platoons were killed in combat , and their mother is getting the telegram today .
i guess it 's an interesting conversation piece to everyone but the mother , so the army chief ( harve presnell ) sends hanks on what is essentially a public relations mission , to find the fourth ryan brother and send him home .
that way , the army saves the postage on yet another telegram to mrs .
ryan .
one good thing about saving private ryan is that the soldiers who are headed to rescue ryan know it 's a mission designed to make the army look good .
they question the worth of risking eight soldiers ' lives to save one , and hanks ' character admits he does n't give a damn about ryan ; he 's just following orders .
if this was a john wayne movie , things would be different .
there 'd be a phony , " let 's go get that boy , gosh darn it !
" attitude that would sugarcoat the reality of war .
by doing things this way , spielberg admits the instincts of self- preservation and complacency that every normal person has .
it makes saving private ryan a lot more powerful than an testosterone - driven stallone movie mission .
the movie 's pattern is to have long battle scenes followed by quiet scenes of semi - introspective conversation among the soldiers .
hanks is painted first as a nails - tough army man careful to hide his true self from the other men .
it 's not that way for long .
edward burns , the guy you get for your movie when ben affleck is n't available , is the impulsive one .
jeremy davies plays the translator who is seeing combat for the first time , and so on .
none of the characters are fascinating or natural born heroes , but was spielberg 's obvious intention .
i wondered when i heard saving private ryan was three hours long , how were they going to fill three hours ' time searching for one person and still make it interesting ?
there are a few false starts ; hanks finds one private ryan in ted danson 's company ( apparently , danson joined the army after " ink " was canceled . ) and breaks the bad news before learning it 's the wrong ryan .
and of course the movie 's far from over when hanks does locate ryan ( matt damon ,
the other guy you get when affleck is n't available ) .
that 's when the movie turns into more of a conventional war flick , although body parts and limbs still fly like never before .
saving private ryan is worth your time , but it 's definitely no schindler 's list .
the battle scenes are intense and realistic , but some of the attempts at sincere emotion are n't .
the movie 's bookends are particularly cheesy and out of place , when an old private ryan goes to the cemetary with his family and bawls his eyes out , whining , " tell me i 've led a good life .
tell me i 'm a good man .
" spielberg was apparently following the james cameron line of thought that any three - hour movie about the past should be framed by a self - contained prologue and epilogue that takes place in the present .
much more effective are subtler scenes , like the one where several of hanks ' men are rifling thrugh a bag of dogtags from dead soldiers , and they make light of what they 're doing by pretending they 're playing poker .
this while an airborne division marches by , their eyes full of that mound of dogtags .
by not explicitly pointing out that it symbolizes the random poker game that life and death can be in war , the audience gets the message .
and even if it 's not a classic , saving private ryan is definitely one of the better war movies out there .

SOLUTION:
P