instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
well i guess it 's that time of the year again .
the one time of the year where movie craftors are exonerated from the need to even * try * writing a script that has more dialogue than explosions .
it 's also the best time for the handful of existing bigtime hollywood mr action heroes to dust off their miniscule vocabularies , pull on their black vests and charge onto our screens tersely expirating what they hope will become memorable catchphrases .
in america they call this time " summer " and it happens once every year .
and maybe it 's the exposure to all that nasty sun that does it , but in the process normally weak , insipid lines like " consider this a divorce , " " hasta la vista , baby , " and " you 're the disease .
i 'm the cure
" actually do end up being repeated more often then the phrases from my book of biblical proverbs .
this is not entirely a bad thing , of course .
what am i talking about ?
i 'm talking about the summer " blockbusters , " the " action thrillers , " the " this - obviously - cost - a - lot - so - you - know- everyone's - going - to - go " explosions , gas threats , flying saucers , and special effects .
in the rash of " my , what big guns you have , but wait !
mine are bigger " movies , there are also the usual boy - meets - fish - and - saves - environment movies ( or whale , whatever ) , and * this * year , the odd crop of " save - the - world - from - aliens - or - environment- threats " offerings .
i 'm talking about the three batmans , the speeds , the terminators , etc .
this year i 'm talking about twister , independence day , the arrival , the rock , mission : impossible , and of course , eraser .
here in singapore , as our local movie critics like to whine , we seem to get the pick of the crop of " my explosion is more real - looking than yours " movies , but nothing else .
mission : impossible opened in our theatres almost as soon as it did in the us .
the same goes for eraser , which is unfortunate for arnold schwarzenegger because coming so soon after what time magazine recently called " mission : unavoidable " ( on account of its worldwide mega - advertising blitz ) , eraser seems like a cheaper , less thoughtful imitation
.
that 's saying a lot , because mi the movie was already a cheap , thoughtless imitation of its tv originator of the ' 60s/'70s .
in eraser , arnie is a us federal marshall who relocates trial witnesses whose testimonies place their lives in danger .
he does this by destroying all evidence of their present existence and re - situating them with new identities .
his new case is lee cullen , played by vanessa williams who , unlike all the other scumbags he 's ever relocated , is " an actual , real life honest person .
"
because she 's so good , and has such nice legs , arnold spends the whole movie trying to protect her , and only uses the opening movie sequence to save robert pastorelli from * his * killers .
lee obtains evidence that the high - technology weapons company she works for is secretly selling sophisticated , black - market arms to people with foreign accents and stringy hair .
of course , as the formula goes , her revealing this information will destroy the system as we know it because heck , there are people in high places who will go down with this , because yes , this is the biggest conspiracy in the history of the world ( that is , america ) since watergate .
in protecting lee , arnold is framed by the mentor - turned - evil robert deguerin , nicely played by james caan , and ends up having to prove that he is n't the one killing the programme 's witnesses in addition to making sure lee is n't accidentally torpedo - ed to death by the new , green guns his enemies all have .
it 's around this time that people in the theatre with me starting humming the mission : impossible theme , because arnie 's mission includes breaking into a high - security building to run a disk .
i guess i should tell you more about the particular gun everyone in this movie is so antsy about .
it 's an electro - magnetic pulse gun thing which fires aluminium missiles , and which can see through walls .
it has some sort of x - ray vision , so its user can target the victim 's heart even from great distances .
despite this , which i figure is a pretty cool feature in a gun ( though i 'm certainly no expert ) , however , arnold , whose own heart is targeted a number of times ,
* never * goes flying 10 feet backwards with a two - foot missile through his chest like all the others who get shot by this gun .
instead he outruns and outsmarts his trackers each time , giving eery and ironic resonance to that terminator line that practically made him famous
: " i 'll be back .
"
like everyone else in the theater , i left the movie feeling that the trailers had duped me , because they made me want to watch this movie voluntarily .
although there is a * lot * of violence in this movie , not to mention mutilation and some bloody tussles with alligators ,
i recommend this movie to most over-18s who need some therapeutic mindless action to get over the weirdness of fargo or the hangover effect of leaving las vegas .
review 's rating system :
* wait for the video .
*
* a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha !
*
* * pretty good , bring a friend .
*
*
* * amazing , potent stuff .
*
*
*
* * perfection . see it twice .
answer:
N


question:
it 's a shame
the execution of this concept falls very short of its premise .
the movie is lacking and most unsatisfying .
osmosis jones is crude , gross , disgusting , and was directed by the farrelly brothers - the twisted siblings behind there 's something about mary , me , myself and irene and a couple of other movies in which the humor is mostly targeted below the belt .
not that there 's anything wrong with scatology .
i bet even cavemen appreciated bathroom humor - such as it was .
it 's merely that with osmosis jones , the farrellys humor is too juvenile , too predictable .
you can almost foresee the puns just by viewing the part of the inner anatomy a sequence is drawn .
osmosis jones looks like one of those old health class movies gone psycho .
the trouble is , the animation may please the very young , but the jokes may be over their heads , while the teen - age audience may find it too tame for their tastes .
adults ?
well , let 's just say most will find it unappetizing
.
osmosis jones plays like a 100-minute infomercial for the eat healthy foods lobby .
the live action sequences revolve around frank ( bill murray ) , who seems to be the grungiest human being in the universe .
he continually looks as if he needs a shave and a shower .
frank , much to the consternation of his daughter , is a fast - food addict , eating anything - and everything - that can kill you .
he works at a zoo where the animals look cleaner - and presumably smell better - than he does .
frank 's body is invaded by thrax , a lethal virus , after frank eats a hard - boiled egg that had fallen to the ground .
it 's not gross enough that frank picks the egg up from the dirt and plops it into his mouth .
nope , the farrellys pile it on by first having frank wrestle a chimp for the egg , wresting it from the primate 's mouth .
like i said , the gross meter tips the scales on this one .
after ingesting the egg , the movie begins its animated sequences .
here , osmosis jones ( voiced by chris rock ) , a renegade white blood cell is teamed with drix ( voiced by frasier 's david hyde pierce ) , a 12-hour , painkiller cold capsule to battle thrax ( smoothly voiced by laurence fishburne ) .
basically , what we have is a cliched cop - buddy movie , rife with all the clich ?
s of that genre .
and this is why osmosis jones does n't click .
it merely falls back on tired , familiar conventions instead of creating new and exciting situations .
the jokes and puns are lame
: osmosis searches out a snitch , a former flu virus .
after pumping him for information , drix tells osmosis , " funny , he does n't look fluish .
"
and the jokes do n't rise above that level .
the live action scenes are no better .
frank is such a slob , so unappealing that it is difficult to fathom how he ever married or even sired a child .
he 's almost a bigger cartoon than the animated characters .
osmosis jones is a movie that may be too violent for young children as thrax burns and dissolves blood cells right and left .
the animation is rather two - dimensional and flat .
it lacks scope and depth .
it is an unappealing movie that will leave you scratching your head , and maybe leaning toward a shower after you walk out of the theater .
answer:
N


question:
since most movies about slavery shield us from the true horrors of what they 're portraying , it 's fitting to say that " beloved " come as a real shock as a film .
it 's confusing , bizarre , and as tough a film to watch as any film i 've seen all year , and that 's not necessarily because of the three - hour running time .
" beloved " is challenging to watch , filled with tough and powerful poetry
that takes us completely off guard , and instead of a straight - forward , hollywood - ized story about what happened to the slaves after they were freed , " beloved " comes off as a cry of anguish from all those who actually lived through what happened ( or , rather , toni morrison , who wrote the novel upon which this is based ) .
" beloved " tells the story of an ex - slave named sethe , played by oprah winfrey , who lives on a large farm in the north with her children .
when the film opens , her house is being terrorized by a poltergeist , which shakes things up , wounds the dog , and makes things generally uncomfortable for the family .
sethe is proud , though , and will not move .
her sons run away , leaving only her and her daughter , denver ( kimberly elise ) alone with the ghost which is there without any factual explanation .
a couple years pass , and the ghost remains , and one day , a man named paul d ( danny glover ) , another ex - slave who knew sethe years ago when they worked on a plantation together , arrives , asking for lodging .
he has been wandering around since he left the plantation , and when he enters the house , it turns red and becomes incredibly hot .
when he remarks about what he thinks is evil , sethe replies " it ai n't evil .
it 's just sad .
"
some more time passes , and paul d has become a fervent member of the household , and the ghost disappears .
but when they return one day from going out , they discover a young woman sitting in the house .
her name is beloved , and as played by thandie newton , she has almost zero motor skills .
she stumbles around , half - grabbing onto things and knocking them over , and when she speaks , she lets out a low guttural sound that eventually turns into baby talk .
they let her into her house , and she begins to turn things upside down .
" beloved " acts like an incredibly difficult chamber drama paired with a ghost story .
most of the scenes consist of people arguing in one claustrophobic , low - lit room , with the occasional flash to the past , where we see images of such horror that we thank god for modern - day psychoanalysts .
sethe and paul d have lived through such hellish times that they are forever implanted with the memories of their slavehood on the old plantation , which includes such images as sethe being raped by the white plantation hands , with her nipples being licked , prompting her to cry out to paul d when reminiscing about it , " they took my milk !
" worst of all was the month after her freedom , when she was allowed to live like a free person , working with other blacks on a farm , and then seeing that her old plantation owners have arrived to presumedly take her and her children back .
she runs to the barn near by , carrying her four children , and when her old owners burst in , they discover she has murdered one of them and is ready to murder the rest of them if they do n't leave them alone .
when she is inquired about this moment by paul d in a moment halfway through the film , she says she does n't regret it .
she killed her daughter so that she would not have to live through the horror she did , and she has convinced herself she did the right thing .
of course , beloved is really her daugher materialized , though we are n't flat out
told that until later on in the film .
beloved represents the pain and suffering the slaves went through and shows how difficult it was for them to deal with their freedom after being tortured for so long .
thus , " beloved " becomes
a sorta - redux of the andrei tarkofsky sci - fi classic , " solaris , " where a cosmonaut discovers that his wife , who commited suicide years before , has materialized when he is orbiting over a planet with a complex brain system .
that film spoke volumes about humanity and our memories , how we are constantly regretting what happened in the past , and when if it ever literally came back to haunt us , it would control us completely .
" beloved " moves along freely , without a lot of explanation , and
for the most part , this is extremely respectable .
the most interesting films are the ones that do n't explain everything for us , leaving gaps in the characters that we are supposed to fill in with how they act in the present tense .
sethe is never fully explained as a character , but we understand all her actions since she 's being played by oprah winfrey .
it 's been well over a decade since her last major performance in " the color purple , " but judging from these two films , i 'll bet she 's one of the best actresses working today
.
. . if she was strictly an actress .
her talk show , which i suppose is a great entity , has prevented her from becoming a noteworthy actress , and that 's a shame because she brings so much to this movie .
emotion .
sadness .
strength .
watching the strong sethe , who 's so afraid of the past that she 's built a rather strong protective coating around herself , break down when she discovers who beloved really is is what makes this movie really great .
she makes it real .
that 's not to say this is a perfect film .
in fact , i 'd wager to say that the fact that it 's confusing and painful to watch is what prevents this from being the truly great film it is .
while oprah 's performance is powerful and easily sympathetic
( and i 'm dying to see her win at least an oscar nomination
this february ) , the structure of the film , which does n't show what happened to her children till halfway through the film , prevents us from really making a cohesive connection to the film .
it does n't necessarily move as though they 're memories of one particular character , and by the end , it has lost control over sethe , and as she takes to bed , we are unable to truly identify with her anymore .
but despite its tediousness , perhaps that 's the point .
the distancing by the end of the film may be just part of the way it has been built from the start , since they figure she has crossed over from being identifiable , and it needs to get back with reality .
and for the most part , this film seems like the cry of pain from the slaves that it really wants to be .
jonathan demme 's direction is bizarre , in nature with the story , and he creates the right mood , making it a tough film to sit through , making sure that the audience feels as uncomfortable as the characters .
there 's more to admire here , like the way that the flashbacks pop up freely and without real organization , just like they would be in real life ; and the way that the ending leaves it somewhat open to more pain and suffering , but laced with a touch of optimism .
the acting , not only from winfrey , is amazing , and i anticipate not only she will get an oscar nomination .
everyone has been raving about thandie newton 's performance , and how it should be rewarded .
however , it must be noted that out of everyone , she had the easiest part .
act like a baby .
throw things .
stumble around .
chew food with your mouth open .
i do think there 's another performance worthy of oscar conisderation , but it 's kimberly elise , as the daugher who has to stay sensible and sane , and has to carry the burden of her mother 's loss of reality towards the end .
it 's not that newton is n't great : she 's as annoying and wacky as the role demands .
it 's just that elise has the tougher job and pulls it off even better .
despite the fact that this film has winfrey written all over it , and not that of writer morrison or director demme , " beloved " has still not done well .
costing , i think , around ninety million dollars , it has since grossed about twenty - two .
unfortunately , this film is a little too intense for viewers , even for me , and i can stand almost anything
( i recently viewed the 2 1/2 hour long epic " caligula , " the worst film i have ever seen in my life , and did it in a mere 2 sittings ) .
although i respect " beloved , " i ca n't say that i really enjoyed it .
answer:

P