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

[EX Q]: warner brothers ; rated pg-13 ( mild violence , sexual situations ) ; 132 minutes director : luis mandoki screenplay : gerald di pego ( from the novel by nicholas sparks ) cast : kevin costner , robin wright - penn , paul newman , illeana douglas , robbie coltrane , jesse james , john savage .
review by :
geoff berkshire
i 'm not an overly cynical guy .
there have been many glossy hollywood romances that have carried me away with their romanticism over the years .
however , i have my limits and i also have standards .
this brings us to the subject at hand : message in a bottle , the big ticket romance that warner brothers ' unleashed upon the movie going public just in time for valentine 's day .
the story , what little of it that there is , involves boring chicago tribune reporter theresa osborne ( robin wright - penn ) dealing with her recent divorce and trying to raise her young son jason ( jesse james ) .
during a brief stay somewhere in new england she finds the titular message in a bottle while on a morning run by the ocean .
the letter , written to a mystery woman named catherine , instantly captivates her .
upon her return , theresa shares it with her best friend lina ( illeana douglas ) , her boss charlie ( robbie coltrane ) , and the entire city of chicago ( the newspaper publishes an article about it ) .
it turns out that the message was written by grieving widower garret blake ( kevin costner ) and so theresa travels to north carolina and tracks him down .
he turns out to have a colorful father ( paul newman ) but is otherwise perfectly dull and overly obsessed with sailing .
this is somehow attractive to theresa and the two begin their awkward courtship .
of course she does n't tell him that she found his letter , she wants to but the rules of this type of film require him to find out later ( preferably right after they first make love ) .
this way garret can get very angry and the relationship can be threatened .
the discovery of the message and garret 's discovery that theresa discovered the message are really the only two noteworthy events that happen during the nearly two and a quarter hour running time of this film .
there 's a truly lame subplot about garret 's relationship with his dead wife 's family ( he gets into a bar fight with her brother , played by john savage ) and then the necessary tear - jerking ending .
a fun way to pass the time is to take bets on exactly who will die , although it becomes pretty clear by the second reel .
the actual death sequence is one of the most ridiculously forced , and unintentionally humorous , sequences filmed since .
. .
well , since costner 's the postman ( 1997 ) .
message in a bottle is one slow moving film .
last year audiences were offered endurance tests such as the horse whisperer and meet joe black but both of those films resemble jerry bruckheimer productions next to this .
they also had redeeming qualities in the form of quality performances and some stand out technical work .
message in a bottle has a decent enough cast but they 're fighting the material all the way , and losing badly .
costner and , especially , wright - penn are both likable and attractive enough to cheer for but their characters are simply too boring .
they also fail to generate any kind of real romantic chemistry .
the supporting players are given very little to do .
the reliable douglas is particularly wasted .
old pro newman gives his all and occasionally threatens to kick some life into this dead horse of a film .
a confrontational scene he has with costner near the end is especially well played .
however , too frequently he just reminds us how unexciting our lead characters are .
the film is very polished on the technical side to be sure but it only works to undercut the story .
gabriel yared , who previously set the romantic moods of the english patient ( 1996 ) and city of angels ( 1998 ) with his scores , overdoes it a bit here .
caleb deschanel 's camera makes everything look a little too beautiful .
do the offices of the chicago tribune really need to look heavenly ?
the editing by steven weisberg is troubling not only considering all that could have been cut out but is also simply messy at times .
the real offender here is screenwriter
gerald di pego .
working from a best- selling novel by nicholas sparks ( which i have not read but have been told is on the same literary level as the bridges of madison county ) , di pego creates one of the most uninspired scripts of recent times .
its strict adherence to clich ?
s brings to mind such disasters as i still know what you did last summer ( 1998 ) .
there simply is n't an original scene in this film .
the dialogue is rarely better than laughable and this is only accentuated by the excessively long pauses every character takes while speaking .
this is director mandoki 's first film since when a man loves a woman ( 1994 ) , the solid meg ryan / andy garcia romance .
he 's simply going through the motions with this .
message in a bottle is easily the worst of the several romantic offerings available in theaters at the moment and vies with what dreams may come ( 1998 ) as one of the most misguided romances of the decade .
[EX A]: N

[EX Q]: available for rental - october 12 , 1999 10 things i hate about you is an update of the classic play , the taming of the shrew .
that said , drop any pre - conceived notions of what shakespeare 's work is supposed to be like and welcome yourself to padua high school , home of a student counselor ( allison janney ) who obsesses over the male penis ; a slightly too hip and racist african - american english teacher ( daryl mitchell ) ;
a new kid named cameron ( joseph gordon - levitt ) ; a model named joey ( andrew keegan ) , the subject of cameron and joey 's crushes ; bianca ( larisa oleynik ) ; and bianca 's sister - the shrew ( julia stiles in a marvelous performance ) - whose name is katarina , kat for short .
with movies about high schools similar to these running through projectors like water down the nile , it would be quite easy to write off 10 things i hate about you as just another doltish comedic - romance .
yet , you must realize that the story is timeless , and a few hundred years later it is equally as witty and comical
as when elizabeth gleefully looked on , groundlings below and stuffed brassieres on stage .
the first reminder of the original scribe can be found in katarina and bianca 's last name : stratford .
their family is run by walter stratford ( pretty woman 's larry miller ) , a doctor who is all too familiar with teenage pregnancy and guards his children accordingly .
in what he thinks to be a moment of ironic humor , the family " no dating " policy is amended to " bianca can date .
. .
when [ katarina ] does .
" with prom just ahead , bianca 's fate is grim ; unless , of course , she can tame the shrew .
do n't think this mission to be a simple one , as bianca kindly points out , her sister " .
.
. is a particularly hideous breed of loser .
" getting katarina to date is complex and oftentimes confusing .
when cameron , who likes bianca , learns of her father 's new rule , he is quick to consult a friend for advice .
the scheme they dream up is to fully exploit " someone with money .
" in this case , that is joey - the other guy with a crush on bianca .
cameron 's friend , a loser by teenage verdict , convinces joey to pay someone who has enough guts to take the shrew out .
the solution lies no farther away than the second blatant reminder of the master scribe : patrick verona ( heath ledger ) .
this verona is far from fair ; rumor has it that he previously laid his scene in prison .
moreover , katarina openly opined to the aforementioned english teacher that " hemingway was an alcoholic who hung around picasso , hoping to nail his leftovers .
"
the laws of high school cinema inexorably turn patrick and katarina into romeo and juliet .
providing a constant reminder of the fact that this is n't exactly what shakespeare had in mind are the elements obligatory to a high school comedy :
a party polluted with liquor , a best friend 's betrayal , and prom .
it is the latter that has become infamous for closing films like drive me crazy , american pie , never been kissed , carrie , she 's all that , and ca n't hardly wait .
yet surely even these practices have roots in shakespeare ; falstaff was a drunk , romeo and juliet met at a party , and caesar learned about loyalty the hard way .
[EX A]: P

[EX Q]: capsule : the world will come to an end at midnight .
everyone knows it and must make a final peace with the last hours of their lives .
this is an intelligent science fiction film with no special effects , just personalities and ideas . , high +2 ( -4 to +4 )
- it is the last night of the planet and several different people are reacting each in their own way to the end .
the film covers 6 pm to midnight .
the main character is patrick played by david mckellan who also wrote and directed .
- reminiscent of on the beach .
but much more so of a story richard matheson
wrote , " the last day .
" ( p . s .
on rereading the 1953 matheson , this film is almost a loose adaptation of that story .
the similarities may be mere coincidence , but they are numerous and they are very striking . )
- us release may be problematical .
the title is lackluster and non - memorable , though very appropriate when you know about the film .
also provincial americans may not care about the end of the world coming to toronto .
they probably would feel it would not affect them .
perhaps a pbs release would be possible .
- patrick 's family has declared it christmas and are hurt that the ( adult ) children will not spend the whole evening with them .
- grocery stores mostly looted .
it seems though that one of everything is left .
- some people continue business as usual , some want sex , some react with religion , some riot .
some people are in total denial .
- much comedy , much drama .
- very canadian cast .
- it does not get dark .
it is just always daytime .
- radio playing " last night i did n't get to sleep at all .
"
how appropriate .
- david cronenberg as a kind of bland functionary manager at the gas company .
genvieve bujold as french teacher visiting former student .
- science fiction film with no special effects , cost about two million dollars .
- the person you have been thrown together with by chance becomes the most important person to you for the rest of your life .
- why would it be so precisely at midnight ?
what about other time zones ?
what is the nature of what is destroying the world ?
[EX A]:
P