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

i 'm not really sure what to think about " crash .
" on the surface , it 's a cold , boring , unerotic porn with name starts , a name director , and some cool camerawork .
i mean , it left me completely bored , unsatisfied , and generally kinda weirded out .
but then again , not every film 's supposed to leave you
entertained .
" crash " is structured to play like a porn flick , but with significantly more plot and dialogue .
while we see several extremely taboo scenes of weirdo sex , we also have a skimpy little plot going on ( mostly towards the beginning ) , and maybe just a hair of characterization .
not to mention the acting is generally pretty good , and we do n't really see a lot of the actors completely exposed .
but what makes it supremely different from a porn is the fact that this is not an erotic experience .
this film does not posess the erotic hypnotism of " henry and june " or the just plain horniness of , say , " deep throat " ( not that i 've seen it ) .
if one was to be made completely hot by this film , it would probably mean they were also into the whole " auto eroticism " thing .
the film leaves you cold erotically ( and maybe in many other ways ) , but what it does is present a group of people who live on the edge .
the film opens up on a woman , catherine ( deborah kara ungar , of " the game " ) , pressing her bare breast up against a car in a public air hangar .
suddenly , a man enters the frame and begins to take her from behind ( the film does nt ' show all this though , even if it is nc-17 ) .
the next scene has a film director , james ( james spader ) , having sex with a camera woman ( alice poon ) in an office on the highly - populated set of his movie .
the next scene has the two coming together , revealing to us that they 're husband and wife , and them sharing in one another 's escapades .
while the two are arguably freaky people , we at least know they love to live on the edge .
soon afterwards , james is driving down the road at night , reclessly of course
( he 's reading something ) , when he drifts into the other lane , and then hits another car face on .
james is not killed , but the passenger in the other car flies into his seat ( obviously dying ) , leaving the driver , helen remington ( holly hunter - in a porn ? ) , also alive .
the two go through therapy together , and when getting out , they run into eachother again .
when james gives her a ride home , they almost get into another accident , and immeadiately afterwards , they go to an unbusy parking lot , and have a little quickie , as they were aroused by the accident .
you would n't think there would be many people who shared this same kind of fetish , but they run into a freaky guy named vaughan ( elias kosteas ) and his crutch - carrying girlfriend , gabrielle ( rosanna arquette ) , who are also into it .
vaughan is into living on the edge as they are , but he takes it to another level : he loves to recreate famous car crashes .
in one scene , he and a friend , colin seagrave ( peter macneill ) recreate james dean 's car crash without any padding or safety belts , and suffer some concussions , but nevertheless get a rush ( and the attention of the police ) .
soon , these five are all having sex with one another , be it straight , gay , or lesbian sex .
while this is admittingly all a bit comical ( the film is almost like a black comedy ) , the film does do a pretty awesome portrayal of people who 's main fetish is living on the edge .
i 'm sure somewhere there are people who get aroused by car accidents , but i personally do n't see a connection between car crashes and sex .
the main connection cronenberg shows us that both give a definite rush .
his car crash scenes are quick and exciting mini - masterpieces
: we 're at first not sure if they 'll take place , but everytime it looks like it may occur , we gasp .
then when it happens , we hold our breath .
the same thing happens with sex , although not in the same fashion .
these people are merely taking it to another level .
the only problem with the film is that it 's a tad redundant .
a normal porn lasts from an hour to an hour and a half .
this goes on for about 100 minutes , and it just seems a little too long .
the sex and car crashes are far between one another , and the time between them are a tad on the boring side .
there 's no characterization , although it could definitely be argued , that hey , it 's a porn , and we 're not here to sympathize .
but still , they coulda cut it down a bit .
but the film is saved with its presentation , as well as some other elements .
the atmosphere is very dark and forboding , creating a kind of cool weird feeling .
and there are several scenes
are just amazing .
one scene has catherine and james having sex , while she softly asks him questions about being with a man , which sounds almost erotic the way she says it .
a sequence involving one character 's death is filled with all the edgy disjointment that the film needs .
and the final shot is shot perfectly , creating an image of a car crash , and a couple having sex in front of it , despite the fact that she 's wounded .
the acting is also pretty good , especially for what is almost a porn ( ousting linda lovelace as best actress in a porn ) . while james spader is pretty boring ( he 's usually pretty intense ) , deborah kara ungar is amazing .
she speaks all her words in almost zombie - like hushes , and when she 's having sex , she has a blank look on her face , not showing the viewer whether she 's enjoying it or not .
in one scene , she actually looks dead while someone is having sex with her .
holly hunter , who gets extra credit just for appearing in something like this , is pretty good , and so is rosanna arquette ( who adds a kinda cool kinkiness to her role ) .
but the film is stolen by elias kosteas who plays his character so intensely that he almost upstages everyone .
he often speaks as he is out of breath , showing a definite affinity for his way of life .
he has a great deal of energy in several scenes , especially one scene where he 's taking photographs of a picture , and a later scene where he 's getting a freaky tatoo .
he and spader share sexual chemistry in several scenes , foreshadowing a later scene .
kosteas is a little known actor ( his biggest role was casey jones in " teenage mutant ninja turtles " ) , but here
he shows a deniro - like presence , hinting that he 's capable of bigger roles .
while i hardly enjoyed " crash , " it 's still a pretty intriguing portrayal of a group of people who , if the exist , are some of the strangest and most bizarre people in the world .
these people are able to share a rush between two completely different entities , and the film , which does n't exactly pain them in a negative light , is sucessful in bringing them to light , even if it leaves the viewer unnerved and generally freaked out .
despite the hardcore nature of the film and the subsequent nc-17 rating ( there 's also an r - rated version , but i would n't even go near that thing ) , anyone looking for a quick turn - on should just rent a regular porno .
P

first and foremost i think this movie comes to grief at the hands of the pg rating it 's been given .
for those of us who have n't read the james lee burke novel that heaven 's prisoners is based on , do not rabidly go out and buy tickets to movies featuring the combined talents of alec baldwin and eric roberts , feel vaguely depressed by the notion of swamps , gangsters with louisiana accents , plots , sub - plots , more plots , and well , really just want to see teri hatcher naked , this is one movie you 're going to worry the price of admission over .
hopeful still ?
well , let me share my moment of sheer panic , and then the cold enervation of the big let - down when a semi - robed hatcher purrs to alec baldwin , " what do you think of my butterfly ? " .
butterfly ?
, i asked myself , what butterfly ? !
and then it hit me . . .
the scene had been snipped !
damn you , godless pg rating , show us her butterfly ! !
we want to see the goddamn butterfly ! ! !
so . . .
no naked teri hatcher . forget about that .
okay ?
now . . .
heaven 's prisoners is about ex - alchoholic ex - cop dave robicheaux ( alec baldwin ) who 's trying to discover life anew running a bait shop and boat hire business with his loving , down - to - earth wife annie ( kelly lynch ) .
everything dull , but hunky dory until a plane carrying illegal immigrants crashes almost ontop of the couple while they 're on their boat .
the plane nosedives into the water and sinks , but from its wreckage robicheaux rescues a little pixie - faced salvadoran girl whom he and his wife immediately decide to adopt .
what they do n't realise is that the plane 's pilot was also a drug dealer , and that the plane had been sabotaged by the latter 's erstwhile colleagues .
when robicheaux discovers this , he predictably , against the advice of his wife , a well - meaning dea agent , and two gangsters who rough him up , begins ' poking his nose where it do n't belong ' , we know that the man deserves all the misery he 's going to get .
the question now is whether or not you want to be dragged along for the ride through a tedious , meandering yet utterly suspenseless plot with an unlovable hero as your guide .
as dave robicheaux , alec baldwin is fat . . .
no seriously , this is not the svelte , thinking man 's hero of the hunt for red october , it is an out - of - shape guy who does n't look too good in a roof - top chasing scene .
he 's also unconvincing in the movie 's dramatic moments , acting with what as far as i can tell is a steven segal - like economy of expression .
three - quarters of the way through the show , while you 're probably waiting for the next scene in a bar where robicheaux contemplates succumbing to the temptation of the whiskey bottle , getting drunk and beating up someone or getting beaten up
, you 'll want to beat on him a little yourself .
on the other hand , mary stuart masterson ( some kind of wonderful , fried green tomatoes , benny & joon ) cast as a down - and - out stripper who has her fingers broken is quite a breath of fresh air , with just the right mix of cynicism , warmth , insecurity and humour to be the movie 's only endearing character .
eric roberts as bubba rocque , always believable as the woman - abusing bad guy who knows how to box ( see final analysis , coincidentally also directed by phil joanou ) is believable here as the woman - abusing bad guy who knows how to box .
and lest we forget teri hatcher 's role in all this , this being her rather well - publicised paid vacation from playing lois lane on tv 's " adventures of lois & clark " . . .
she is totally ridiculous as rocque 's manipulative and seductive cajun wife , coming across as devious as a mildly disgruntled au pair who 's trying to get back at an employer who has n't been giving her enough days off .
it 's probably safe to say that her day job beckons .
and at the end of our day , none of this is really worth 2 hrs and 12 minutes of our personal misery .
the flying inkpot '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 .
N

woody allen is one of the most successful artist - directors in hollywood , but he is becoming less and less reliable as a filmmaker
.
in his early years of film - making he mastered the simple comedy .
from there he went into a second phase and took risks experimenting with different approaches and styles .
some of these work better than others .
zelig and crimes and misdemeanors are the work of a creative and intelligent artist .
deconstructing harry goes to the other extreme and is a bizarre experiment demanding more of the viewer than it gives back .
harry block ( allen ) has in his life only two drives .
he wants to have sex with as many women as possible and when he makes a mess of his life and those of his lovers he wants to retreat into his writing .
the story of this static and highly unsympathetic character is told with a number of often clumsy stylistic experiments .
perhaps the most irritating device is to express the disjointedness of harry 's life by editing harry 's scenes putting in cuts in the middle as if to show missing time with something edited out .
as a writer , harry puts his friends into his books in the thinnest of disguises .
the film dramatizes incidents from these supposed books and cuts between his real story line and fragments from harry 's books with different actors playing the real and fictional people in harry 's life .
these fragments are frustrating in their lack of completion , but even more frustrating is the bringing of the characters out of the fragments into scenes with the real characters .
it is up to the viewer to keep track not just who is fictional and who is real but also to keep straight who is the fictional doppelganger of which real person .
if that sounds complicated , it is .
then as another device in one of the stories , an actor seems to have the peculiar property that he has gone out of focus and can only be seen in blurry image .
harry sees this as a metaphor for his own condition and himself goes blurry for a short time .
as if these touches did not create sufficient confusion , the story is told out of chronological order .
if allen were giving the audience a story that was worth decoding , any and all of these stylistic touches could be excusable .
but allen puts the audience through all of this to give us a portrait of harry block who is a selfish manipulator who is not worth the effort to understand
.
deconstructing harry is set at a time when harry 's old college , the one that expelled him when he attended it , wants now to honor him for a lifetime of writing achievement .
harry is searching among his friends to find one who will go with him .
just why someone who is so unwilling to commit to a relationship with anyone suddenly needs the support of someone else is unclear .
harry tries his current girl friend fay ( elizabeth shue ) only to find that she is about to marry harry 's old friend larry ( billy crystal ) .
block would like his son hilly ( eric lloyd ) to accompany him , but hilly 's mother , previously first harry 's psychiatrist and more recently his wife , refuses to let her son see his father .
another friend richard ( bob balaban ) would go but has health problems .
harry also considers bringing a prostitute cookie ( hazel goodman ) .
it is interesting that allen should introduce another likable prostitute so soon after mighty aphrodite , but cookie is considerably different -- black and a lot brighter than mira sorvino 's character in the previous film .
while the comedy sequences are never complete , a few are elaborate and some quite funny .
the centerpiece of the film is a journey into hell with allen playing a sort of orpheus rescuing fay from the clutches of the devil , who looks a lot like larry .
that story also is left uncompleted , perhaps to show harry 's unwillingness to commit even to telling a story .
the linchpin that was needed to tie together the stylistic quirks of this film was a central character who changes and who gives us something about which to care .
that character is patently not the one allen creates in harry block and not the characters around harry as seen through his acerbic eyes .
allen can do much better than deconstructing harry .
i rate it a 3 on the 0 to 10 scale and a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale .

N