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

Q: tone alone can not sustain a film , but it can go a long way .
if i can find myself lost in the time and place of a story , it scores immediate style points .
when that tone is backed up by an outstanding story and great acting , the effect can be described best by an adjective i do not use lightly : " literary .
"
what 's eating gilbert grape ? is such a film .
it 's a rich , memorable and stunningly acted story of desire colliding with responsibility , staged in a manner which many viewers might find too prosaic , but which insinuated itself into my imagination with its confidence .
gilbert grape ( johnny depp ) is a young man living in rural endora , iowa , facing incredible responsibilities .
as the man of the house since his father 's suicide , gilbert must support the family by working at the local grocery store .
he also must watch over his mentally handicapped brother arnie ( leonardo dicaprio ) and help care for his extremely overweight mother ( darlene cates ) .
gilbert seems destined to spend the rest of his life in the small town until the arrival in endora of becky ( juliette lewis ) , a free spirit passing through with her grandmother when their truck breaks down .
as he spends time with becky , gilbert begins to think about all the things he is missing .
slowly his resentment builds , until he realizes that he can no longer live his entire life for other people .
director lasse hallstrom ( my life as a dog ) and
legendary cinematographer sven nykvist create a magnificent visual backdrop for peter hedges ' screenplay , based on his own novel .
endora is a town on the edge of the world represented by the giant foodmart , a tiny insular community where everyone knows everyone else .
the midwestern sunsets and sprawling fields are beautifully photographed , and the atmosphere of the town is intensely real .
minor characters , like crispin glover as the town 's mortician , are vividly realized , and there are echoes of the last picture show in mary steenburgen 's desperately unhappy housewife .
one of the most perfectly realized scenes focuses on the grand opening of a burger franchise , attended by the entire town and accompanied by the off - key high school band .
not a single note in the depiction of endora rang false .
the same can be said of the character of gilbert .
it 's testimony to the precision involved in his creation that he came together completely with one perfectly placed line , when becky responds to gilbert 's description of his father with , " i knew someone like that once .
"
gilbert is a man harboring an ever - growing bitterness about where he finds himself in life , a bitterness which reveals itself in moments of surprising cruelty .
in one scene , he allows local children to look at his mother through their window , displaying her like a side show attraction .
his entire life seems to be mocked by arnie 's repeated chants of , " we 're not going anywhere , " but instead of expressing his dissatisfaction he lets his anger simmer , and it becomes clear that he is following in his father 's footsteps in this regard .
johnny depp expertly demonstrates the tension central to gilbert by playing everything below the surface , but he never gives in to one - dimensional blankness or simply regurgitates his naif roles in benny & joon and edward scissorhands .
depp 's performance is overshadowed , however , by leonardo dicaprio 's astonishing oscar - nominated supporting work as arnie .
he puts to shame such big name actors as john malkovich and dustin hoffman , whose mentally challenged characters never seemed completely real .
dicaprio is perfect to the last twitch and squeal , and anyone who has ever spent time with mentally challenged kids will be hard - pressed to spot a flaw .
darlene cates , a first - time actor , brings real pain to her scenes as gilbert 's tortured mother , and laura harrington and mary kate schellhardt are solid as gilbert 's sisters .
only juliette lewis does n't quite click , playing a critical role with her now familiar dopey drone and too little genuine spark .
gilbert grape does seem to drift into its conclusion , but it never lost me .
thanks to a lovingly created setting and a marvelous cast , this 1993 release proves well worth the wait .

A: P
****
Q: brian de palma 's snake eyes stars nicolas cage 's evil twin , who confusingly uses the same stage name as his talented brother .
like a foreign tourist who screams his lines in english to ensure that he will be understood , cage yells with the ferocity of a man with a bad case of caffeine overload . de palma , whose last great film , the untouchables , was crafted over a decade ago seems to have lost his magic .
in snake eyes , he manages to elicit some of the worst performances possible out of a skilled cast .
only gary sinise rises slightly above the hackneyed material .
the rest of the actors become caricatures in this by - the - numbers thriller .
ryuichi sakamoto 's atmospheric and melodramatic music dominates almost every scene .
heavy on the long violin notes , its rhythm is punctuated by thunder .
( the script by de palma and lost world 's david koepp sets the action during a hurricane in an attempt to pump up the adrenaline level and the noise .
only the latter is achieved . )
cage plays rick santoro ,
a corrupt atlantic city cop who shakes down criminals to get betting money .
the movie takes place over a single evening when a world championship fight is being held .
with a flashy , bad wardrobe and a gold cell phone , rick is an obnoxious cop who does n't know when to shut up . spouting cliched and ridiculous dialog
, he screams such lines as , " i was made for the sewer , baby ! "
actually the line is more apropos for the movie as a whole .
sinise plays kevin dunne , a naval officer who is in charge of the security for the secretary of the navy , who has come to watch the fight .
but most people in the film are not who they seem to be , and the thin script makes all of them easy to guess .
the plot , which is told in endless flashbacks , concerns the assassination of the secretary through a scheme set up by some malevolent businessmen ?
that adjective is , of course , redundant in hollywood thrillers .
the flashbacks become repetitious with the same scene shown again and again , sometimes from a different perspective and sometimes not .
although a brian de palma film requires a certain amount of gratuitous violence , this one is remarkably tame for the man who became famous when he made carrie .
the movie 's outline has some promise , but the movie itself is leaden .
the film takes itself all too seriously .
at best , it is a 1940s - style b movie .
a little humor would have helped the script some , but a complete rewrite would have been better .
and , although i hate to say it , a different director would have been the biggest improvement .
snake eyes runs 1 : 39 .
it is rated r for violence and would be acceptable for teenagers .

A: N
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Q: long ago , films were constructed of strong dialogue , original characters , memorable plot points , and solid acting .
one of the best examples that hollywood now completely ignore these qualities is found in the new film where the heart is .
this opus about the power of love and the redemption of family follows the tragic , and i mean tragic , life of novalee nation ( natalie portman ) .
hitting the road with her hick , guitar - playing boyfriend in a rusted - out gm , novalee dreams of the blue skies of bakersfield and sipping chocolate milk beneath a plastic umbrella with her unborn baby , due in a month .
stopping off at a nearby wal - mart for a quick rest , novalee 's boyfriend decides to take off and leaves her there .
novalee then decides to secretly hole up in the wal - mart ( because she 's not the brightest bulb in the stagelights ) .
a wacky librarian ( keith david ) comes to her rescue when she goes into labor one night while she is camped in the outdoors section of the store .
then the she moves in with a family , befriends everyone in town -- including ashley judd 's character ( who has five kids and still can work part - time as a nurse )
-- fights off religious freaks , survives a tornado , breaks the heart of the wacky librarian that saved her , receives an inheritance , builds a martha stewart - esque house , becomes an award - winning photographer , and manages to always look like she stepped out of a cosmo shoot , all while not once doing anything with her kid .
this film is terrible .
the directing is awful : it seems director matt williams had an index card with six angles written on it and used every one of them , over and over and over again .
we get pathetic and ugly acting by natalie portman , who can do good work .
a disjointed pacing of key scenes and a time structure so confusing that it would throw steve prefontaine off .
a subplot that actually validates the actions of the boyfriend who abandoned novalee in the wal - mart parking lot .
an embarrassing display of emotions by the characters , making the audience ill .
taking two great comedic screenwriters , babaloo mandel and lowell ganz , and forcing them to write drama on par with oprah 's book club .
altogether , it has the feeling of being trapped at home , watching a very bad television mini - series and wishing it to end , only the remote is broken .
however , the main problem with the film is that it never answers the most poignant question brought up : where is the heart ?
no one ever seems to find it in this piece of junk .

A:
N
****