TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: weighed down by tired plot lines and spielberg 's reliance on formulas ,
_ saving private ryan _ is a mediocre film which nods in the direction of realism before descending into an abyss of cliches .
there ought to be a law against steven spielberg making movies about truly serious topics .
spielberg 's greatest strength as a director is the polished , formulaic way in which every aspect of the film falls carefully into place to make a perfect story .
but for a topic of such weight as combat in the second world war ( or the holocaust ) this technique backfires , for it creates coherent , comprehensible and redemptive narratives out of events whose size , complexity and evil are utterly beyond the reach of human ken .
in this way spielberg trivializes the awesome evil of the stories he films .
_ saving private ryan _ tells the story of eight men who have been detailed on a " pr mission " to pull a young man , ryan ( whose three other brothers were just killed in fighting elsewhere ) out of combat on the normandy front just after d - day .
ryan is a paratrooper who dropped behind enemy lines the night before the landings and became separated from his fellow soldiers .
the search for him takes the eight soldiers across the hellish terrain of world war ii combat in france .
there 's no denying spielberg came within shouting distance of making a great war movie .
the equipment , uniforms and weapons are superbly done .
the opening sequence , in which captain miller ( tom hanks ) leads his men onto omaha beach , is quite possibly the closest anyone has come to actually capturing the unendurably savage intensity of modern infantry combat .
another pleasing aspect of the film is spielberg 's brave depiction of scenes largely unknown to american audiences , such as the shooting of prisoners by allied soldiers , the banality of death in combat , the routine foul - ups in the execution of the war , and the cynicism of the troops .
the technical side of the film is peerless , as always .
the camera work is magnificent , the pacing perfect , the sets convincing , the directing without flaw .
hanks will no doubt be nominated for an oscar for his performance , which was utterly convincing , and the supporting cast was excellent , though ted danson seems a mite out of place as a paratroop colonel .
yet the attempt at a realistic depiction of combat falls flat on its face because realism is not something which can be represented by single instances or events .
it has to thoroughly permeate the context at every level of the film , or the story fails to convince .
throughout the movie spielberg repeatedly showed only single examples of the grotesque wounds produced by modern mechanized devices ( exception : men are shown burning to death with relative frequency ) .
for example , we see only one man with guts spilled out on the ground .
here and there men lose limbs ; in one scene miller is pulling a man to safety , there 's an explosion , and miller looks back to see he is only pulling half a man .
but the rest of the corpses are remarkably intact .
there are no shoes with only feet in them , no limbs scattered everywhere , no torsos without limbs , no charred corpses , and most importantly , all corpses have heads ( in fairness there are a smattering of wicked head wounds ) .
the relentless dehumanization of the war , in which even corpses failed to retain any indentity , is soft - pedaled in the film .
ultimately , _ saving private ryan _ bows to both hollywood convention and the unwritten rules of wartime photography in its portrayal of wounds and death in war .
rather than saying _ saving private ryan _ is " realistic , " it would be better to describe it as " having realistic moments .
" another aspect of the " hollywoodization " of the war is the lack of realistic dialogue and in particular , the lack of swearing .
anyone familiar with the literature on the behavior of the men during the war , such as fussell 's superb _ wartime : understanding and behavior in the second world war _ ( which has an extensive discussion on swearing ) , knows that the troops swore fluently and without letup .
" who is this private ryan that we have to die for him ?
" asks one infantrymen in the group of eight . rendered in wartime demotic , that should have been expressed as " who is this little pecker that we have to get our dicks shot off for him ?
"
or some variant thereof .
conversations should have been literally sprinkled with the " f " word , and largely about ( the search for ) food and sex .
this is all the more inexplicable because the movie already had an " r " rating due to violence , so swearing could not possibly have been eliminated to make it a family film . however ,
the most troubling aspect of the film is the spielbergization of the topic .
the most intense hell humans have ever created for themselves is not emotionally wrenching enough for steven spielberg .
he can not just cede control to the material ; he has to be bigger than it .
as if afraid to let the viewer find their own ( perhaps unsettled and not entirely clear ) emotional foothold in the material , spielberg has to package it in hallmark moments to give the war a meaning and coherence it never had : the opening and closing scenes of ryan and his family in the war cemetary ( reminscent of the closing scene from _ schindler 's list ) , the saccharine exchange between ryan and his wife at the close ( every bit as bad as schindler 's monologue about how his car , tiepin or ring could have saved another jew ) , quotes from abraham lincoln and emerson , captain miller 's last words to private ryan , and an unbelievable storyline in which a prisoner whom they free earlier in the movie comes back to kill the captain .
that particular subplot is so hokey , so predictable , it nigh on ruins the film .
nowhere in the film is there a resolute depiction of the meaninglessness , stupidity and waste which characterized the experience of war to the men who actually fought in combat ( imagine if miller had been killed by friendly fire or collateral damage ) .
because of its failure to mine deeply into the terrible realities of world war ii , _ saving private ryan _ can only pan for small truths in the shallows . .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: are we victims of fate in life or can we create our own destiny ?
director / writer brad anderson seems to be saying yes to both questions in his witty film
"
next stop wonderland " .
the two main characters , alan and erin , spend the entire movie in each other 's orbit , catching glimpses of one another , yet not quite connecting until the inevitable conclusion .
is it fate that keeps them near each other and ultimately puts them together ?
does this predestination carry over to all aspects of life ?
as the film starts , erin castleton ( hope davis ) , a melancholy 29- year old late shift nurse , is ending her live - in relationship with her boyfriend ( hoffman ) .
rather , he is ending it with her . arriving home from work , erin finds her boyfriend parked in front of their apartment , car packed with his belongings .
in a fumbling , amusing and self deluding ramble , he instructs erin to watch a videotape he 's made detailing why their relationship is doomed to fail and why he 's leaving .
it 's obvious he lacks the courage to confront her directly as he rails on about accomplishing something with his life and taking a stand , all the while backpedaling his way out of their relationship .
he then flees the scene with the grace of an inept thief .
erin 's mother ( holland taylor , in a surprisingly effective , small role ) , fearing that her daughter will be without a man in her life , takes out a personal ad for erin .
to erin 's embarrassed horror , the ad describes her as a " frisky , cultured , carefree professional with a zest for life " .
eventually , erin responds to the tidal wave of responses , which makes for some of the most humorous , telling moments of the movie as she meets prospective suitors and " poseurs " .
alan , a plumber and aspiring marine biologist , first spots erin as he 's cleaning the inside glass of a fish tank at the boston aquarium .
wearing a wet suit and goggles , he follows erin from window to window , separated by the glass as erin , oblivious to his gaze , enjoys the fish .
later , we see him on a train as she sits on a platform outside , mere feet away .
the movie spends it 's entirety having their paths circle each other without crossing .
there are several subplots involving alan .
one concerns his attempts to get on the job track at the boston aquarium , thereby escaping his apparent fate to carry on the family plumbing business .
another subplot involves his father 's desperate attempts to force fate 's hand by gambling away his life at the dog track .
a distracting focus is put on alan 's debt to a loan shark and the manner in which he pays it off .
the movie tries too hard to make alan a likable guy .
thankfully , his dream- guy persona is counterbalanced by erin 's distant , yet fundamentally hopeful , personality .
the film moves along at an unhurried pace , albeit too much so in the latter third , as we wait for the two to meet .
co - writers anderson and lyn vaus throw a couple of possible red herrings into the mix as the two find other possible relationships .
the films shifts into a much slower gear as we wait for these romances to blow over .
when alan and erin eventually do meet , we see that perhaps they both were destined for each other as they share a lingering , almost subliminally knowing , gaze .
it 's a sweet , measured moment .
the disappointment comes in the fact that we 've come to know the pair , yet we do n't get to view their impending romance .
the film 's inherent belief in the subtle persistence of fate and the wonder it can bring to one 's life makes " next stop wonderland " a quiet pleasure in a cinematic landscape littered with explosions , shallow characters and overdone special effects .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: i admit it .
i thought arnold schwarzenegger had a knack for comedy when he made twins and true lies .
watching him in jingle all the way , i wondered why anyone ever thought he could carry such a lame movie targeted at susceptible kids .
it was one thing to scare the crap out of kids with the pg-13 kindergarten cop , but parents who let small children see this movie will have to explain themes of violence , alcohol consumption , burglary , racism and child molestation .
and you know they 'll burst out in tears when arnold punches one of santa 's elves .
he later decks a reindeer .
hey , man , why do n't you just kick the easter bunny in the nuts while you 're at it ?
jingle all the way is formula crap that follows the
if someone falls on his ass , it must be funny school of thought .
arnold , sinbad and phil hartman crash to the ground more times in this movie than a special olympics hockey team , and the movie dredges up more cliche and less believability with each successive scene .
what can you expect from a movie whose entire premise is that two parents ca n't find a rare toy on christmas eve , and will do anything to get one ?
arnold is , of course , one of the parents , a crack salesman who is never there for his son .
he races from the office to his son 's karate game , only to find out he missed it .
and his kid distrusts him because he 's never around .
( gee , we have n't seen that in a movie before .
) arnold the absentee father becomes convinced that the only way to buy back his son 's affection is to get him a turboman doll , which his wife ( rita wilson , who will never be the breadwinner of the hanks household choosing roles like this ) told him to get weeks ago .
so arnold sets out to find a turboman , which turns out to be more rare than
the tickle me elmo was when jingle all the way came out .
let me back up for a minute here -- arnold 's kid is totally obsessed with this turboman character , which is unhealthy beyond belief .
watches the show , eats the cereal , sleeps on the freakin ' turboman sheets .
i 'd try to discourage any further obsession myself , lest any kid seeing this movie think it 's a wonderful thing to con your dad into racing out to buy you any toy you want . but nooooo ,
the climax of jingle all the way has arnold dressed up as turboman in a parade , exonerating himself of all wrongdoing in the eyes of wife and son , who do n't recognize him until the last minute .
this is a sad movie all the way through , but it only gets worse after the opening scenes of arnold and mailman sinbad stampeding through a store , racing off to the mall and hooking up with a santa ( jim belushi ) who runs a bootleg toy factory .
most painful to watch is a scene at a radio station , where sinbad holds off the cops with a letter bomb after beating up the deejay ( an embarrassed martin mull ) who said he was giving away a turboman doll .
capitalism has produced some pretty evil things ( chia pets ) , but this ode to excess and violent consumerism is one of the most shameful
.
never mind the subplot with perfect neighbor phil hartman trying to seduce wilson while arnold is off shopping ( " your cookies are incredible " ) , it 's the main plot of the movie that sends the message that it 's okay to do whatever it takes to get your hands on what you want .
maybe that 's what christmas is like at the schwarzenegger house , but not at mine .

SOLUTION:
N