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

[EX Q]: the reunion film is not an original idea in any way , shape , or form .
it 's been done throughout film history over and over again , and has become one of the many sub - genres , like the prep school sub - genre , the angst - filled teen sub - genre , and the slasher sub - genre .
what makes " peter 's friends
" so remarkable is not how it does n't follow the rules of this sub - genre , but how it follows it so well , and creates characters that i would n't mind hanging with .
what are the rules of the reunion sub - genre ?
well .
. .
. 1 .
you need a group of friends , most of them married or at least dating , and sometimes even married or dating eachother .
2 .
you need to have them brought back together over some sort of a crisis .
3 .
they are not to have spoken together much since they split apart .
4 .
the reunion has to come in intervals divisible by 10 . 5 .
they all have to be slightly to highly neurotic .
6 .
the reunion has to bring them together , seperate them with little crises , then bring them back together because , after all , they 're friends .
7 .
there has to be some sex or at least some making out either between the friends or with other people that are there or were invited .
8 .
eightly , they 're all unhappy or marginally so .
9 .
there 's some sort of sexual tension amongst some of them that 's built up over the years .
10 .
the friends are all wildly successful in the world of entertainment and the arts , sometimes internationally so .
11 .
the film is filled with nostalgic radio hits from the time when they were friends , sometimes causing them to get together in dance / song .
since it follows these rules so closely , it will probably be ( and has been ) coined off as just a " british ' big chill . '
" and in some ways it is .
both follow the rules , as i said , and both feature lots of bitching , big confessionals , and broken relationships .
but while " the big chill " was , at least to me , a tad too whiny and unsatisfying , " peter 's friends " hits its mark , making this film funny , dramatic , and poignant .
the friends of peter 's were all in the same theatre group back in ' 82 , performig wildly outrageous british acts for people far too stuck up to enjoy them
( the opening scene has them all dancing in tux tops and tutus ) .
after peter 's ( stephen fry ) wealthy father ( richard briers , hardly on screen enough to register , but oh well ) dies , leaving a giant mansion to him , he has to decide whether or not to keep it .
not sure what to do with it immeadiately , he decides to throw a giant reunion party , inviting back all his old chums .
of course , all or most of his chums follow the tenth rule .
andrew ( kenneth branagh , also directing here ) is an actor who 's unhappily married to a tv star , carol ( co - writer rita rudner ) .
maggie ( emma thompson )
is a successfuly publisher of self - help books , but looks like she needs them more than her customers , as she is lonely and unhappy .
roger and mary ( hugh laurie and imelda staunton , who were also married in " sense and sensibility " ) are married , and are the most successful creators of jingles in the uk , but have suffered a tragedy as one of their newly born twins has recently died .
and sarah ( alphonsia emmanuel ) is as promiscuous as ever , having a new boyfriend as of two weeks named brian ( tony slattery ) who 's married and wants a divorce because of her , giving her doubts .
as for peter , things seem okay . . .
the film features lots of inner - friend jokes , and even some old theatre anecdotes ( which i at least find a lot of fun in , as i 've done lots of theatre myself ) .
and there are big confessions , brawls between the friends , and by the end , almost everyone is unhappy , even though some have resolved their problems long before the end ( which i kinda dug ) .
the final twist would seem forced an anti - climactic , but for some reason , i felt the same way the rest of the friends did .
maybe it 's because the people in this film are so likable that i just wanted to join their clique .
that 's really what makes " peter 's friends
" so lovable
: the way you just want to hang with a group of friends who can be so dysfuntional sometimes , but when someone 's in crisis , can come together wonderfully for one another .
it 's when you have a giant crisis like this and people want to selflessly help you out instead of subtely pushing you away
that makes you realize you have true friends , and these people are true friends .
not to mention kenneth branagh is able to make the film seem nostalgic for the 80s
( a decade i grew up in , unfortunately ) without taking us outside of the 90s .
there are some 80s classics and anti - classics like tears for fears " everybody wants to rule the world , " but unfortunately no stupid / fun 80s songs ( i think if i ever did an 80s reunion film , i 'd put some crap go gos song on , or at least some good old " come on eileen " ) , but this is the british 80s we 're talking about .
oh well .
but anyway , the direction is pretty good , although nothing amazing .
branagh 's forte is really making shakespeare fresh and magical , but at least he 's very good with making a less ambiguous film like this .
the writing is good from rita rudner and martin bregman , with lots of good one - liners , and even some really bad but good puns ( to mock the fact that andrew lives in l .
a .
, peter , while cutting some logs , asks him is he has wood in l .
a . , and andrew says ,
" no ,
but we have hollywood
" - punishment like that ) .
the actors , as in most speaking movies , are better than their material , though , with some stand - out performances to the six friends , as well as the outsiders like slattery , rudner , and phyllida law as the old housekeeper of the peter 's mansion .
a little note should be made about hugh laurie 's performance , as he looks like he took some massive doses of prozac before doing this - i mean , i 've never seen him actually act this dramatically .
"
peter 's friends " is a really enjoyable film which makes people like me pine for some sort of future reunion , although i do n't know what kind i 'll have ( like most people , i do n't look forward to my high school reunion ) .
because of the way these friends are still able to maintain the same amount of care they have for one another and after such a long period of seperation , i just look forward to the day when i can have friends like that .
[EX A]: P

[EX Q]: miramax " disinvited " on - line media from press screenings of scream 3 .
they ostensibly feared that folks like me would write spoiler - filled reviews and post them prior to the film 's february 4th release date - unsound reasoning .
you see , ' net critics established enough to be on any sort of vip list are
professionals - miramax surely knows the difference between a member of the on - line film critics society ( ofcs ) and the type of fanboy who posts spy reports at ai n't it cool news .
no , the ? mini major ' was afraid we 'd let a bigger cat out of the bag than whodunit , that scream 3 is a dismal conclusion to the beloved ( by this writer , at least ) franchise .
something smells rotten in the state of california right from the get - go
:
cotton weary ( liev schrieber ) , the former lover and would - be killer of maureen prescott , sidney 's mother , is juggling phone calls in his luxury car .
( once considered a danger to society , weary now hosts his own talk show , " 100 % cotton " , a clever , if dated , jab at american pop culture . )
of course , a new ghostface dials him up , and , with memories of scream 's unbearably suspenseful prologue in mind , we immediately wonder , where is the killer ?
the backseat ?
the next car ?
thrilling prospects , to be sure , but actually , ghostface is at the weary residence , waiting for cotton 's girlfriend ( kelly rutheford ) to finishing showering .
what 's missing from this sequence , and indeed scream 3 's remaining frights ( most disappointingly , the moment when an ingenue is forced to hide in a wardrobe room filled with ghostface costumes , one of which might spring to life ) , is an elaborate and attenuated payoff .
our other surviving regulars have become estranged .
sidney ( campbell ) is living a paranoid existence of electronic gates and password - protected locks , while dewey ( arquette ) acts as technical advisor on the second sequel to scream 2 's movie - within - a - movie , " stab 3 " , and gale weathers ( cox arquette ) headlines a gossipy news program .
murder reunites them , as knife - wielding ghostface stalks the set of " stab 3 " , imitating its sadistic screenplay - and his / her / their own personal draft climaxes with sidney 's death .
the appeal of ghostface 's villainy is that he /
she
/ they could be your boyfriend , your classmate , your next door neighbour . . . or a combination of people .
scream was the first of its kind : a slasher mystery , with the guessing game not only entailing who will be next , but also who is /
are the perpetrator ( s ) and
what is / are his / her / their motive .
ironic self - reflection aside
, parts one and two stand out in a crowd that includes umpteen friday the 13th and halloween flicks because there 's at last articulate human beings behind the iconic costume .
with scream 3 , the novelty of ghostface 's ever - mutating identity has worn off some , but the character remains conceptually potent .
conceptually .
the execution of ghostface 's master plan this time around is creaky , because screenwriter ehren kruger has invented a new mythology for the world of sidney prescott far afield from what we 'd come to understand in scream and scream 2 .
the movie gets in the silly habit of saying " all bets are off ! " in reference to the " rules " of a trilogy 's third act , but there 's a difference between rule breaking and cheating .
with the departure of kevin williamson , who authored the previous screams as well as a tidy outline for scream 3 ( that , for reasons incomprehensible to me , was ignored , save the notion of " stab 3 " ) , kruger needed to be reined in tighter , and by wes craven .
craven 's direction of scream 3 is lazy in most respects .
how else to explain the jay and silent bob cameo ( the slacker duo of kevin smith movies ) , akin to seeing mickey mouse pop up in mulan and more distracting than funny .
it pains me to write this , but scream 3 's comedy is generally laughless , with the exception of well - timed performances by josh pais ( as a police detective possessed of the same personality he had as a persnickety teacher in craven 's music of the heart ) , jamie kennedy ( resurrecting film geek randy for the sendoff he was denied in scream 2 ) , and parker posey ( through sheer force of will as a b - actress ) .
the visuals are much weaker in part three , as well - the occasional sweeping gesture of peter deming 's camera is a pale imitation of the stalking steadicam craven gave us twice before .
( aside : in the wake of columbine , craven toned down the violence significantly for scream 3-why the sanctimony , when scream and scream 2 are still readily available on video store shelves ? )
finally , marco beltrami 's music cues the suspense too blatantly
- do you recall the tense chase at the college radio station in scream 2 ?
it 's mostly silent .
sting notes are a whole lot more effective if they spring from nowhere ; here ,
they act as the crescendos of an incessantly nerve - jangling score .
i look at scream 3 as coming from an alternative universe , the same place that birthed the godfather part iii and superman
iii - woefully out of synch with its prequels , scream 3 is a nightmare instead of nightmarish , and will likely put the horror genre back in mothballs .
the film unintentionally follows the unspoken rule of a trilogy to a t : ?
part three must disappoint ' .
[EX A]: N

[EX Q]: in brief : best bleak comedy film
since heathers . full of wonderful swipes at the fifteen minutes of fame mentality that feeds so much of modern american pop culture .
go see it !
so , i prepared for this film by watching a moving interview on " hard copy " with pam smart , the new hampshire media teacher who was convicted of engineering the death of her husband back in the 1980 's .
" hard copy " 's diane diamond asked smart what she thought about nicole kidman 's fictionalized portrayal of her in the new film to die for .
smart replied that she thought kidman 's character came off as a dumb , vicious tramp
and she thought that the publicity the new movie generates might just hurt her chances in her latest court appeal .
( smart was convicted and given a life sentence for her part in the murder of her husband . )
smart 's got a point .
it would n't be the first time that the public took the better scripted and well - acted movie version of an event as the absolute truth over the duller and far less artistic real life version .
however , given a choice between the mass media ' happening ' of the real event and the fictionalized movie , i would definitely opt for the later .
real murderers rarely have dialogue as witty as what buck henry has written for this movie and smart , while pretty and alluring , is no match for the cinematic charms of nicole kidman .
to die for begins in a town called little hope , new hampshire , the archetypal dry and intellectually barren american suburb .
the story concerns the ambitious suzanne stone and how she tackles the obstacles between her and her life long ambition of being ' on tv . '
of course , one of those little obstacles turns out to be her dull and unambitious husband larry , played by matt dillon .
but , with a little imagination , some charm and raw sex appeal and a rather novel approach to junior achievement , our heroine manages to overcome the nay - sayers in her life , at least temporarily .
kidman triumphs in the trashy role of suzanne .
i have never really been all that fond of this actress but
she shows a wonderful flair for comedy in this picture .
her portrayal of the incredibly shallow and dumb femme fatale resonates .
kidman knows a star - making role when she sees it
and she plays the conscience - deprived suzanne as the ultimate career driven , post - feminist uber - temptress from hell .
she is ably abetted by wonderfully demented comic dialogue , which kidman delivers in a unselfconsciously funny way .
at one point suzanne is expounding on her knowledge of world events to her future husband and sister - in - law .
"
you know , " she knowingly exclaims , " gorbachev would still be the leader of russia or whatever , if he had just had that ugly purplish thing removed from his head .
"
her husband beams at suzanne 's profound knowledge of world politics and then proudly proclaims that this qualifies her to be the next barbara walters .
this is very close to pop culture bashing heaven , folks .
the other standout performance in the film is delivered by joaquin phoenix .
he plays jimmy , a burned out teenager who becomes addicted to suzanne 's sexual favors .
kidman 's character , vapid though she is , is a sort of suave beacon of success to jimmy and his lost friends russell and lydia , winningly portrayed by casey affleck and alison folland .
phoenix looks like the very embodiment of gen - x slackerhood ( as envisioned by tabloid tv , of course ) .
his jimmy has the dead eyes and demeanor of a kid who knows that he ai n't going anywhere , ever .
phoenix reacts to the sexy suzanne with a sort of obsessed amazement
and he makes us believe that a loser character like jimmy really would be willing to kill for someone like suzanne , someone who actually noticed him .
gus van sant ( drugstore cowboy ,
my own private idaho )
direction is first - rate .
he keeps the pacing in this not - quite - thriller snapping along .
van sant rightly keeps the focus of this movie on the amoral suzanne and does n't stop to proselytize the audience about the rightness or wrongness of her actions .
van sant trusts his material and trusts his audience to ' get it ' without stopping to explain what is funny about this all - american story .
the screenplay , by buck henry , is absolutely great and includes some of the best bleakly comic lines i 've heard since heathers .
henry 's story is a blast against the shallowness of the american media and the mindlessness of fame , yet the screenplay delivers this sharp message by focusing on just a few characters .
henry
ably manages to avoid diluting his story by aiming at too many targets and the result is a crisp and funny mini - classic .
danny elfman did the original music for this movie and he delivers another eccentric , loopy score that strongly echoes his themes for edward scissorhands .
either film score would make wonderful background music for halloween trick - or - treat parties .
all - in - all , a wonderful production , well worth your seven bucks ! to die for : a columbia pictures release directed by gus van sant .
written by buck henry score by danny elfman starring nicole kidman , matt dillon , joachin phoenix based on the book by joyce maynard .
rated r - for language and mature themes .
( respect the r , not for under 14 's ) rating ----- stars .
go see it .
[EX A]:
P