instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
steven spielberg 's " amistad , " which is based on the true story of a group of africans who revolted on board a slave ship , then were captured and taken to america where a legal dispute ensued over who " owned " them , is concerned with several different aspects of this story .
first , the film addresses the issue of the inherent evils of slavery .
second , it deals with the historical involvement of several american politicians in the case , including president martin van buren and former president john quincy adams ( anthony hopkins ) .
last , and most importantly , it examines the cultural confusion experienced by the africans who were forced into slavery and the damage done to their native culture in africa by the slave trade .
" amistad " succeeds at least partly with all three of these elements .
i have to admit that i was a little skeptical as to how much i could really get out of another " anti - slavery " movie .
having seen several other movies and documentaries about slavery , i doubted that there was much i did n't already know about it .
fortunately , i turned out to be wrong .
for one thing , spielberg 's camera never once gets near a southern plantation and instead sticks to the slave ships and the slave traders ' operations in africa , so " amistad " was dealing with a different part of the history of slavery from the very beginning .
and some of the images here are , in fact , much more harrowing than what we usually see in movies about slavery .
one scene in the middle , in which the crew of a slave ship dispose of some of their " excess " slaves by throwing them overboard to drown , has to be one of the most disturbing film images of the year .
spielberg digs farther into the evils of slavery than i was expecting he would , and in fact he probably goes about as far as a movie director can without getting an nc-17 rating .
the stark suffering of the africans is contrasted sharply with the shallow luxury of the politicians , such as president van buren and queen isabella of spain , whose naval officers were involved in the legal dispute and who was only a small child at the time .
exposing politicians as narrow - minded , opportunistic hypocrites is fairly standard stuff , of course , but spielberg and writer david franzoni
do it well enough that it still comes off as something more than just a simple exercise in audience manipulation .
the film also examines the contentious nature of the slavery issue at the time , such that john quincy adams ( and probably other politicians like him ) , who clearly disapproved of the practice , was reluctant to get involved in the case until it was appealed all the way to the supreme court .
the biggest success of " amistad " is probably the characterization of cinque ( djimon hounsou ) , who emerges as the de facto leader of the kidnapped africans and struggles to communicate with baldwin ( matthew mcconaughey ) , the lawyer who represents them in court .
through cinque , we are given a window into the native culture , as he and the displaced africans try to explain to the prison guards what they need for a proper burial of a dead tribe member , or find an illustrated version of the bible and try to understand the story of jesus christ .
cinque sees the dispute with a clarity and simplicity that , again , contrasts with the technicalities and mechanics of the legal process and of the political squabbles .
"
what kind of country is this , where laws ' almost ' work ?
"
he asks baldwin in bewilderment , when he learns that the case must be re - tried before the supreme court .
spielberg 's direction tends a little bit towards the manipulative side at times , such as when he adds a heavy orchestral swell to cinque 's angry outburst in the court room .
still , there is n't enough of this for it to be a serious problem .
the main flaw in this film , which prevents it from earning four stars , is that it seems like spielberg and franzoni ca n't quite handle all of these issues at the same time , so instead they settle for addressing each one separately and simply editing the results into the same movie .
this summer 's contact , for example , dealt with several issues at once , but each of them was somehow present in almost every scene and , most importantly , all of them were resolved at once .
" amistad " tries to pull it all together in the end with a speech from adams , but it somehow feels a little forced , and in any case the speech itself , which lasts almost fifteen minutes , wears out its welcome about halfway through .
perhaps the best way to describe it is this :
" amistad " is three four star films edited into one .
almost every individual scene works , but the final product is lacking the necessary focus and coherence , and thus is less than the sum of its parts .
however , i ca n't honestly say how it could have been done differently , and in any case the story comes through with enough raw emotional power that it is still a very good film , and thus
i recommend it to anyone who can handle the disturbing imagery .
answer:
P


question:
first impressions : critically , a close - to - awful film , but money - wise , it has been doing ( and will continue to do ) great .
a sometimes - funny film that sags and lags and oftentimes gets boring .
an orginal plot that grows old real fast .
one of the only 90 minute films that i 've gotten bored through .
men in black has defied the odds .
when i first saw that the flick was 89 minutes long , i thought maybe that this was a poor attempt at an independence day type film that just ran out of gas .
however , i now realize that not only did men in black run out of gas , but the film in 90 minutes manages to show off a very original idea ( which summer audiences have embraced ) that becomes old about 25 minutes into the movie .
tommy lee jones and will smith play two " government " agents who are responsible for keeping order in alien society .
the ridiculous plot begins when an alien " bug " , played weirdly by vincent d'onofrio , who was so great in full metal jacket , lands on earth to retrieve a galaxy that 's somewhere on " orion 's belt .
"
anyway , the basic plot revolves around jones and smith to stop this bug from getting the galaxy , or a higher power will blow up the earth .
the premise is ridulous , but that is not why i did n't like this film .
i love original plots .
this one had an original one .
but director barry sonnenfeld did something to this film that ruined its plot : he made the film drag and also put in unncessary elements in it that are found in romance films .
whenever i saw d'onofrio 's bug stomp and eat people in the film ,
it got terribly boring after a while .
while smith 's wise - cracks did fill in the gaps , it was n't enough .
and also , i can not believe the screenwriters elected to have a sub - plot where tommy lee jones missed his former lover because as an alien agent , they ca n't have contact with any humans really .
and here i see jones , at a satellite computer , watching his lover plant the garden ?
a sentimental moment in an alien movie ?
nice try , but i do n't think so .
it does n't work here .
it just makes the movie even more ridiculous and even more boring
: we do n't only have aliens to worry about , but now we have jones 's conscience .
i came into the movie not wanting to see jones 's conscience , but wanting to see a real action movie that had lots of aliens in it .
maybe it 's unfair that i partly judged this movie on what my expectations were .
nevertheless , even though some parts are indeed funny , the plot in this movie grew old and boring -- quick .
answer:
N


question:
this movie about two dysfunctional families never really gets off the ground , despite some good performances from a basically competent cast .
eddie ( sean penn ) and maureen ( robin wright penn ) are a not - so - happily married couple down on their luck .
living in rented rooms in the seedier part of an unnamed city , they spend what little income they have at the local bar , owned by shorty ( stanton ) , eddie 's best friend , and his wife georgie ( mazar ) .
maureen and eddie share an odd relationship marked by eddie 's frequent disappearances .
on his return , he promises her the world and professes his undying love .
their manic reunions all too soon lead to new lows , as eddie disappears again .
like a junky craving the next high , maureen suffers through the lows to reach the next high .
their relationship is further complicated by maureen 's pregnancy .
she wants the baby and the father , but deep down seems to sense the inevitability of losing the latter .
during one of eddie 's absences , maureen is attacked by kiefer , her neighbor , who gets her drunk ( with her cooperation ) and then insists on intimacy .
she leaves badly bruised and in fear of what eddie might do -- not to her , but to kiefer .
she lies about what happens to ensure that no harm will come to eddie as the result of his inevitable rage .
he lashes out as she expects , and ends up in an institution for what he believes to be 3 months -- but in reality is 10 years .
during this decade , maureen divorces eddie and remarries a more solid and reliable individual , joey ( travolta , in a small role ) .
her life falls apart again when eddie is released from the institution and comes to find her .
joey insists on bringing eddie into his home and making his wife choose between her husband ( and father of two children ) and stability ( joey makes a good living , drives a cadillac , and they live in a large house in the suburbs ) and the love of her previous life .
she chooses her past , and sacrifices not only her new life but her old ( by giving up her and eddie 's daughter to joey ) .
but the eddie that she knew is gone , replaced by a mere shell of the man he was .
maureen is herself a mere shell , more an automaton than a woman -- as if she had gone through whatever therapy and treatment eddie was given along with him .
perhaps these two really do need each other and can find happiness ( or maybe the lack of sadness ) together , but the movie 's denouement was not convincing .
answer:

N