TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: i 've never written a review for a movie i have n't watched all the way through , but i had to make an exception with powder .
i was about forty - five minutes into this one at a friend 's house when he and his brother got into a huge shouting match that would have ended in violence
had we not left the house .
so i never got to finish the movie
and i 'm sure as hell not going to pay three more bucks to watch half of a bad movie .
but i can at least get a partial review out of it , because i saw enough to know this one was n't worth finishing in the first place .
the movie centers around a freaky teenager who 's spent his entire life living in the cellar of his grandparents ' house .
when grandpa dies ( taking his department store down with him ) , social worker mary steenburgen has to take powder ( first and middle names ?
gold bond ) to a state home , where we find out he 's a different from the other kids .
actually , we find out he 's different when we first see him , because he 's the most pale individual we 've ever seen and moreover he has no body hair whatsoever .
when powder is born in the opening minutes of the movie , the father takes one look at him and says " he 's not my son . " obviously .
all i want to know is where the pillsbury dough boy was nine months ago .
so the white - faced freak leaves his neverland ranch for the state home and faces the ridicule of other kids .
that is , until they try to haze him during his first cafeteria lunch by making him " wear " his spoon ( " you can either wear it on your nose or up your ass .
" decisions , decisions . . . )
and he uses telepathic powers to draw all the silverware in the room into a giant pile in the middle of the table .
so if his father is the pillsbury dough boy , his mother must be sissy spacek 's carrie character .
and you have to factor in two more things from the subsequent scenes , as we find out powder
has some sort of
super - intelligence ( " your i .
q .
test went straight off the chart ! " ) and attracts electrical power .
this first shows up as powder visits the world of high school ( if he 's such a genius already , why would he need a high school education ? ) and sits through a demonstration in jeff goldblum 's science class .
goldblum plugs in a " jacob 's ladder " device that shows current running up two wires and immediately the current flows across the room and into powder 's chest .
but goldblum just stands there for about thirty seconds watching , instead of just unplugging the damn thing .
i guess he was too busy contemplating why he was appearing in his third bad movie in a row
( following hideaway and nine months ) .
that 's about all i saw before the big fight began and , let me tell you , that was twice as interesting as the movie itself .
but like i said , i saw enough to know this would be one of those terrible melodramas about the isolation of people who have superior abilities and how hard it is for those people to assimilate themselves into mainstream civilization .
none of these movies ever handle the subject properly , instead introducing the feeble beauty and the beast copout of having a beautiful woman fall in love with the guy 's personality , overlooking his personal appearance .
i already had the female character picked out ( the girl who was sitting next to him in the back of the room during the electrocution scene ) , but i guess i 'll never know for sure what happened .
from noraruth@aol .
com mon jun 10 15 : 04
: 03 edt 1996 article : 3654 of rec .
arts .
movies .
reviews path :
nntphub .
cb .
att .
com !
not - for - mail from :
noraruth@aol .
com ( andrew hicks )
newsgroups :
rec .
arts .
movies .
reviews , rec .
arts .
sf .
reviews subject : review : powder ( 1995 ) followup - to :
rec .
arts .
movies .
current - films , rec .
arts .
sf .
movies date : 10 jun 1996 18 : 16 : 03 gmt organization : university of missouri - columbia lines :
70 sender :
ecl@mtcts1 .
att .
com ( evelyn c . leeper )
approved :
ecl@mtcts1 .
att .
com
message - id : " > reply - to :
noraruth@aol .
com ( andrew hicks )
nntp - posting - host : mtcts2 .
mt .
lucent .
com summary : r .
a .
m .
r .
# 05425 keywords :
author = hicks originator :
ecl@mtcts2 xref : nntphub .
cb .
att .
com rec .
arts .
movies .
reviews : 3654 rec .
arts .
sf .
reviews :
710 status : ro powder a film review by andrew hicks
copyright 1996 andrew hicks / fatboy productions .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: is evil dead ii a bad movie ?
it 's full of terrible acting , pointless violence , and plot holes
yet it remains a cult classic nearly fifteen years after its release .
explaining why this movie stands out from others with similar plots ( including the original evil dead ) is extremely difficult .
` well what 's it about ? '
` five people stranded in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere struggling to survive vicious attacks from a variety of ugly , hairy , wart covered monsters . '
` come on i saw a movie just like that on monster vision last week .
why should i see it again ? '
` no evil dead ii is different , it 's funny . '
` it 's funny to see people die ?
are you sick or something ? '
maybe i am and maybe director sam raimi is as well to create such an enigma of a movie .
his unique execution is as sarcastic as subtle , as disturbing as it is hilarious .
an example of raimi 's odd approach : a monster ( formerly protagonist ash 's girlfriend of all people ) is cut in half by a chainsaw and a tidal wave of blood comes from the open wound .
sure it 's over - the - top , but it is so over - the - top that it is laugh out loud funny ; just try watching ash with a straight face as he unexpectedly is showered with ten gallons of blood , staining his face and knocking him back a few feet .
the whole movie is like this , watch ash get beat up , watch ash defeat the monster , watch ash get beat up again by another even zanier monster .
the more repetitive and unrealistic the movie gets , the more amusing it becomes .
no matter how sick it may sound , it is funny to watch
bruce ampbell 's ash get his butt kicked every five minutes .
and raimi takes advantage , he has ash tormented by the head of his girlfriend , by the body of an old lady , even by his own right hand .
like the less superior idle hands , we watch ash uncontrollably hit himself over and over again until he is forced to cut off his own body part .
but it does n't end , ash now has to fight his severed hand which now moves with the same celerity as thing from the addams family .
all of these events , thrown at you from minute one with roller coaster- like camera movements , at first become shocking , then inexplicably funny .
raimi expects the audience to laugh and as the film progresses , he seems to be enjoying himself even more by borrowing the classic mirror scene from the marx brothers ' duck soup , then bringing more characters into the picture to comically kill them off .
with a running time of less than an hour and a half , raimi gets away with the impossible , making a horror film with more gore than plot and intentionally more laughs than scares . ending evil dead ii with an opening for the third film in the series , raimi obviously had a lot of fun making this movie and could n't wait to make it 's sequel .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: i looked at the " internet movie database " 's awards section for this film , and found that this was nominated for a golden globe for " best picture ( drama ) .
"
anyone who 's seen this film can back me up on this :
this is the worst of the " great " disaster films , and that 's not really saying a lot for this film .
" earthquake " is basically notable because it originally included some theatre thing where the theatre shook when the big earthquake occured . on video ,
it 's a bland and slow - moving film which gives us a bunch of different characters ( the disaster film requisite ) , then brings them together in the struggle against the big disaster .
while this worked in , say , " the towering inferno , " it does n't here for one single reason : we do n't care about any of the characters .
the film gives us charlton heston ( in one of many crap 70s films he made , including " skyjacked " and that classic , " soylent green " ) as a rich man married to ava gardner , who is having a little affair with a young single mom ( genieveve bujold ) ; a renegade police officer on suspension ( george kennedy , in his least humored performance ) ; in the second weirdest subplot , a motorcycle stuntman ( richard roundtree , right after his " shaft " thing ) whose big stunt is he goes on a little track that goes upside down
( yea , snore ) ; and the weirdest subplot : a military man / bag boy at a grocery store who has a little thing for buxom victoria principal , and eventually gets vengeance on those guys who made fun of his hair
( ! ! ! ) . in smaller subplots , there 's a pointless bit about people who are flying over l . a .
( the city in the film , by the way ) , one who 's playing cards and married to a boring non - acting husband ( you think this one can go nowhere ?
guess again .
he gets interested in the final frames ) ; there 's genieveve bujold 's moron son , who has a little adventure with wires ; and for some much - needed comedy , there 's walter matthau ( billed as walter mutha . . .
.
- the only laugh in the film ) , as a wild drunkard , who 's big moment is a dance he does at a critical time .
as for the actual " earthquake , " it 's rather a
let - down .
there 's a full hour of character - setups , none of which is interesting , then about 10 minutes of shaking , crumbling , and a bit where a house almost falls on bujold ( narrowly missing ) .
this film needed that whole theatre - shaking :
they needed to wake everybody up because they were so bored
.
there 's little suspense following the quake , although this film tries for it .
there 's an adventure in a crumbling high - rise office building , the wires with the kid , and the movement of people who are all injured .
but none of these are all - too suspenseful .
the finale with the heston / gardner / bujold love triangle is ended in a basic flip - of - the - coin bit , which brings out a big let - down .
and there 's no real finale .
even " volcano " ended nicely , and that movie really sucked .
not only is it hokey , but you do n't care about any character . who cares if heston dies ? who cares if he choses bujold or gardner ( although i would have chosen gardner , mainly on the basis that she can actually act ) ? who cares if richard roundtree makes money on his stupid " stunt ? " who cares if that idiot kid falls to his death on some wires ? and who cares about that whole plane spiel ?
if anything , " earthquake " is worth a viewing for the same reason " glen or glenda ? " is .
i mean , i laughed at this more than i did at " bio dome .
"
but that 's another story ( and review ) .
in short , " earthquake " gives disaster pics a bad name .

SOLUTION:
N