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

[Q]: 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 .
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not - for - mail from :
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reviews subject : review : powder ( 1995 ) followup - to :
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710 status : ro powder a film review by andrew hicks
copyright 1996 andrew hicks / fatboy productions .
[A]: N


[Q]: studio 54 attracted so many weird and bizarre people to its gates that it 's a wonder why the film about the life and death of the studio centers itself on one very boring , cliched individual , not to mention an ensemble of people who would n't be at all fascinating unless they worked at the studio , which they did according to this film .
are we supposed to believe that out of all the strange folk who populated the studio nightly , that a character who is a bland ripoff of tony manero would really make a good protagonist for the film about it ?
" 54 " belongs in the elite group of films known as " the big disappointments " : the films that attain so much hype and/or so much potential in its creation that they come off worse than they are when they are finally finished .
i was heavily awaiting " 54 , " not the least because i 've become fascinated with the infamous club , which has been the subject of an engrossing documentary that 's been running all summer on vh1 , which is , weirdly enough , much more intriguing and engrossing than this " edgy " film .
perhaps more importantly , " 54 " is part of the blossoming subgenre , " the 70s nostalgia film , " which has been picking up mighty steam , what with " boogie nights " and " the last days of disco " coming out within the year , and both being such damn good movies that not only captured the feel of a certain time period ( the late 70s party and the early 80s wakeup period ) , but brought us interesting and real characters , like scotty , the tragically gay boom mike operator from " boogie nights , " and charlotte , the ironically clueless and bitchy co - protagonist from " the last days of disco , " not to mention several others .
"
54 " deals not so much with the timeline of the studio ( how it began , how it was run , how it ended ) - that 's all dealt with in the narrated opening and finale - but more interested in the characters who populated it .
this is a definite plus .
here 's a film that could have been a fascinating 2 hour plus film about the tragic people who went there to party , and had to wakeup in the 80s when things like diseases , economy problems , and perhaps worst of all , reagan , all hit and forced everyone into a rude awakening .
the story of the studio is tragedy in itself : let 's look at how it all affected the people .
but this film does n't let that happen .
it gives us a half - assed protagonist named shane o'shea ( ryan phillippe , from " i know what you did last summer " ) , who 's
chief character trait is the fact that he 's from new jersey , which also happens to be his chief character flaw ( i guess ) .
he 's dim - witted , into being part of " the scene , " and soon finds he 's become a bit of a rave amongst the studio regulars .
. .
a bit like " saturday night fever , " ' cept no travolta and no real interest put into him .
poor , poor phillippe struggles to make him interesting , but
all he is a half - assed character and not at all our ticket to the glimpse of the decadence going on inside the club that he could have been .
shane begins to hang out with some other denizens of the club , like anita ( salma hayek ) , a wannabe donna sommers , and her young hubby , greg randanzo ( breckin meyer , from " clueless " ) , who helps shane become a bartender and rise to a bit of fame .
although he begins to get somewhere when he sleeps with the foxy billie auster ( sela ward ) , an exec of sorts , he falls in lust with a soap star named julie black ( neve campbell ) , and thus the boring romance subplot that 's all too not necessarily important to anything else in the film and never really becomes interesting at any point in the film
.
the film 's sole point of interest and one major strongpoint is the all - too necesary personage of steve rubell , played by mike myers ( you heard me ) .
rubell , the famous head of the studio acted as if he never stopped partying ever , and is an easy metaphor for the life and times of his creation , but the film , thanks to a surprisingly strong performance by myers , makes him out to be more than that .
notice the scenes sole shocking scene , where he tries to get felatio from one of his male employees in turn for a promotion : myers brings the humanity to rubell in this scene , and a couple others , that some of us who 've only seen him on tv never saw , and proves to be perhaps the one aspect of studio 54 that this film actually nails .
first time feature director mark christopher proves that he 's a better director than a writer , though not too terribly much .
his story is trite and shallow , as are his characters , and his direction is shockingly flat , especially for a film about this subject .
it 's as if he had a great story to tell , but instead opted for the easier route .
the studio 's recreation is amazingly accurate , though , and very impressive , but his direction is never captivating enough .
some people say that a film does its job if it makes you want to visit the locale it takes place in ( despite the film 's tone , i still want to go to rome and its many nightclubs after i saw fellini 's " la dolce vita " ) , and when i watched " 54 , " i did n't particularly want to stay .
[A]: N


[Q]: the coen brothers are back again , this time with homer 's " odyssey " as the backdrop in their tale of three fugitives from a mississippi chain gang who trek across the south to find a secret treasure in " o brother , where art thou ?
" right for the beginning of " o brother " the coens grab your attention with a chain gang of prison inmates breaking rocks along the road in unison to a work song .
the camera flows around the hard toiling men , giving a visually exciting symmetry to the scene that ends with our three heroes - ulysses everett mcgill ( george clooney ) , delmar ( tim blake nelson ) and pete ( john turturro ) - escaping across a cotton field .
it is the beginning of a journey that takes on different meanings and urgencies to each member of the trio .
a strong suite , as always with the coen brothers , is the depth of character of the folks they create in their films .
their characters are goofy and comical , like nicolas cage in " raising arizona " ; or , dramatic , as albert finney and john turturro in " miller 's crossing " ; and , even a mix of the two with frances mcdormand in " fargo .
" in all cases , and in " o brother , " too , the characters populating their films are three - dimensional people .
ulysses everett is a handsome , hair - obsessed petty criminal with a silver tongue and not a lot in the brains department .
but , he seems like a genius when compared to the simple , sweet delmar and the maladjusted pete , who follow their self appointed leader to a promised treasure of $ 1 . 2 million .
their odyssey takes on the mystical proportions of homer 's original material as they meet all manner of people along the way , including those dangerous sirens who beckon them onto symbolically rocky shoals and a cyclops who beats them and takes all their money .
there is magic , too , when delmar believes that pete was turned into a horny toad by the sirens .
the story meanders through the different vignettes of the boys ' adventures , giving the flick a choppy , episodic feel that disrupts the overall flow .
some of the interludes are an epiphany , though .
the trio becomes a quartet when they pick up guitar - playing tommy johnson ( chris thomas king ) and visit a radio station in the middle of nowhere , run by its blind owner ( stephen root ) .
they become the soggy bottom boys for the sightless radio station man and , without their knowledge , are recorded as they sing the traditional tune , " i am a man of constant sorrow .
"
it is a wonderful moment of moviemaking and gives us , in my mind , the best movie song of the year
.
contrasting this and other wonderful moments
( the sexy seduction by the sirens comes to mind ) are some pretentious bits that detract from the overall quality of " o brother .
" in particular , near the end , is a scene where ulysses , delmar and pete crash a ku klux klan rally to save tommy from being lynched .
the scene is overblown and flashy and reeks of " the wizard of oz .
"
they do n't say " lions and tigers and bears , oh my !
" and there 's no dorothy , but it is the land of oz we 're seeing here .
the highs and lows of the story flow are tempered by fine acting on several levels .
george clooney is funny , charming , a little dumb and one of the handsomest actors in the business today .
he has the charm of a 30 's movie idol and is able to put himself into silly situations with dignity .
ulysses has an ongoing obsession with his hair , risking life and limb to get a particular brand of pomade and a supply of hairnets .
his vanity will come to plague him as it would any mystical hero - wanderer .
while clooney is the name draw for " o brother , " the show stealer is tim blake nelson as delmar .
the heretofore unknown nelson is terrific as the simple convict who , at one point , hears the word of the lord and joins members of a church congregation in their mass baptism .
delmar is saved and dedicates his life to doing good and provides a richness to his simple character that makes him shine .
the taciturn pete , as played by longtime coen collaborator turturro , is the sullen member of the trio and gives them the necessary angst .
all together , the tuneful triumvirate is a mix of the three stooges and the three musketeers as they prove to be buffoons , albeit brave ones .
the colorful supporting cast is rampant with homerian characters to meet and get to know along the way of the boys ' odyssey .
charles durning appears as incumbent governor pappy o'daniel , who keeps crossing paths with them in his bid for re - election .
john goodman is wicked as the one - eyed bible salesman and con artist , big dan teague .
michael badalucco is manic and outrageous as outlaw and bank robber extraordinary
, george " babyface " nelson .
stephen root is amusing as the blind dj , rep'ing one of the many references to the sightless that abound in the film in mystical ways .
holly hunter is wasted in the small role as ulysses ' estranged wife , penny ( and the real reason for this adventure , not secret treasure ) .
techs are , as expected in a coen brothers venture ,
first class .
cinematographer roger deakins , who has worked on five previous coen films , captures the sultry atmosphere of the south .
the photography complements the lush period production and costume provided by dennis gassner and mary zophres , respectively .
once again , roderick jaynes - the alter ego of ethan and joel coen - is on board as editor .
the high points outweigh the low through most of " o brother , where art thou ?
" with particular praise for the wonderful selection of period and traditional music .
i give it a b .
[A]:
P