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

Answer: P


Question: the most interesting part of
"
ca n't hardly wait " just happens to be not only the most human , but
for many of us , the one part that many of us can easily relate to .
that is the character of denise ( lauren ambrose ) , the film 's sole sarcastic member who mocks everything that goes on in the film , and at one point sits down on a couch and looks totally bored .
the film wisely holds over this moment , nicely showing her alienation in the midst of a large high school party .
.. almost too nicely .
for some members of the audience ( read : me ) , this is basically a mirror of what 's going on with them watching this film .
we sit there wondering why we 've even bothered to see a film about a long high school party we probably never felt the desire to go to in the first place .
i would actually highly recommend this film if it satirized all of this .
after all , this film is filled with a bunch of pathetic stereotypes much of which i went to high school with .
everyone 's here :
the jock , the homecoming queen , the nerd ( and his dominions of trekkies and x - philes ) , the alienated wannabe writer , the school spirit girl , the pothead ( s ) , the wigger , etc , etc , etc , and weirdly enough this film shows them as superficial , lame , and basically as a bunch of losers . except for denise , who rolls her eyes at everything , and easily becomes the most likable character even before she speaks ( her yearbook entry , something which is done for each main character , quotes oscar wilde - definite pointers there ) .
unfortunately , the writers and directors take several major misteps on the way to making this into an admirable and even likable film .
the film , as i said , portrays most of its characters as superficial and just totally ignorant to everything .
however , instead of sticking with this , perhaps even going a bit further with it , they let this lie , and actually make these characters into our heroes .
we follow several of them , all a bunch of moronic stereotypes with only a shread of humanity and realism , and tries to tell boring and overly melodramatic tales about them as if we actually cared and/or identified with them .
and if we did , we certainly do n't want to revisit that state of being .
here 's a quick low - down : it 's graduation , and we follow a bunch of seniors on the last night , otherwise known as the " american grafitti " or , to a lesser extent , the " dazed and confused " cliche .
the formal just followed them as they drove aimlessly ; the latter did a little bit of that and featured a big outdoor keg party .
"
ca n't hardly wait " just opts for a big indoor keg party , and a little bit of aimless driving , albeit of the i'm - whining - because - i - can't - get - a - girl - i - want brand .
we follow many people around , but mostly we trail preston ( ethan embry , of " that thing you do ! " ) , the alienated writer , who 's been pining over the homcoming queen , amanda ( the totally overrated jennifer love hewitt ) , for the entirety of high school because he thinks they shared a moment their freshman year over a freaking pop tart .
now that she 's broken up with her football player boyfriend , mike ( peter facinelli ) , he decides to go to the party with a note he 's written declaring his " love " for her in the hopes he 'll build up the guts to give it to her .
.. even though he 's leaving for a multi - week intensive writing program hosted by none other than kurt vonnegut
( okay :
the ingenius vonnegut or some icky noxema spokesperson ? ) .
since that plot is incredibly lame and a track record of what goes on with it would n't be able to carry a commercial let alone a feature film , and because it 's a party , there are some more main characters , such as : william ( charlie korsmo , finally surfacing after " dick tracy " ) , the nerd ( and his dominions ) who has come up with a ridiculous plan to publically sabotage mike , who 's humiliated him for years , but gets too caught up in drinking to do it ; kenny ( seth green ) , the wigger , who has decided that this party will be where he will finally get laid ( uh huh ) ; and denise , the only exceptional character , who unfortunately gets stuck in a bathroom ( do n't ask ) with kenny where the two characters let down their characters and are allowed to follow the laws of plot cliches from point a to point b with nary a bit of characterization involved after awhile . ugh .
the main comparison this film is getting to another film is actually not " american grafitti " or " dazed and confused , " two films that embraced and ultimately made humans out of many of its high schoolers ( not to mention were extremely entertaining ) , but to john hughes films of the 80s , most notably " sixteen candles .
"
the big difference in the two is that that film managed to not only embrace but even satirize its main characters , and did so equally and in an entertaining fashion .
this film forgets to satirize its characters , and ultimately tells a story about a bunch of uninteresting stereotypes .
..
and then says that it 's all okay .
we ca n't take this film seriously , nor can we take this as fun , so really what good is it ?
but i will tell you some things i did
like
: i liked the direction , except for a couple too - over - the - top features , like way - too - glossy jump cuts
( it 's like an oxymoron ) and other obscurities .
generally , though , elfont and kaplan do have graceful camera movement , and even manage to capture
an altman - esque feel to their film from time to time ( a thing with a note , though , is too hokey to really be admirable ) .
i actually did like seth green , for once in about a decade ( when he played a very young woody allen in " radio days " ) - his desintegration of his wigger character was almost believable .
.. almost .
and , of course , lauren ambrose is wonderful as denise , the one character we could have used some more of , even though it would have changed the entirety of the film .
however , the character of denise really does n't work with the film , when really thought about .
she 's far too witty and realized ( at least for the first half ) to belong in this film , and whenever she appears , she automatically gives everything a delightfully satirical tone .
she 's not just the cynic or the intellectual ; she 's just a very interesting character who provides entertainment even if it further damages other already damaged characters .
she may ruin the film more , but at least when she 's on screen we can sit up and think to ourselves " well , at least we 'll be entertained .
"
a couple other things that just do n't work : mike 's character , who suffers an epiphany throughout the film but in the end acts as though he has forgotten everything : too much the sacrificial lamb for the film in general ;
the aimless , bitchy driving by preston to try and get over his inability to shack up with amanda - give me a break ; and
perhaps the one thing that just does n't work at all : jenna eflman 's uncredited cameo as an angel - just did n't work , but nice try .
basically the worst thing about this film , the real reason i 'm giving this such a low rating , is because it refuses to give us any fully realized characters and then insists we follow around complete stereotypes from other movies doing things that are inane and unlike anything we 'd do .
we do n't feel for these characters because for most of us , we are n't stereotypes going through the motions to worn subplots .
the acid test for high school movies is : does it at all capture the feel of what it 's portraying ?
the answer for this film is no .
nice try , though .

Answer: N


Question: my son and i share a perverse predilection for bad movies .
we are amused and entertained by the cheap thrills , the corny dialog , the ludicrous premises and the bad acting .
since other family members aspire to higher forms of entertainment , we usually wind up indulging our proclivity together .
i ca n't remember when we disagreed on the relative merits of a clunker until species 2 came along .
he was not amused .
i on the other hand was able to easily suspend the applicable requirements in the usual manner and declare myself suitably entertained .
perhaps the evident skills that were brought to the process of producing a bad product was what prevented him from extracting fun out of mediocrity .
i on the other hand appreciated the fact that the producers and director knew exactly what they were doing : insulting my intelligence , and brought adequate movie - making skills to the project a movie does not have to be good to be well made , at least in terms of the craft .
the movie could have been better if it were not so brusque .
this movie slaps you with conception , pregnancy , delivery and young childhood in consecutive frames , without pausing for infancy .
the producers of nescafe have nothing on this alien race in which a woman 's womb balloons immediately after the male orgasm , and a few seconds later a young child tears its way out of her abdomen in a sloppy and gory version of an inside - out cesarean .
an autopsy scene in which a buzz saw cuts through the cranium was not the kind of indulgence that i condone , to say nothing of the fact that it was scientifically incorrect .
in a real autopsy the saw does not cut through the scalp ; it is used only after the skull has been exposed .
the opening sequences of exploration of mars were very good .
the writers showed excellent skills for ceremonial speech writing but the spontaneous dialogue would qualify for a subtitle : ` as bad as it gets ' .
as the movie progressed i vowed to remember the lines that made me cringe but only one stuck .
eve ( natasha henstridge ) was cloned from sil , the original alien sexual predator , but her mating instinct was artificially attenuated , which was all that was needed to turn her into a noble and cooperative prisoner .
in a wistful display of resignation and understanding she tells her friend and jailer ( marg helgenberger ) : ` i think of all the places that i will never see and all the people that i will never meet . '
it 's enough to melt the most callous heart .
at another point she protests :
` i 'm human too , you know . '
she is only half right .
peter medak , the director , knows his business .
justin lazard as the doomed astronaut does nothing to enhance his hollywood credentials .
james cromwell , his father , is perfect in a short role .
marg heldenberger , the dna scientist is pleasant and beautiful .
natasha is an exquisite ornament .
george dzunza knew and delivered what was expected of him as the dumb general that messes things up .
michael madsen was there .
black buddies do not usually survive in this type of movie but mykelti williamson manages to stay around for the final credits , which is more that we can say for lazard . .

Answer:
N