instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
"
some houses are born bad , " goes the haunting 's tag line , to which i must add , " some movies , too .
"
nothing short of hiring a new cast , a more literate screenwriter , and a new director could have saved this tragically misguided adaptation of jackson 's meritorious novel .
the haunting is late entry summer dreck too slick to be creepy , and its seemingly endless stream of digital trickery and spooky ooky sound effects do n't frighten so much as numb the audience into submission
- the film is like a rube goldberg contraption rigged to shout " boo .
" fragile nell ( taylor ) , bisexual theo ( zeta - jones ) , and smiley luke ( wilson ) are three insomniacs who gather at the reputedly possessed hill house for an extended study on sleep disorders , hosted by professor marrow ( neeson ) .
marrow 's secretly gathering data on their respective paranoid responses to his recount of hill house 's bleak history .
he 's not prepared for the very real apparitions that terrorize the crew , nell especially , who has some ancestral connection to the manor 's previous inhabitants .
taylor is thoroughly insufferable in her first big - budget lead .
for starters , her consistently dour expression sucks the life out of even the early scenes , when we 're introduced to the mansion and all its fun - house trappings .
her character is supposed to be depressed , having tended to an unloving mother for too many years , but taylor plays nell as supernaturally lame , alternately grouchy , mopey , wiggy and pathetic , and i kept wondering why the other characters did n't just ditch this bitch
.
as for the obscenely photogenic zeta - jones , she breezes through her scenes with a wink and a smile and takes the scenery with her .
unfortunately , she 's saddled with some of the most unlikely dialogue the screenplay has to offer .
theo 's assessment of the house ?
"
i love it !
sort of charles foster kane meets the munsters .
" who on earth would say that in place of " citizen kane meets the munsters " ?
( furthermore , would you gladly spend a single night in a house befitting that description ? )
both actresses fare better than neeson , who looks embarrassed to be a part of this ensemble ( and for good reason ) , and his character is the most bland .
as luke puts it , dr .
marrow pulls the old " academic bait and switch " on his subjects , but he breaks down and confesses to this the second he 's accused .
later , he risks his life by climbing a crumbling stairwell to save nell ( it 's amusing to hear neeson shout " nell " repeatedly , given his starring role in the 1994 jodie foster vehicle of the same name ) .
why was this nice , helpful , and redemptive researcher so absent of ethics at the start ?
the haunting was well designed by eugenio zanetti .
his sets are obsessively detailed , and even before the cgi kicks in , they seem alive , never quite still .
i do have one beef with this aspect of the production :
the real life mansion used in exterior shots , nottinghamshire 's harlaxton manor , is so vast that one has trouble believing that nell and company , no matter how much running away they do from ghosts and goblins , always finish up in locations that were established in act one , as if all the action has been confined to one wing of hill house .
eighty million dollars was spent on the haunting , and despite a powerhouse box office debut ,
i doubt it will recoup its costs ( including marketing ) domestically .
thank jan de bont for that : proving for the third time that speed was a fluke , in that it was actually enjoyable , de bont has served up another ride , sans thrill .
his images , well - lit though they are , have an unmistakable been there - done that quality
; in fact , whole sequences , not to mention the cloaked , airy ghoul who owns the climax , feel lifted from a much smarter and infinitely more enjoyable spectacle from three summers back , peter jackson 's the frighteners .
i do n't mean to suggest de bont is a plagiarist , i mean to suggest that he 's a hack , having found no new ways to give us chills .
answer:
N


question:
stephen , please post if appropriate .
" mafia ! "
- crime is n't a funny business by homer yen ( c ) 1998 on a particular night when i found myself having some free time , i had a chance to either go to sleep early or to see " mafia ! " , a spoof of mafia and crime films such as " the godfather , " " goodfellas " and " casino " .
at 84 minutes in length , i thought that i could enjoy a few laughs before getting a good nights sleep .
but by my account , i think that my laff - o - meter only registered a few grins , one giggle , and maybe one chortle .
i suppose that you could justify your time as homage to the venerable hollywood star , lloyd bridges , who just recently passed away and whose last performance was in this film .
" mafia !
" chronicles vincenzo cortino 's ( lloyd bridges ) life . separated from his family when he was young , he escapes to america and tries to live an honest life .
but as fate would have it , vincenzo grows up to be a powerful and klutzy crime lord .
following in his footsteps are his two sons , joey ( billy burke ) and anthony ( jay mohr ) .
like all siblings in powerful crime families , they squabble over power , the future of the family , fortune , and women .
" mafia !
" is co - written by jim abrahams , who also contributed to some gut - busting funny spoofs such as " airplane " and " the naked gun .
"
but these previous movies were funny because the jokes seemed more universally understood and there was more of a manic silliness at work .
as i write this , i also wonder how many people have actually seen the movies on which this spoof is based .
crime movies in general contain a lot of profanity and violence .
it 's a tough genre to parody .
i was kind of hoping that they could somehow spoof the profanity used in all of those crime movies , maybe by having all of the tough crime lords say " please " as they decide which sector to take over , but this opportunity was never explored .
there were one or two moments that made me smile such as the scene where vincenzo is dancing with his newly we d daughter - in - law .
a gunman shoots him several times .
the impact of the bullets cause him to make these wild contortions that force the wedding band to change music styles to keep up with him , from the samba to disco to the macarena .
i think that i just gave away the best part of the film .
oh well , that just means that you can go to sleep a little earlier .
answer:
N


question:
wyatt earp has a lot to tell and little to say .
this story of the legendary lawman runs three hours and nine minutes and that 's too long for this epic - wannabe that plays more like a tv mini - series than a movie .
the story opens on the earp family farm , with young wyatt ready to run away from home .
he wants to fight in the civil war , but his dad ( hackman ) has different ideas and wants his son to study law .
time passes and wyatt heads west , returns home to marry , and , after a spell , begins his career in law enforcement .
by the time he ( costner ) and his brothers ( madsen , david andrews , and linden ashby ) arrive in tombstone , wyatt has tried his hand at everything from hunting buffalo to dealing cards .
wyatt earp is very appealing in places-- such as cast , costumes , and cinematography-- but an overstated story and overpowered score deaden most of the emotional impact .
who can be moved by scene after scene after scene of swelling strings and suffocating speeches ?
somber is
fine-- just ask clint eastwood-- but
this film that boasts not one , not two , but three , count 'em three , hammy death scenes !
still , a little bit of earp goes a long way and the life and times of the legendary lawman are from uninteresting stuff .
his , uh , unusual relations with women , for example , are an intriguing contrast to his character 's credo of
" nothing counts as much as blood .
" equally amusing is a buffalo - hunting ( and skinning ! )
sequence that is decidedly non - pc .
director lawrence kasdan takes a refreshingly realistic approach to the gunplay .
the infamous gunfight at the ok corral is both brutal and brief , devoid of almost any theatrics .
do n't look for much glorified violence here .
despite some large exclamation points in the story , the characters * do * come to life .
the diverse cast includes everyone from betty buckley ( ! ) to mackenzie astin ( ! ! ) .
kevin costner is very good in the title role .
dances with whitney nevers get as steely as the role requires , though , but his transformation from lighthearted law student to stoic sheriff is fun to watch .
he was tougher in a perfect world .
his foil is dennis quaid , who pulled a deniro by losing 40 + pounds to play the tubercular terror doc holliday .
gaunt * and * gamely ,
he 's a scene stealer who 's seen too little .
other familiar faces include tom sizemore ( looking like bruce mcgill ) , bill pullman ( looking like jeff daniels ) , and lea thompson ( looking like someone other than lea thompson ) .
both gene hackman and isabella rosselini appear and disappear like magic , while late entries catherine o'hara and jobeth williams are surprisingly solid .
though the story and score should 've tried " less is more , " all other credits are technical tops .
production designer ida random , art director gary wissner , and costume designer colleen atwood are some of the vips who helped spend what must 've been an enormous budget .
clearly no expense was spared .
answer:

P