instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
" . . . because i 'm a scientist . that 's what we do ! " --- dr .
alexander mccabe ( bob gunton ) , in response to why he created evil bats .
alright folks , stop me if you 've heard this one : genetically altered animals wreak havoc on a town and a small band of locals , assisted by a specialist in the particular animal 's field , must team up to stop the mutant creatures before they can multiply and spread across the earth .
oh yeah , the military is on their way to bomb the town as well , so they are running short on time .
sound familiar ?
such is the plot of the destination films release of bats .
dina meyer stars as the " bat specialist " sheila , who is pulled from her research ( along with her annoying sidekick , played with irritating deftness by leon ) in order to help a small texas town figure out why some local citizens and animals have been chewed to death recently .
with the help of the local sheriff ( lou diamond phillips ) , a cdc official ( carlos jacott ) , and a scientist ( bob gunton ) , sheila discovers it is indeed bats ( who have been genetically altered by gunton 's character to be more aggressive and omnivorous , in order to be used as a military weapon ! ) .
i have to say here
that i knew exactly what i was getting into going into this film .
there 's not a frame of promotional footage i have seen for the film that would have led me to believe it was going to be any good .
in this respect , the film never disappointed me .
this film reaches a level that transcends the " so bad
it 's good " level and borders on the downright insane .
the effects are awful , the script is contrived , and for most of the feature i was laughing at things that were supposed to be taken seriously ( i think ) .
i challenge anyone to sit through the scene , where a bat stalks a baby in a crib while another bat terrorizes a patron eating at a diner , with a straight face .
thankfully , the performances are as good as they can be considering the material the actors had to perform with .
dina meyer has always been the highlight of any of the films she has been in ( johnny mnemonic , dragonheart , and starship troopers . . .
the latter being the only film out of that batch with any actual merit ) , and this one is no exception .
while one never really gets the impression that meyer 's character could be a bat expert in reality , one never really cares to doubt it either .
she gives as good a performance as could be expected , plus she 's nice to look at for an hour and a half .
lou diamond phillips is also serviceable here , as the small town sheriff turned eventual hero .
although when we first meet his character he knows bats are the reason for what 's going on in town , for some reason later on he suddenly becomes amazed to learn that the actual cause of the deaths in town are because of bats .
the only bad performance in the film is that of leon 's .
he is relegated to the " i 'm not sticking around here !
" character and proceeds to repeat variations of that line for the majority of the film even though he stays .
anyone who ca n't immediately tell that bob gunton ( the bad guy in patch adams and countless other films ) is going to eventually turn on the gang and side with his creations before his eminent death will probably be surprised , but i highly doubt it .
even if he had n't been the villain in just about every film he 's ever been in , so many obvious hints are given to indicate the devious act that it holds no shock whatsoever .
in fact , his death is welcome , because it finally starts moving the plot towards the finale .
if the plot does n't sound ridiculous to you yet , then check out these little tidbits : a multitude of bats inexplicably disperses when a police officer cocks his pistol .
an entire town disregards the sheriff and doctor 's orders to stay indoors after a curfew is instigated , causing mass hysteria when the bats come out in full force , killing several townsfolk .
a government official blows off shelia 's instructions ( to wait until dawn to install a cooling unit in the bats ' cave that will kill all of them off ) by pulling a night job , resulting in the death of an entire military unit .
a cavern full of bat feces never ignites when a phosphorus flare is lit right in the middle of it .
finally , to top it all off , this little texas town is showing nosferatu in it 's single screen theater ( for reference , our town has over a million people in it with nearly 150 movie screens , and we 're lucky to even get kevin smith 's dogma ) .
the most laughable part of the movie though comes from the ill - conceived bat puppets .
while the actual bat attack scenes are shot with rapid fire editing ( making the scenes nearly impossible to comprehend what 's going on ) , the scenes where a bat is called upon to interact with a live actor are usually shot more low - key .
therefore we the audience get loving close - ups of the most unrealistic , rubbery bat puppets ever committed to film
.
being able to see the puppeteer 's arms would be the only things that could have made these creations worse .
after all of this , if you still decide bats might be the movie for you ,
do n't say you have n't been warned .
trust me when i say that it 's a lot more fun to trash than it is to sit through .
i just wish that dina meyer would be cast in more roles or at least choose better films to appear in .
she 's definitely a talent that is going to waste in films like these .
answer:
N


question:
notting hill 's trailer is awful : a laughless , schmaltzy montage .
the movie was desperately marketed to the anti - phantom menace crowd , the same lovelorn females who ignored the love letter .
and it apparently worked .
perhaps the presence of julia roberts - whose allure beyond those perfect teeth still escapes me - had a lot to do with notting hill 's opening weekend success , but the film 's staying power is based on word of mouth . allow me to spread some more good buzz for notting hill .
grant stars as william thacker , a travel - bookstore owner who works and resides in a tiny english district called notting hill .
into his shop one day wanders famous actress anna scott ( roberts ) .
a common thief , some spilled orange juice , and
some stilted conversation leads to their first , highly impetuous ( or is that improbable ? ) , kiss .
days later , william sneaks into her hotel suite under the guise of a magazine journalist , and so begins a passionate , albeit surreptitious , affair .
( aside : notting hill 's portrayal of press junkets is deadly accurate . )
only anna 's celebrity - or william 's lack thereof - threatens to drive a wedge between them .
richard curtis has tapped into fantasy we all have considered , and for at least its first half - hour the picture 's " beauty and the beast " -like scenario is ( romantic ) escapism of the highest order .
as with groundhog day or pleasantville , while watching the high - concept comedy notting hill one constantly imagines him / herself in the lead ; it 's william 's ordinaryness that entices the spoiled and bored anna .
curtis ( who previously penned four weddings and a funeral ) is also smart enough to know that the unlikely couple 's situation is not enough to fuel two hours ' worth of entertainment , so
some of notting hill 's finest moments revolve around william 's eccentric friends and family .
by now , dear reader , you 've probably heard a lot about rhys ifans ' performance as william 's imbecilic welsh flatmate .
yes , he 's a crowd pleaser , a walking sight gag , but his character is not nearly as involving as the wheelchair - bound ( and appropriately named ) bella ( mckee , the anguished waitress of naked ) or max ( tom mcinnerny ) , her lousy chef of a husband .
in the movie 's best sequence , william , anna , and company sit around bloated from max 's latest concoction and hold a contest : the last brownie on the table goes to the diner with the saddest life .
the scene ends only as a british writer would end it .
if anything , fantastic bits like these dull the main plot 's dramatic impact .
roberts and grant , especially , are appealing , but their relationship is convolutedly interrupted too many times ( four weddings ' suffered similar flaws ) , and william and anna ultimately only have one thing in common
: they 're lonely .
( worth noting in roberts ' and grant 's favour : the ubiquitous " i 'm just a girl , standing across from a boy , asking him to love her " episode is not nearly so syrupy as it appears in clips , and it features some of the best emoting either actor has ever done . )
notting hill is nonetheless enjoyable
; on the visual side of things , i especially appreciated michell 's playful changing - of - the - seasons number . if only ( and this is a surprisinly minor gripe ) he had lopped off the egregious epilogue ; for a story that thrives on what we bring to it , the filmmakers work too hard to tidy things up , leaving our imaginations in the lurch .
answer:
P


question:
the most common ( and in many cases the only ) complaint against francis ford coppola 's 1972 masterpiece the godfather is glamorising of mafia , which is presented as an institution guided by ancient tradition and virtues like honour , loyalty and solidarity more suitable for some gentler , kinder ages .
martin scorsese , another italoamerican moviemaker , confronted that perspective with his own , more down - to - earth vision of mafia in 1973 mean streets , movie that dealt with lower echelons of organised crime .
unfortunately for scorsese , his film was unspectacular and too artsy to compete with coppola 's influence on mafia portrayals in the movies .
seventeen years later scorsese returned to mean streets of new york with another film that dealt with darker side of american organised crime .
this film was goodfellas , epic black comedy which is today considered as one of the best and most influential films of 1990s .
goodfellas owes some of its initial success and popularity to the fact that it was based on the true story , told in best - seller book wiseguy by nicholas pileggi ( who would co - write the screenplay for the film ) .
the book , as well as the film , chronicled thirty years in the life of henry hill ( played by ray liotta ) , irish - italian criminal from new york .
at the age of 13 he gets recruited in the criminal organisation of paulie cicero ( played by paul sorvino ) , local mob boss , and gradually climbs up the ladder starting with small errands .
after couple of years , together with his best childhood friend tommy de vito ( played by joe pesci ) , he joins the crew of expert thieves led by jimmy conway ( played by robert de niro ) .
three of them spend years as best friends and associates , gathering enormous wealth from their criminal enterprises that would culminate with one of the most spectacular robberies in american history .
wealth , influence and privileges of men connected with mafia are enough for henry hill to seduce his future wife karen ( played by lorraine bracco ) , who would afterwards remain loyal to her husband despite infidelities , domestic abuse , arrests and would even be accomplice to his own private drug dealing business .
but the perfect world of " wiseguys " gradually begins to fall apart - tommy 's unpredictable outbursts of homicidal violence , jimmy 's reluctance to share his part of the loot with partners and , finally , henry 's own drug habit would lead to his downfall and make him question his loyalty to the friends .
goodfellas is an excellent example of a film that represents work of a film genius in his full glory .
scorsese managed to create a vision which is effective and complete despite being full of contradictions that would ripped the film apart in the hands of less talented filmmaker .
world depicted in this film is both ordinary and fascinating .
scorsese spares no effort to show us all the violence , hypocrisy and inherent paranoia of organised crime , yet it manages to make it both seductive and funny .
after being exposed to two and half hours of the film and three decades of criminal history ( based on some notorious real life events ) , the audience understands why the characters chose such dangerous life paths , trading the superficial and short - lasting glamour and prosperity of a criminal to the dullness and poverty of honest citizens .
scorsese also manages to break viewer 's moralistic inhibitions by showing truly revolting material - scenes that depict personal tragedies , broken homes , human depravity , violence , bloodshed and murder - in all their uncompromising reality , but in a manner that would make it amusing and funny to the audience .
with the use of ironic soundtrack , manipulative shots , character 's dialogue or narrator 's commentary , goodfellas represents the new standards of black humour that would became very popular few years later during tarantino era .
even if we do n't pay attention to skills with which potentially disturbing material becomes eye pleasing and entertaining , we should admit that scorsese displays his talents of truly original and creative filmmaker .
first , we might notice unusual structure of the plot - relatively minor subplot is used as movie 's ironic prologue .
then , instead of single narrator , scorsese switches to the second character as narrator in the middle of the film only to switch back to the original shortly afterwards .
this multiple points of views , both in terms of narration and various subjective shots , only lengthens the ironic distance towards characters and their situation .
same ironic distance comes with extremely effective choice of soundtrack .
nostalgia for good old times is illustrated with easy - listening 1950s pop songs , while depression , paranoia and bad times find their expression in more neurotic rock songs of late 1960s and 1970s .
but the soundtrack is most effective when it is used as ironic comment - almost pastoral , easy listening tunes make strong and very ironic contrast to the scenes of violence and bloodshed .
however , thing most associated with this film is couple of continuos shots that feature characters moving through large rooms and interacting with dozens if not hundreds of people .
such scenes , although they require very great skill and patience during their shootings , became very popular among other directors in 1990s .
fragmentary character of the screenplay , which does n't have straight plot and instead bases film on series of loosely connected vignettes , gives another interesting opportunity for scorsese .
he uses this structure of film to experiment , and most successful of such experiments is hilarious " a day in life " segment near the end of the film .
another essential element of goodfellas is large but superb collection of great acting talents .
the most respectable among them is robert de niro , but his character , who happen to be most quiet and business - like member of criminal trio , gets overshadowed by two of his friends and colleagues .
joe pesci deserved his " oscar " for supporting role of homicidal psychopath tommy , and his lines , including ad - libs , probably represent the most memorable element of the film .
ray liotta , although equally talented , perhaps does n't look as the best choice for narrator and nominal hero of the film .
liotta 's henry hill looks somewhat too hollywoodised and glamorous among this bunch of low - level street thugs .
liotta , on the other hand , improves general impression by very realistic and menacing portrayal of drug addiction .
lorraine bracco is , on the other hand , very effective and believable as karen hill , wife who gradually descends into same moral cesspool as her husband .
paul sorvino is also very effective as patriarch mafioso , and among the supporting cast most memorable is chuck low as pestering small - time gangster who unknowingly digs his own grave .
as a combination of clever sociological study , black humour and innovative
filmmaking goodfellas became something only the truly great films could do - work of art and excellent popular entertainment in the same time . because of this achievement , and also because of the great influence on future filmmakers ,
this cinematic gem deserves its rightful place among the best films of 1990s .
answer:

P