In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
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Question: it is easy to label something sentimental or tear jerking when one has not experienced the heartache of losing a child ? whether that may be in life or in death .
after having said that , i will also say that this movie does all of the above very well .
one gets that choking sensation in the throat ( because of grief ) when one brother forgives another for a costly mistake , or when a husband hugs his wife after a long estrangement .
there is no ocean , no drownings
and it does not conjure up memories of yet another ?
ordinary people ' .
in fact the only thing remotely connected to the ocean is probably tap water and the toilet flushing ( not that this literally happened in the movie ) .
so what are the lessons learnt :
1 . do n't take your children to class reunions .
2 . do n't leave them alone in the lobby , not even for a second .
michelle pfeiffer once again plays the role of a highly - strung wife and mother , a trend that started with ? a thousand acres ' and ?
one fine day ' .
my comment is that she is exceptionally fine strung in this movie , so much so that when she has a nervous break down , the veins on her temples bulge impressively .
whoopi golberg also puts in an understated performance , playing a lesbian cop , with a name that makes one want to reach for a lollipop .
lastly , who are the ideal companions for this sort of movie ?
my grandmother comes to mind .

Answer: P


Question: roman emperor marcus aurelius ( richard harris ) chooses his trusted general maximus ( russell crowe ) as his successor .
however the emperor 's evil son commodus ( joaquin phoenix ) murders his father before the announcement can be made , and maximus ( as well as his family ) is sentenced to be executed .
maximus is able to escape his executioners , but is later captured and sold as a slave to proximo ( oliver reed ) .
proximo is looking for gladiators to earn himself money ( he being a former gladiator himself ) , and maximus reluctantly uses his skills to prove himself a powerful gladiator .
when emperor commodus announces that new games will be held in the colisseum , proximo takes his gladiators there to do battle .
maximus sees this as his chance to exact revenge on commodus .
gladiator begins with a great battle sequence between the roman army and germania , and actually is able to maintain interest during the now required " 40 minutes of exposition after a kick ass opening sequence " style of moviemaking .
the only downfall of the opening sequence is the editing style used . . .
it 's choppy slow - motion which is unsettling and distracting .
it 's similar to the opening sequence in saving private ryan , but nowhere near as effective .
the actual gladiator battles are thrilling , but also a bit disjointed .
many times it 's unclear as to exactly what 's going on .
. .
all the audience can tell is that blood is being spilled .
we 're not sure who 's blood or by who 's hand though .
there 's an instance of this earlier in the film too
that 's disappointing .
it 's comes when maximus escapes his executioners .
some flashes and a few quick cuts later and maximus is free . . .
but i still do n't know exactly how he did it .
russell crowe should have become a major star after his gleefully over the top role as a computer generated serial killer in 1995 's virtuosity .
for whatever reason his stardom never arrived . . .
but he should have it now .
from here on moviegoers should now be able to say , " let 's go see the new russell crowe movie " .
he gets the best scene in the film ( and one of the best moments of all recent movies ) when he reveals his identity to commodus in the colisseum .
it 's both rousing and chilling
.
joaquin phoenix
does a very effective job of making commodus a person and not just a cartoon character ( which could have easily happened ) .
commodus is conniving , sneaky and whiny , but phoenix never lets the character get silly .
it 's a very good ( and very creepy ) performance .
oliver reed died during the filming of gladiator , and it 's a huge loss to the acting world .
i 've always been fascinated with reed .
. .
he 's one of those very talented performers who once had a fine career but ended up in direct to video junk during his twilight years .
it 's ironic that this film probably would have gotten him back into real movies again , as he gives a fun and sincere performance .
the film is dedicated to him , and he will surely be missed .
reed 's death presented the filmmakers with an obvious problem , as he still had scenes to be completed . rather than recast the role ( and end up reshooting a great deal of footage ) , a digital version of oliver reed was created at a reported cost of 2 million dollars .
ironically , that was probably more money than reed ever earned for a single film .
anyway , this digital effect is only used in one scene that i am aware of ( for about twenty seconds ) and if you are n't looking for it you wo n't even be able to tell .
some of the other digital effects are less convincing however .
. .
and like i always say , noticable digital effects take me out of a movie immediately .
it 's sad that such a good film has these distractions .
movies like the fall of the roman empire and spartacus seemed to do okay without the use of computer effects .
keep in mind that gladiator is based on real people and real events , but is entirely a work of fiction .
however it 's a work of fiction that 's great entertainment , and
another film to add to the list of damn fine flicks released in 2000 a .
d .

Answer: P


Question: catherine deane ( jennifer lopez ) is a psychologist who has been hired to participate in a project where she can enter the minds of comatose victims and try to interact with their subconscious in an attempt to wake them up .
she has been experiencing moderate success with a young boy in a coma , but the boy 's parents are n't happy with the apparent lack of progress and the toll of her job is having adverse affects on her regular life .
as if trying to assure the boy 's parents was n't hard enough on her , a new development arises that furthers the strain on deane 's mental faculties .
a vicious serial killer named carl stargher ( vincent d'onofrio ) has been kidnapping women , locking them in an automated cell that drowns them slowly in a matter of days , then soaking the corpses in bleach to turn them into life - sized dolls .
just after kidnapping his latest victim and locking her in the cell , stargher has a traumatic experience that triggers a schizophrenic virus in his brain and causes him to sink in an eternal catatonia .
the police , led by fbi agent peter novak ( vince vaughn ) are able to locate stargher by some clues he left while dumping his previous victim 's body , but they feel all hope is lost for his current victim due to his vegetative state .
in a last ditch attempt , they ask deane and the scientists that created the project to undergo the frightening task of entering stargher 's mind to try and find the location of the victim locked in the deadly cell . . .
a cell which will completely fill with water in the next 40 hours !
initial reports about this film described it as a cross between the silence of the lambs and the matrix .
while it does share some characteristics with both films ( particularly the first forty minutes , which seem almost like a condensed version of lambs ) , the cell also seems to contain elements of dreamscape and brainstorm .
the buzz around this project is that first - time feature film director tarsem singh ( who won many awards for his video of r .
e . m .
's " losing my religion " ) wanted a script that he could fashion images out of instead of a cohesive story , and a good portion of this film supports that theory .
despite the borrowed elements from the aforementioned films and a script that contains several logically questionable moments , the cell does feature some remarkable imagery .
all of the sequences where we delve into someone 's mind are incredibly beautiful ( including the dank mind of stargher , whose thoughts are reminiscent of an h .
r .
giger painting come to life mixed with a tool music video ) , proving that singh is as adept at filming strange and wonderful images as his acclaim would lead us to believe .
the first sequence that takes place in stargher 's mind is by far the best , featuring one of the most ingenious traps i 've ever seen in a film ( involving a horse , which no one seeing this film will probably forget ) , a zoo - like display of stargher 's victims which are animated like marionettes , and stargher himself in a giant purple cape that spans the walls of his mental throne room .
if the film had continued within this dirty monstrous world i would have deemed the film brilliant , but alas , the sequences only become more silly as they go along ( despite a painful nipple ring removal later in the film ) .
the cast is basically just an excuse for there to be some moderate plot semblance during the parade of images , but at least vincent d'onofrio turns in his usual bizarre and psychotic performance ( magnified by ten , thanks to the environment in which the film has been placed ) .
in my opinion , d'onofrio was one of the best creepy actors i have ever seen in a film , but his film choices as of late have been so completely awful ( i .
e .
- the newton boys , feeling minnesota , the thirteenth floor , and the velocity of gary ) that i have begun to rethink my initial assessment of him .
the character of stargher is an excellent role for him though , and will probably lead to a bit of typecasting for him .
detractors of violence and disturbing images will want to stay far away from this film , as it contains heavy doses of both .
besides the nipple ring removal i mention above , there is also stargher 's penchant for hanging suspended off of the floor by the rings that pierce his back and legs ( prior to his catatonia and capture ) which will have audiences recoiling .
a sequence where catherine enters stargher 's mind and finds him recreating the disemboweling of his first victim is also pretty disquieting .
one moment also features a character having his intestines slowly removed from his body by an old fashioned hand cranked spit - like device .
as a narrative film , the cell is sorely lacking .
as a collection of images though , the cell is extremely well done .
although the latter sequences in the film contain fewer disturbing imagery than the first half , singh has done what he supposedly set out to do : make a film solely for the purpose of stringing some remarkable images together .
unfortunately , a well - written script should have been considered too , because without it the cell just seems like any other music video we could see on mtv ( provided , of course , that mtv allowed for the use of graphic violence and language in music videos ) .

Answer:
P