instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
linda fiorentino disappeared off the radar after a deservedly heralded turn in the cable pic the last seduction , and her being cast as dogma 's lead is nothing short of inexplicable .
she 's still in fine form
as bethany , an abortion clinic worker who 's lost her faith .
one night , a visitor from heaven makes a fiery entrance in bethany 's bedroom .
he is metatron ( alan rickman ) , the voice of god , and he needs her help : she must stop two fallen angels from entering a new jersey church - the fate of the universe depends on it .
god would do it him / herself , but he /
she is . . .
missing , having taken up human form somewhere on earth never to be heard from again .
bethany is joined on her road trip to the garden state by the " prophets " jay ( jason mewes ) and silent bob ( kevin smith , doing double - duty ) , the slacker minstrels who have appeared in all of smith 's films thus far .
at some point , rock drops naked out of the sky as rufus , the undocumented ( and very black ) " thirteenth apostle " , and offers his assistance , as does divine stripper serendipity ( salma hayek ) .
it 's a wild ride .
they 're in pursuit of loki and bartleby ( damon and affleck , respectively - this is probably the sharpest either has ever been ) , who were banished from heaven to wisconsin and have discovered a dogmatic loophole that will enable their return .
loki decides to wreak havoc along the way with the knowledge that his sins will be absolved at the pearly gates .
at one point , he terrorizes a boardroom full of suits with an angry combination of words and bullets .
it 's a nasty , guiltily enjoyable little scene that asks , " how corrupt are you ? " .
wings of desire
this ai n't .
since debuting with clerks , smith has grown as a director , particularly in terms of working with actors .
( chris rock is this film 's only weak link - between jokes , he 's wooden . )
his no - frills visual style has n't changed much over the years , though ( dogma 's widescreen compositions at least have blockbuster affectations ) , nor has his writing - his characters still sit around delivering one caustic , hilarious speech after another .
dogma chips away at big religious issues - namely , the hypocrisy that accompanies any organized system of beliefs - eloquently and articulately , but a few of the monologues sound too much like blatant exposition .
as well , the verbal introduction of each new person seems to take forever .
any movie with this much weighty talk would have a hard time maintaining momentum ( hurlyburly , anyone ? ) , and eventually dogma 's pacing goes slack .
a long diatribe from bartleby late in the game , in which he laments the destiny of celestial beings , comes at a point when we 've heard enough .
because his change of heart ( bartleby is initially the good cop to loki 's bad ) drives the climax , said rant is given a great deal of screen time .
sure , affleck deserved a big moment ( damon steals their scenes together prior ) , but it ultimately makes the film and us feel bloated .
like tarantino , smith was a video - age sponge who became a sample - mad indie filmmaker .
dogma pays welcome homage to an eclectic batch of movies , including indiana jones and the last crusade , with silent bob doing his best harrison ford , and weird science - a shit demon attacks our heroes !
smith also has a kitchen sink brand of humour : his dexterous maneuvering between the satirical ( a cardinal played by george carlin attempts to mount a publicity campaign with the slogan " catholicism
wow ! " )
and the scatalogical ensures that no lover of comedy will leave
dogma feeling malnourished .
i bust
( ed ? )
a gut on several occasions .
proceedings also get off on the right foot with the opening with
the funniest disclaimer ever .
it 's a disclaimer unlikely to put protestors at ease , for to read it , one actually has to see dogma .
the prerelease ballyhoo is in the tradition of the last temptation of christ 's , martin scorsese 's 1988 adaptation of nikos kazantzakis ' controversial novel , in that it is not directly linked to the picture 's content but to rumours and heresy .
there 's a famous anecdote about fletch director michael ritchie inviting picketers of the last temptation of christ into a screening on his dime , just so they could know for certain what they were rallying against .
( not one of them had watched it . )
every single person refused .
smith and scorsese have a lot in common , and so do the two films in question , because both smith 's bethany and scorsese 's jesus are hollow shells without their faith .
in fact , dogma 's denouement ( which follows a thrilling showdown that 's worth the wait ) is a catholic love - in , a veritable recruitment poster .
( i felt sentimental about a religion i do n't belong to .
now that 's powerful filmmaking . )
smith is nothing if not sincere about his own devotion to god , and that spirituality shines through
.
it 's enough to make me forgive dogma for its editorial sins .
my religion is movies .
when the catholic league beats on dogma for imaginary crimes against a doctrine , in a roundabout way they 're attacking what i live for : freedom of expression through celluloid .
i therefore feel that , although i 'm no bible - thumper , i 'm at least as qualified to criticize dogma as william donohue and his followers .
answer:
P


question:
i have no real tangible proof of this , but i swear that there are a lot of producers in hollywood who adamantly believe that if you take a bad script , written by a bad writer and give the project it to an equally bad director , then it is actually possible to make a good movie . using their logic , all that really needs be done to change the bad movie into a good movie is cast a bunch of super - famous actors and provide an almost unlimited production budget .
this is the only way i can fathom how 20th century fox hired jon amiel in order to direct this eighty million dollar waste of my time
( not counting the time it took me to get to and from the theatre ) .
now , before i continue to ferociously attack what 's wrong with this film , i just want to point out that one of the reasons it fails so miserably is because it does have the potential to be an exciting thriller .
catherine zeta - jones plays virginia baker , an insurance investigator tracking down an infamous art thief named robert macdougal ( sean connery ) .
if you 've ever seen any hollywood blockbuster before , i really do n't have to spend too much time on frivolous plot details : the two team up for various jobs , stealing various things for various purposes .
the problem we come to is that we 've all seen this a few billion times before and this film does n't break any new ground in the big - budget / hollywood / action genre .
the result is that the entire production feels contrived
.
i 'm going to be completely honest here : pretty much the only thing keeping me awake throughout the run - time was looking at catherine zeta - jones .
now while this may be a compliment for ms .
zeta - jones , it certainly is n't for either the writers or the director , who are not nearly as clever as they think they are .
just about the most profound thought they can inject into this film is when they have macdougal lecture baker on the semantic difference between " entrapment " and " blackmail " .
with an eighty million dollar budget , you 'd think that entrapment would at least feature edge - of - your seat action scenes or breathtaking special f
/ x . well , you 'd be wrong .
the action that is present in this film takes place in a huge skyscraper and is relatively unspectacular .
unfortunately for all those involved with entrapment , die hard narrowly beat it to the screen by ? 11 years .
the reality is that after 15 minutes of watching this picture , you know exactly what 's going to happen , despite rather pathetic attempts in the screenplay to throw in plot twists .
many scenes seem to exist merely as a reason to outfit zeta - jones in extremely tight - fitting clothing .
one particular scene features baker crawling around trying to avoid laser - beams while she tries to steal an ancient chinese mask .
nothing wrong with that , but she entered the room from the floor and knew exactly where the mask was -
so why did n't she and macdougal tunnel in directly under the mask instead of the other side of the room ?
i 'll tell you why : because it 's a great excuse to photograph zeta - jones ' posterior as it slides underneath those beams ( and it also allows a second scene of the exact same thing - the rehearsal ) .
ving rhames also makes an appearance in this movie , and though he has great screen presence ( although so do connery and zeta - jones ) and the most interesting character in the film , not even he can rescue this film from the depths of the boring film abyss
( a concept i invented just to describe this picture ) .
one last complaint : entrapment is littered of instances where macdougal will just slip into a shadow or behind a building , or he becomes obstructed by a moving vehicle and then in the next shot , he 'll spontaneously disappear in ninja - like fashion .
i can picture amiel patting himself on the back , thinking to himself " it 'll leave the audience wondering for days
: how did he do that ?
"
we know jon , it 's called editing .
answer:
N


question:
playwright tom stoppard and screenwriter marc norman took on an astonishingly difficult task : they wanted to write a script about william shakespeare that parallels shakespeare 's works .
they also wanted to poke fun at the way all of us envision shakespeare : i mean , really , who does n't think of shakespeare as a guy seething with so much passion that he can barely write a play without exploding into a passionate , introspective verbal couplet of iambic pentameter ?
stoppard and norman are men who love shakespeare , and they wanted to make a movie for everyone else who loves shakespeare .
and , despite the difficulty of their task , they have succeeded .
shakespeare in love is one of the smartest , funniest , most touching films of the year .
it 's so rare that a picture with such high aspirations succeeds in all of its endeavors
,
but here we have a movie that defines success : it is at once charmingly acted and flawlessly written .
it could have been a smug , self - important movie that panders to die - hard shakespeare fans , but the appeal of this film is almost universal :
if you 've ever read a play by shakespeare , or know anything about his life , it 's likely that you 'll find grand entertainment in shakespeare in love .
joseph fiennes , brother of ralph , stars as shakespeare himself
; he 's a delightful , irresistible lad , concerned mostly with women and detached from life 's more serious problems ( debt , plague , etc . ) .
he 's commissioned to write plays for various people : queen elizabeth ( judi dench ) wants comedies , while local slimeball philip henslowe ( geoffrey rush ) needs him to write a play so that he can pay off his debts to hugh fennymann ( tom wilkinson ) .
shakespeare , however , has trouble focusing on his work .
he begins work on a comedy about a boy named romeo and a girl named ethel .
this all changes , however , when he meets viola de lesseps ( a radiant gwyneth paltrow ) , a young heiress set to marry the financially - oriented lord wessex ( colin firth ) .
shakespeare instantly falls in love with her ; he first meets her when she pretends to be a man to try out for the part of romeo .
he discovers her identity and confronts her later ; she , of course , falls in love with him , although their love is doomed because she absolutely must marry the tyrannical lord wessex .
but she continues to act because she loves shakespeare 's writing so much , and soon the production ( which later becomes romeo and juliet ) is set to be performed .
shakespeare in love is an amazingly good film , not because it works as great entertainment , but
because it pays attention to detail and knows its subject matter .
i was instantly won over by joseph fiennes in the lead role : he has such searing optimism and energy ; he 's clearly a man who admires shakespeare , and even in the shortcomings that he gives his character ( inability to turn away from women , attention deficit disorder ) , we sense a great deal of affection and care .
he practically overflows with passion in every scene .
fiennes is matched by paltrow ( whose english accent is so good that wonder where she actually comes from ) ; she is an actress who exudes strength and conviction in every performance
i 've seen her in .
the two performers work perfectly together , taking the passionate scenes as far as possible without making them melodramatic , and wringing the comedic scenes for every conceivable laugh .
of course , it does n't hurt that they have a masterful script to work with .
stoppard , whose play rozencrantz and guildenstern are dead inspired an interesting film , is full of dry wit and boundless understated humor ( all of his plays have similarly dry humor ) .
the first intelligent step stoppard and norman took was harmonizing the events of the film with romeo and juliet .
one of the funniest scenes in the film is an imitation of the famous terrace scene from the play ; in the movie , shakespeare is bumbling about while viola is trying to fend off her nurse maid .
director john madden does a fantastic job dabbling in slapstick humor -- scenes like these would have seemed obtuse in the hands of a lesser director .
i 'm going to have to see the movie again ; i 'm certain there are numerous references that i missed .
in fact , i doubt it 's possible to gather everything with just one viewing .
stoppard is a master of detail
: you 'll notice familiar lines placed throughout the film , not as lines of a play , but as dialogue , suggesting that shakespeare simply spoke like that all the time .
there 's also a brilliant running joke in which shakespeare is in constant competition with christopher marlowe ( and
the fact that marlowe is played by the openly - homosexual rupert everett is a joke in of itself ) , proposing a slightly twisted explanation to marlowe 's mysterious death in a pub .
there 's also a scene featuring a wide - eyed dog that is so funny that i hurt myself laughing .
"
there 's no dog in this play ? "
" no ! no dog !
" the ensemble cast is perhaps the strongest this year .
geoffrey rush is nearly unrecognizable as the detestable henslowe ; wilkinson is also hard to recognize , but has a great role as a thug who takes his part as the apothecary so seriously .
ben affleck , playing one of the actors in the company , shows great range , both in his accent ( his is almost as good as paltrow 's ) and in humor ( he has some of the best one - liners in the movie ) .
colin firth , always stuck playing the sap , does a good job being hateful .
judi dench , however , has the best supporting performance as queen elizabeth : rarely has so much depth been conveyed in so few words .
my single , minor complaint about shakespeare in love is that i feel like i could have been more moved by the end .
the story is moving , but there are a few missed opportunities in the final scenes .
but my quibbling is not important .
what is important is that i acknowledge the quality of this picture ,
the sheer skill with which it has been written , acted , and produced .
shakespeare in love tries so many things , and nails every one of them
: it 's a film that both loves shakespeare and makes fun of him , a film in which the actors , writers , and director are all perfectly in sync .
it 's also a movie that has the potential to introduce a lot of people to shakespeare 's work in a positive way , without seeming condescending or superior .
i admire this film not only because it passes so pleasantly , but because it has lofty aspirations and succeeds in them .
not just any film can poke fun at shakespeare and get away with it .
answer:

P