TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: talk about beating a dead horse !
when home alone was released in 1990 , it was a breath of fresh air , and the final box office tally indicated how much audiences appreciated a genuinely - funny family film .
the unexpectedly high gross guaranteed a sequel , so ,
two years later , we were subjected to home alone 2 , which might as well have been called clone alone for all of the originality it exhibited .
for john hughes , two home alone movies were n't enough ?
he began recycling the same kinds of villains and situations in almost every movie he was involved with , including a pathetic box office bomb called baby 's day out , last year 's live - action 101 dalmatians , and this year 's flubber .
now , inexplicably , hughes has exhumed not only these worn - out plot elements , but the " home alone " name as well . the result ?
1997 's worst sequel
( edging out speed 2 and batman and robin ) , home alone 3 . by changing the characters , hughes ( who wrote and co - produced the film ) , along with his co - conspirator , director raja gosnell , has attempted to inject new life into a series that is way past the point of cardiac arrest .
the new kid , alex pruitt , is played by alex d .
linz ( one fine day ) , and
the only thing he has going for him is terminal cuteness .
he 's not half as interesting as macaulay culkin once was .
the villains , pale copies of joe pesci and daniel stern , are even less engaging than the pair of idiots in flubber .
in home alone 3 , there are four of them ( olek krupa , david thornton , lenny von dohlen , and rya kihlstedt ) , but all that means is an opportunity for twice as many pratfalls .
this time , the kid is n't left home alone because his parents have gone on a trip .
instead , he has developed a bad case of chicken pox , so he ca n't go to school .
his dad ( kevin kilner ) is away on business and his mom ( haviland morris ) has to run errands , so , for the most part , he 's all by himself during the day .
through a series of coincidences too irritating to relate , a top secret u . s .
air force integrated circuit comes into his possession .
it 's wanted by a gang of four international crooks who intend to break into alex 's home to retrieve it .
the eight- year old , who is wise beyond his years , booby traps the house with all sorts of rube goldberg - type devices designed to humiliate and incapacitate the villains .
the movie 's climax takes place during a raging snowstorm ?
only none of the falling flakes looks remotely believable .
previously , the most counterfeit - looking snow effects i can remember were in star
trek iii .
these are far worse .
in fact , the production values are so shoddy that there are some scenes in the midst of this near - blizzard when a shining sun can be seen .
if it 's a wonderful life could generate real- looking snow back in the 1940s , why ca n't home alone 3 , which has a significantly larger budget and ' 90s technology at its disposal ?
there has been an ongoing debate regarding the appropriateness of live - action cartoon violence for young children .
home alone 3 will add fuel to the fire .
it 's one thing to see wyle e . coyote flattened by a 10 ton acme weight , but quite another to watch a running lawn mower fall on
lenny von dohlen .
adults and even older children will recognize that this is obviously fake and intended to be humorous , but what about five and six - year olds ?
the level of violence in home alone 3 is extreme ?
many of alex 's schemes are nasty enough to kill .
but , because this is a " family film , " no one dies , despite being electrocuted , falling thirty feet , and getting smacked on the head by a barbell .
not only is home alone 3 unnecessary , but it 's offensive .
it 's an exercise in tediousness , and there is n't a genuine laugh to be found from the beginning to the end ( unless , by some strange quirk of fate , you have missed every 1990s movie associated with john hughes , and thus have n't seen this stuff before ) .
i ca n't imagine anyone with a reasonable attention span being more than momentarily distracted by this pointless adventure .
maybe that 's why the only ones laughing at the screening i attended were still in their thumb - sucking years .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: october sky is a rare oddity in cinema : a self - proclaimed " uplifting " film that is actually uplifting !
based on the autobiographical book by homer hickam , rocket boys , october sky tells the struggle of four boys reaching for their dream .
it 's 1957 , and for the boys of coalwood , west virginia , there 's not much hope of a rosy future .
coalwood is a coal mining town , and , except for the few lucky ones who manage to escape on a football scholarship , most of coalwood 's boys are destined to work in the mine .
but , in october 1957 , an event happens that sparks one boy to dream .
the launch of the soviet satellite sputnik sets homer hickam ( jake gyllenhaal ) to dream a future of rocketry and space travel .
of course , homer 's parents ( chris cooper and natalie canderday ) are n't quite sure what to make of their son 's unusual interests .
homer gets his strongest encouragement from miss riley ( laura dern ) , a teacher in his school who also informs him about the scholarships offered to the winners of a national science fair .
and so , with stars in his eyes , and thoughts of scholarships in his head , homer enlists the help of three other boys ( william lee scott , chad lindberg and chris owen ) and begins to build a rocket .
but , do
these four backwoods boys even have the slightest hope of escaping their destiny ?
there is a lot that could have gone wrong with october sky .
nearly every sequence flirts with becoming syrupy and cliched .
however , miraculously , october sky
avoids nearly all of these pitfalls , making the exact right moves at the exact right times .
a film emerges which manages to be powerful and moving without slipping into the gauzy haze of nostalgia or sliding down the sugarry slope of sappiness .
jake gyllenhaal is outstanding as the kid at the center of this film .
> from the outset of the film , he is immediately likable , and never seems too corny or brainy as to alienate the audience .
unfortunately , while october sky focuses on homer , the other three kids get the short end of the stick .
they remain little more than placeholders reading " insert friend here " .
of the adults in the film , chris cooper is the most fully realized character .
the film never paints him as merely the villainous parent standing in the way of his child 's dreams , but , instead , shows the multihued portrait of a man who wants the best for his family and town , but is too stubborn to realize what that is .
director joe johnson deserves much credit for successfully navigating the many obstacles that october sky manages to dodge .
however , there are still a few occasions when he allows things to proceed just a step too far .
scenes which were natural and inspiring start to become contrived and artificial .
however , these lapses are minimal , and johnson quickly steers the movie back on course .
the problem with many so - called " uplifting " films is that they attempt to force their mediciney goodness down your throat .
october sky never resorts to that level , and yet , manages to become a truly uplifting film purely on its own merits .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: all those who were offended by there 's
something about mary should not tread in the waters of american pie , a gratuitously sexual rollercoaster ride of raunch .
and while this uproariously funny , gross - out summer movie is basically an exercise in bad taste , it also demonstrates a surprising sweetness in the end .
american pie is the latest entry to the offensive teenage - targeted fare this season .
i must question the studio that releases a movie like this .
the producers are aiming these films at the 15 - 24 crowd , but while pushing the limit of possible sex and violence in an r - rated film .
some have even been narrowly avoiding the dreaded nc-17 , a rating the mpaa gives when the adult content surpasses even that of a restricted movie .
american pie was threatened with an nc-17 , but after snipping a few scenes from the finished product , it was given an r .
but at least this new addition is not as careless and unforgiving as something like south park .
it is sick , perverse , and ultimately disgusting - not to mention extremely funny .
american pie is about four desperate teenagers who make a pact to lose their virginity by prom night .
jim ( jason biggs ) , kevin ( thomas ian nicholas ) , oz ( chris klein ) and finch ( eddie kaye thomas ) are a quartet of high school students in their senior year who think sex is something they must experience to be successful in their lives ahead .
jim inquires what it feels like when you reach third base , to which one of his friends replies : ` like warm apple pie . . . '
.
of course , this prompts the scene unfairly exposed in the trailers , in which jim and a freshly baked pie have a very intimate moment in the kitchen corner .
there are many moments , such as this , in which director paul weitz uses a game - plan similar to the one frequently displayed in mary : to cause the audience to break down laughing in disgusting disbelief .
american pie is a hard - fought effort that has replenishing rewards if you manage to stick with it .
i loved the young cast in this movie .
consider the subject matter that these actors have dealt with , obviously suggestiveness never rivaled in any of their previous projects , and you should appreciate their performances .
biggs is more than enjoyable , and chris klein ( who recently played a similar jock in election ) is obviously a young talent on the rise .
but in a teen - dominated movie , the best performance comes from comedian eugene levy ( of television 's sctv ) , who is unexpectedly brilliant as jim 's uneasy father .
scenes in which the familiar father - son conversations are brought to interesting new levels are the funniest moments to be found in american pie .
after levy discovers jim 's new use for apple pie , he tells him , ` i did a fare share of that sort of thing when i was your age .
but i never used baked goods . '
it is performances such as his , and bill murray 's in rushmore , that are often unfairly dismissed when awards are handed out .
there are some less - than - original aspects of the film .
a bathroom incident involving finch and a bottle of ex - lax is something we 've seen before .
if weitz is planning to take after the farrelly brothers , then this is a decidedly unwise move : the same prank was pulled in the brother 's dumb and dumber , and used to greater effect .
secondly , the characters are forced into a half - hearted climax that seems more artificial than amusing .
but at one point , in which we discover that american pie does have a heart of
it 's own , biggs asks his buddies why he 's going through so much pressure for something that 's ` not very important anyway . '
and so we realize that while the film is expressive about a subject that is hardly appropriate , it still manages to be mature .
in it 's own way .

SOLUTION:
P