In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

Q: studio expectations must not have been high for " great expectations " -- the film 's release date was pushed from late december to late january at what appeared to be the last minute , therefore putting any academy awards chances it has off until this time in 1999 .
it 's actually a smart move , because while this updated take on the charles dickens tale is n't quite oscar fodder , it * is * strong enough to be distinguished from the cinematic dumping ground that usually makes up the first five or six weeks of any given year .
" great expectations " also demonstrates how to modernize a classic story right , especially after the excruciatingly wretched excesses of baz luhrmann 's " william shakespeare 's romeo + juliet .
" " great expectations " opens somewhere in 1970s florida ( the original story is set in 19th - century england ) , as eight - year - old finn ( jeremy james kissner ) meets a trio of people who will have a profound effect on his life in the future .
there 's icy , 11-year - old estella ( raquel beaudene ) , a pseudo - playmate of finn 's ; ms .
dinsmoor ( anne bancroft ) , estella 's auntie who 's quite off - kilter over a past romance that never took off ; and a mysterious prisoner ( robert de niro ) whom finn saves the life of .
finn , who lives with his sister 's affable boyfriend ( lone star 's chris cooper ) , fancies himself an aspiring artist , and proves his prowess by whipping up an unusual portrait of estella using only ms .
dinsmoor 's lipstick , eyebrow pencil and the wallpaper from her dilapidating mansion .
flash forward into
the ' 90s ( after a brief stop in the ' 80s ) , and finn ( now played by ethan hawke ) , despondent over a strange hot - and - cold relationship with the elusive estella ( gwyneth paltrow ) , receives quite a bit of money from an unknown benefactor ; it 's enough cash to send him to new york to focus on a career in art .
there , finn seems to gain everything he could ever want -- wealth , prestige and a high place in the glamorous art world .
when estella resurfaces -- albeit with an aloof fianc ?
( hank azaria ) --
finn also sees the chance to renew their mutual attraction .
but she 's not the only ghost from finn 's past that 's going to be paying him a visit .
comparisons with the afore - mentioned " romeo + juliet " seem inevitable since these films are the only ones in recent memory to plop classic drama into a current setting .
" great expectations " is a much better venture , though , because it treats its source with even - handed respect , where " romeo " was never quite sure whether to be a spoof , a homage or both .
the movie is a visual banquet thanks to emmanuel lubezki 's sexy cinematography ; notably , he captures a revisited fountain kiss between the two leads with a luscious , erotic charge that 's steamier than the film 's ( surprisingly muted ) love scenes .
the eclectic rock soundtrack compliments the on - screen action beautifully , especially new songs by tori amos , mono and duncan sheik .
acting credits are first - rate , often hiding the screenplay 's occasional slip - ups .
hawke is sincere and solid as a leading man ( something we also learned from " gattaca " ) , and his finn is quite a likeable guy .
paltrow 's estella , on the other hand , is rather underdeveloped .
while the actress is at her icily seductive best , we 're not told very much about her character , and as a result , it 's often hard to understand why finn would appreciate her beyond a physical level ( but , oh , * what * a physical level ) ; sometimes , we root for finn although we do n't quite understand why she 's fueling his fire .
robert de niro is nice and sophisticated in the benevolent kind of role he rarely gets to play ; on the other end of the acting spectrum is bancroft , a macabre , throaty delight who mambos and sucks down cigarettes with an eerie enthusiasm that would make norma desmond jealous .
alfonso cuaron 's visually elegant direction helps to distract from the dry moments that pop up more frequently around the movie 's climax .
another problem is predictability ; you can guess your way through the plot even if you are n't familiar with the story .
despite its script flaws , though , " great expectations " is undeniably romantic without being corny or gloppy .
and frankly , it 's nice to see a film that embraces softened sensuality other than explicit sexuality .
perhaps that renovated release date , awfully close to valentine 's day , will end up helping " great expectations " ' seemingly average box office chances after all .

A: P
****
Q: uncompromising french director robert bresson 's " lancelot of the lake " achieves the exact opposite effect of sir thomas malory 's " morte darthur .
" instead of enshrining the legend of king arthur and his knights of the round table , it dethrones them by revealing arthur as a weak , ineffectual leader and the knights as a group of jealous , bickering men who failed to live up to the legends prescribed to them .
chivalry has no place in " lancelot of the lake , " except as that of a dying ideal .
bresson begins his tale as the knights of the round table are returning , decimated , after failing merlin 's command to retrieve the holy grail , the mystical cup that was filled with christ 's blood .
bresson immediately gives us his impression of the essential meaning of the grail quest : bloodshed and failure .
the opening sequence is a series of clumsy , disjointed fights amongst anonymous knights -- a head is hacked off , a stomach is impaled , a skull is split open , skeletal remains hang from trees , and
burning bodies smolder in the ruins of a flaming house .
since the film starts with camelot in near - ruin , and takes only an hour and a half to arrive at its inevitable conclusion , it does n't carry the grand , tragic resonance of other arthurian films .
we never get to see camelot at the peak of its power , therefore there is no real downfall to witness .
but , then again , it is not the name of camelot that is evoked in the title of the film .
rather , it is lancelot , and bresson is more interested in the internal battle within his heart , than the external downfall of a kingdom .
lancelot has always been a tragic figure in the arthurian tales , and bresson uses him as the central figure to explore the battle between the spirit and the flesh .
the greatest of all knights , he was flawed only in his love for arthur 's wife , queen guinevere , and it was that illicit affair that eventually caused the downfall of camelot .
even when lancelot attempts to end the affair with guinevere ( laura duke condominas ) , he only finds himself falling back into her arms against his better judgment .
he knows it means the destruction of the idealized kingdom , but he is powerless in his passion .
when sir mordred ( patrick bernhard ) accuses lancelot of the affair , other knights , including sir gawain ( humbert balsan ) spring to lancelot 's defense .
it is this battle within the knights that is the eventual undoing of the round table ; the flesh wins out over the spirit , and the consequences are dire .
bresson is an intensely personal filmmaker most interested in the interiors of men 's hearts and minds .
" lancelot of the lake " is filled with his particular trademarks : a stripped - down , minimalist style , flat , expressionless dialogue , and a grand use of natural sounds in place of music .
he uses background music only twice in the film , during an opening narration segment and during the opening credits .
the music here is a heavy drumbeat and accompanying bagpipes , but the rest of the film is scored with natural sounds that punctuate the film 's thematic elements : the incessant clanking and creaking of heavy armor , the neighing of horses , the rhythm of hooves beating down dirt roads , and the natural chirping and whispering of the forest .
like most of his other films , bresson employed nonprofessional actors who recite the dialogue in emotionless , flat voices .
all the actors he used in " lancelot of the lake " had never acted before , and with the exception of patrick bernhard , they never acted again .
never once do they raise their voices or put any emphasis on a given word .
instead of using vocal inflection , bresson strove to create emotion through images .
in some ways , this technique works ; in other ways , it does n't .
the final montage of arthur 's men battling each other is quite marvelous , and the final image of the knights in shining armor reduced to a literal scrap - pile sums up the entire film in one moment .
however , other times bresson 's uncompromising methods are distracting and questionable .
for instance , during an important jousting contest , bresson films the majority of the action so that the only things visible are the horses ' legs .
he does this repeatedly , opening each shot with the same few notes from a bagpipe and the raising of a different flag .
while there might be symbolic value in this , the resulting experience of watching it can be bothersome .
nevertheless , " lancelot of the lake " is a fascinating cinematic experience boldly made by a master filmmaker .
bresson 's style may not be for everyone , but one has to respect his strength as an artist .
by re - evaluating the arthurian legends and making them his own
, he turns " lancelot of the lake " into something rare in modern cinema : a truly personal film .

A: P
****
Q: with the sudden liberal emergence of personal privacy abounding in the news lately , what with that whole clinton thing going on ( you know , 100 million bucks to discover the president got boinked by an intern - oh , please , government , waste my taxes just a bit more , would you ? )
, it 's about time tony scott helmed the newest action pic disguised as an important if not slightly ignorant social statement .
with this and " crimson tide , " he 's created two successfully chilly films that are interesting , exciting , even pretty smart , but never totally riveting as cinema , and the problem i think with each of these films is that each film is too obsessed with its message to ever be really satisfying , and too obsessed with looking all cutting edge to ever be totally smart .
that film dealt with a civil war inside a nuclear submarine over whether or not to follow rules or question them , and was appropriately scary and all , but never totally thrilling or overly brilliant .
" enemy of the state " is the same way : it 's engrossing for its entire running time , and it 's scary the way that it shows a man 's decent into kafkaism , but it 's too technical .
it 's too cold and not as fascinating or exciting as it could be .
it casts will smith , one of the better big budget leading men in movies these days because he 's charming and witty and never uninteresting , and hopes that his charisma can make up for his character not being well developed enough to really be a person .
i hate to do this , but last year 's film " the game " got it damn perfect
: it casts michael douglas as a deeply flawed human being , a man who is cold and has cut off everyone from his life , and then pulls everything he thought he had as a security blanket away from him and watched what happened .
the result was not only a film that was exciting and chilling , but also the best mindfuck of the entire year .
not that i want every kafkaesque film to be " the game " ( this year 's " the spanish prisoner " succeeds with less thrills and chills ) , but it should be an example of what works and what does n't .
will smith 's character is , frankly , too perfect , at least too movie perfect .
he had an affair with another woman ( lisa bonet , ha ha ) , but his relationship with his wife ( regina king ) is basically fine regardless .
he has a kid , and he 's raking in money as a lawyer , albeit a very good and reasonably moral one .
so he generally does n't have any real problems as a human being , and is therefore boring .
.
. except that he is played by will smith , who embodies him with about as much will smith charm as he can without entering " id4 " / " men in black " territory .
he 's a good dramatic actor
( just see the first half hour of " six degrees of separation " for proof of this , not that he is n't great the whole time ) , and here , he makes his character likable and sympathetic without any real strain on his character , which makes the film lack any real deep interesting qualities .
smith becomes involved in a mass conspiracy involving the assasination of a senator opposed to a government law that would create world surveillance , extinguishing privacy as we know it from the world , under the pretense that it would make crime easier to control , when he is passed a disk of the event caught on tape by an outside party ( a nature observer played by , uh , jason lee ) .
the government wants the disk , and is prepared to destroy his life to get it .
as smith 's plight is dramatized , we are introduced to the masterminds who surveillance him , sitting in vans disguised as other businesses , staring at computers and pulling out tricks faster than a speeding bullet .
these guys ( played by jack black , jamie kennedy , and seth green ) are the most interesting part of this film because they 're , well , fascinating
: they 're doing their jobs , which are evil , but the film does n't view them as such , and they almost become our friends .
we like these guys for the sole reason that the film does n't automatically judge them as the villains .
they 're also scary because we get the idea that they 're not fully aware of the impact their jobs have on the world .
it 's as if they 're obsessed with their jobs , not because they 're evil , but because , hey , it 's a fun job , and no one else can do it like them .
unfortunately , this also backfires a bit on the film : instead of being the flashlight in the darkened room that " the game " was , you see everything , and are thus not as freaked out because you know what is going on .
sure , you 're chilled , but you 're not exacty freaked out by what 's going on .
but what do you expect from tony scott , the man who never met a five - second piece of film he ever liked .
he 's a not - bad director because , hell ,
he is always interesting to watch
( if not occasionally moronic - exhibit a : " days of thunder " ) , but the reason he 's not great is because he 's too technical and calculated .
his shots are perfectly executed , and leave nothing to the imagination , and they 're always making sure you 're paying attention .
this is incredibly annoying , and it reduces " enemy of the state " to a mechanical mishmash of flashy images that never expand the mind at any great depths , but still manage to entertain without any real problems .
despite never actually becoming great , it 's never actually boring
and it 's always intriguing .
watching the government set - up smith is endlessly fascinating , and since we care about smith 's likeable protagonist , we are set - up for a good two hours worth of tom clancy - esque entertainment .
add the best big cast this side of the annual woody allen film ( everyone from gabriel byrne to dan butler pop up for cameos ) , and you 've got a good old fashioned escapist drama which does all the thinking for you so that you never have to actually question the debate over personal privacy
and so you can follow will smith 's plight without a minute 's worth of boredom .

A:
P
****