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: steven spielberg 's " amistad , " which is based on the true story of a group of africans who revolted on board a slave ship , then were captured and taken to america where a legal dispute ensued over who " owned " them , is concerned with several different aspects of this story .
first , the film addresses the issue of the inherent evils of slavery .
second , it deals with the historical involvement of several american politicians in the case , including president martin van buren and former president john quincy adams ( anthony hopkins ) .
last , and most importantly , it examines the cultural confusion experienced by the africans who were forced into slavery and the damage done to their native culture in africa by the slave trade .
" amistad " succeeds at least partly with all three of these elements .
i have to admit that i was a little skeptical as to how much i could really get out of another " anti - slavery " movie .
having seen several other movies and documentaries about slavery , i doubted that there was much i did n't already know about it .
fortunately , i turned out to be wrong .
for one thing , spielberg 's camera never once gets near a southern plantation and instead sticks to the slave ships and the slave traders ' operations in africa , so " amistad " was dealing with a different part of the history of slavery from the very beginning .
and some of the images here are , in fact , much more harrowing than what we usually see in movies about slavery .
one scene in the middle , in which the crew of a slave ship dispose of some of their " excess " slaves by throwing them overboard to drown , has to be one of the most disturbing film images of the year .
spielberg digs farther into the evils of slavery than i was expecting he would , and in fact he probably goes about as far as a movie director can without getting an nc-17 rating .
the stark suffering of the africans is contrasted sharply with the shallow luxury of the politicians , such as president van buren and queen isabella of spain , whose naval officers were involved in the legal dispute and who was only a small child at the time .
exposing politicians as narrow - minded , opportunistic hypocrites is fairly standard stuff , of course , but spielberg and writer david franzoni
do it well enough that it still comes off as something more than just a simple exercise in audience manipulation .
the film also examines the contentious nature of the slavery issue at the time , such that john quincy adams ( and probably other politicians like him ) , who clearly disapproved of the practice , was reluctant to get involved in the case until it was appealed all the way to the supreme court .
the biggest success of " amistad " is probably the characterization of cinque ( djimon hounsou ) , who emerges as the de facto leader of the kidnapped africans and struggles to communicate with baldwin ( matthew mcconaughey ) , the lawyer who represents them in court .
through cinque , we are given a window into the native culture , as he and the displaced africans try to explain to the prison guards what they need for a proper burial of a dead tribe member , or find an illustrated version of the bible and try to understand the story of jesus christ .
cinque sees the dispute with a clarity and simplicity that , again , contrasts with the technicalities and mechanics of the legal process and of the political squabbles .
"
what kind of country is this , where laws ' almost ' work ?
"
he asks baldwin in bewilderment , when he learns that the case must be re - tried before the supreme court .
spielberg 's direction tends a little bit towards the manipulative side at times , such as when he adds a heavy orchestral swell to cinque 's angry outburst in the court room .
still , there is n't enough of this for it to be a serious problem .
the main flaw in this film , which prevents it from earning four stars , is that it seems like spielberg and franzoni ca n't quite handle all of these issues at the same time , so instead they settle for addressing each one separately and simply editing the results into the same movie .
this summer 's contact , for example , dealt with several issues at once , but each of them was somehow present in almost every scene and , most importantly , all of them were resolved at once .
" amistad " tries to pull it all together in the end with a speech from adams , but it somehow feels a little forced , and in any case the speech itself , which lasts almost fifteen minutes , wears out its welcome about halfway through .
perhaps the best way to describe it is this :
" amistad " is three four star films edited into one .
almost every individual scene works , but the final product is lacking the necessary focus and coherence , and thus is less than the sum of its parts .
however , i ca n't honestly say how it could have been done differently , and in any case the story comes through with enough raw emotional power that it is still a very good film , and thus
i recommend it to anyone who can handle the disturbing imagery .

Answer: P


Question: sometimes , when i decide to write a short story or a poem , i think of a title first , and then think of a subject to go with it .
it seems that the makers of disturbing behavior had a similar train of thought when it came to the title sequence .
i would n't be surprised if a couple of guys got together and created the opening credits , and then someone saw it and made up a story to go along with it .
the title sequence is so good , so ominous and original , that it had me engrossed before the picture even began .
of course , my attention dwindled shortly into the film .
disturbing behavior , like so many thrillers , starts off interesting and ends up
laughably ridiculous .
it 's a teen horror film with no interesting violence or sex .
it 's a suspense film with no suspense .
it 's an evil small town story with no story to speak of .
it 's a disaster , a listless and uninspired disaster , that just barely misses one - stardom because of a few good sequences , a mercifully short running time , and one terrific set of opening credits .
our main man is a fellow named steve clark , blandly played by jimmy marsden .
he moves to a small town with his family after , tragically , his brother shoots himself .
steve is very upset about the untimely death of his brother ; we learn this through strange home - video like nightmares that he has occasionally .
the big trial for steve is , of course , to fit in at school and make new friends .
marsden looks like your stereotypical jock down to the last detail , so he seems a poor casting choice for a social reject .
as a social reject , he falls in with some pretentious dope - smoking philosophers , gavin ( nick stahl ) and rachel ( katie holmes ) .
gavin informs steve that the local group of jocks , known as the blue ribboners , are actually a bunch of zombies , assimilating new members into their group , while sporadically killing innocent people .
so , it 's up to our group of mismatched protagonists to 1 ) solve the mystery , and
2 ) do something about it .
by the end of it all , something has happened and things have been explained , but the film still does n't make any sense .
disturbing behavior was written by scott rosenberg .
i 've seen his name around recently ( he was one of the toucher - uppers on the armageddon script ) , and i imagine that , for the most part , he knows what he 's doing when it comes to screenwriting .
he did , however , have a complete lapse in judgement when he got the idea for this film , and then decided to actually take the time to write it out .
evil small town films are pretty common ( the last one , phantoms , is also a dismal failure ) , but it takes a lot of skill to make the formula work .
rosenberg 's script is a complete mess , lacking in even the most basic attempts at characterization .
and it makes no sense , nor is their any purpose when things are finally " explained .
"
there is supposed to be an element of surprise when we see what is happening to the jocks , but the film never explains exactly what * is * happening .
they get strapped to chairs , a microchip is inserted into their eyes , and -- poof -- they become sex - crazed , superviolent , machine - like creatures .
the doctor responsible for all this , dr .
caldicott ( bruce greenwood ) , must be pretty nuts for thinking that this kind of behavior is a step up from the way high school jocks actually behave ( or , perhaps , this is the only realistic element in the film ) .
much of the writing is simply bad , and rosenberg has no intuition when it comes to the way high school kids act . in one terrible scene , gavin explains to steve all of the high school cliques , while pointing them out in the cafeteria .
up front , i should say that , in four years of high school , i did not eat in the cafeteria even once .
that aside , the various social groups he points out are general , uninteresting , and poorly - shown .
for instance , he points to the " nerds , " who are all wearing glasses and playing with their laptops .
it 's such an obvious cliche that i ca n't believe rosenberg even bothered .
most of the dialogue is forced ( no one says , " bite me !
" anymore ) , and none of the scenes have any degree of wit .
this picture is not inspired , and most scenes flop from one to the other , with no sense of momentum or energy .
the blame for this can be placed on director david nutter , who apparently likes his films dry .
horror films should at least exploit violence , but this one is shockingly timid .
there are a few good scenes , though , such as an interesting trip through an insane asylum ( this is , however , the most forced scene in the film , for how our heroes get there or why they bother are things we never learn ) .
i also liked the school janitor character , played by william sadler .
he has a few lines that are surprisingly thought - provoking .
the acting is largely a waste of talent .
marsden is , as i said , bland ( thought not particularly bad ) .
bruce greenwood is shamelessly wasted .
stahl and holmes both show they have talent , but the direction is n't good enough to hone in on their skills
( stahl 's performance seems more like a parody of high school potheads ) .
none of these characters expand beyond their one dimension , and , frankly , watching cardboard cut - outs of human beings run down hallways while screaming just is n't all that cool .
disturbing behavior is a wreck of a film , and it started out a wreck before shooting even began .
i 'm surprised there were producers who read this script and thought that it would make a good film , or that it would make a lot of money at the box office .
it 's not boring , or even blatantly awful , but
it 's an uninspired lump of a film .
it sure starts off nicely , but the regression into total absurdity is so consistent that the very last scene is outright laughable
.
so , if you go to see this film , take my advice : appreciate the credit sequence , and pray it never ends .

Answer: N


Question: unzipped is a cinematic portrait of isaac mizrahi , an artist whose palette is fabric .
ostensibly , the film is a documentary , but use of that term requires stretching its meaning .
many scenes appear staged , and a great deal of cutting - and - pasting has been done in the editing room .
the cinema verite effect is a conceit -- genuine spontaneity is at a premium , and everyone is aware of and playing to the camera ( especially would - be actresses like cindy crawford ) .
director douglas keeve ( who was mizrahi 's lover at the time ) freely admits that he " could n't care less about the truth " but was more interested in capturing " the spirit and love in isaac and in fashion . " despite violating nearly every rule of " legitimate " documentary film making , however , unzipped is a remarkably enjoyable piece of entertainment .
while it sheds only a little light on the behind - the - scenes world of the fashion industry , it presents a fascinating , if incomplete , picture of designer mizrahi .
this man is the perfect subject for this kind of study -- he 's funny , energetic , and eminently quotable .
he has unusual views on just about everything , from fashion ( " it 's about women not wanting to look like cows " ) to mary tyler moore ( " between her and jackie kennedy , they shaped this country " ) to style ( " it 's almost impossible to have style nowadays without the right dogs " ) .
unzipped also gives a glimpse into the creative process by which mizrahi turns an idea into a dress .
it 's almost certainly different that anyone would imagine .
the designer draws on a variety of sources for his look , including nanook of the north and old bette davis movies , then enlists the aid of a ouija board to help form the collection .
in particular , unzipped traces mizrahi 's development of his fall 1994 line from its inception in the spring to the final fashion show , which highlights a number of prominent models , including cindy crawford , naomi campbell , kate bush , and linda evangelista .
on the technical side , a number of interesting choices were made in filming unzipped .
a variety of film stocks were used : super 8 , 16 mm black - and - white , and 35 mm color .
there is a purpose to this beyond simple artiness -- the stock often serves as an emotional key to the movie , and , during the climactic fashion show , color is used to show the audience 's perspective , while black - and - white is for the behind - the- scenes sequences .
nevertheless , some viewers will be put off by this treatment .
while unzipped is n't an expose on the fashion industry per se , keeve has enough clips of petulant models to make the viewer realize how tame robert altman was with ready to wear .
overall , however , this movie is far more about mizrahi than anything else , and only when viewed from that perspective does unzipped succeed .
when the designer declares that " everything is frustrating except designing clothes --
that 's beautiful and liberating , " it fits perfectly with the image of him that unzipped has constructed .

Answer:
P