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

[Q]: the love for family is one of the strongest driving forces in any man 's life , especially for those who have fostered their family under precarious circumstances .
thematically in cinema , love for family has been used frequently and emphatically to highlight more abstract aspects of characters ; it is rare , however , for it to develop as outstandingly as it does in roberto benigni 's neo - classic drama , life is beautiful .
through a central cast of father , mother , and son , benigni demonstrates the wonderful , undying love that a family shares in the best of times and the worst of times .
life
* is * beautiful for guido orefice ( roberto benigni , directing himself here for the sixth time in his career ) , an italian jew , master con man , and aspiring waiter extraordinaire .
living in 1930 's italy , he lives a carefree life of good fortune ; it is made even better when he happens upon a pretty schoolteacher named dora ( nicoletta braschi ) .
although dora is already engaged , guido manages to sweep her off her feet and persuades her to marry him instead ; the two have a child named joshua ( giorgio cantarini ) .
unfortunately for the happy family , the third reich and its nazi minions occupy italy and imprison all jews in work camps .
it is after the movie takes this dramatic turn that the movie 's theme of family love becomes the strongest .
although prior to this turning point benigni plays guido with a sort of goofy charm , he relaxes the role to ensure his son 's happiness .
now , instead of awkwardly seducing the sweet dora , he constantly reassures his son that everything will be all right .
benigni 's performance is truly a well - rounded one , and certainly one of the more fluid turns all year .
the supports are all strong as well , but the movie truly excels in its script .
life is beautiful is a self - proclaimed fable , one which tells its story in grand , two - part fashion .
in certain parts it manages to sink to the level of a " saturday night live " spinoff -- a number of humorous skits connected by a token plot -- but in the movie 's second half the script 's circular nature becomes admirably obvious .
characters make reprise appearances in fine form , and certain events which are intially curious become critically linked to the plot 's outcome .
in all , fans of foreign film will see this as a memorable motion picture , and novice movie - watchers may take this opportunity to see their first " artsy " film .
life is beautiful is an artsy movie by convention but
easily accessible to everyone , and above all is a fine thematic picture .
[A]: P


[Q]: by the time dennis quaid , the ostensible star of switchback , makes his first appearance at about the 22-minute mark , you may find yourself wondering why he bothered .
after all , writer / director jeb stuart has already set up a fairly promising pair of parallel story lines .
the first finds amarillo , texas sheriff buck olmstead ( r . lee ermey ) facing a hotly - contested election battle just as a brutal double homicide is discovered at a motel in his jurisdiction .
as olmstead begins his investigation , we also meet the two men who come to be our prime suspects .
lane dixon ( jared leto ) is an enigmatic young hitchhiker ; bob goodall ( danny glover ) is the jovial motorist who offers lane a ride from texas to his utah destination .
all the necessary conflicts seem to be in place -- the internal struggle of olmstead over the clash between good politics and good police work , and the external struggle as one of the two travelers eventually becomes villain to the other 's protagonist .
but then quaid shows up as grimly determined fbi agent frank lacrosse .
lacrosse is certain that the amarillo murders are the work of a serial killer he has been tracking for nearly two years .
he 's not supposed to be tracking him any more -- according to the bureau , they 've got their man -- but lacrosse has a very important reason for believing otherwise .
two months earlier , lacrosse 's own son was kidnapped by the killer , and the boy has yet to turn up anywhere .
lacrosse knows his killer 's work , and he knows that the man is still out there somewhere trying to continue their game .
it would n't be fair to reduce everything that 's wrong with switchback to quaid 's presence , but it 's a pretty good place to start .
there 's a reason lacrosse feels like an intruder in the narrative instead of its vital center :
as a dramatic actor , dennis quaid possesses exactly one facial expression and one vocal intonation .
we can tell lacrosse is determined because his face is a perpetual tight - jawed , sourpuss pucker ; we can tell he 's grim because every word comes out in an eastwood - esque rasp .
a more flexible performer might have given weight to the character , pulling the audience into his haunted intensity , making switchback _ his _ film .
quaid
merely looks annoyed and slightly constipated .
it 's tough to become emotionally invested in a character 's turmoil when it looks like all he really needs is a big bowl of bran flakes .
even without quaid , it does n't appear that switchback would have stayed on course .
the early scenes between leto and glover have a lively energy , building our curiosity over which man -- the taciturn kid or his gregarious benefactor -- is the real threat .
unfortunately , stuart tips his hand far too early in the game , both through the pitch of the individual performances and the facts he chooses to reveal .
once the mystery of the killer 's identity is dispatched , the interaction between leto and glover becomes stale and predictable
.
in fact , " stale and predictable " describes the direction that switchback takes in general , falling back on far - too - common hollywood devices like cats jumping out of nowhere , a climactic fistfight on board a freight train , and edgy law enforcement agents .
it 's too bad stuart was n't willing to spend more time with sheriff olmstead , far and away the most interesting and appealing character in the film .
played with atypical restraint by r .
lee ermey
, he 's a wonderful , unconventional hero who seems genuinely comfortable accepting the consequences of acting on his convictions .
a film focusing on the olmstead would have signaled a film - maker willing to take a few risks with his casting and story - telling .
instead , stuart places his trust in a " name " star who ca n't carry the material .
maybe next time he 'll throw away that one crucial page in the script , the one where the grimly determined fbi agent wanders onto the scene to muck up a perfectly good story .
[A]: N


[Q]: after 1993 's " falling down , " i hoped that joel schumacher would mature into a great director .
since then he has offered us two so - so adaptations of john grisham novels ( " the client " and " a time to kill " ) and two batman movies that lowered the standards of that franchise .
although these disappointments dampened my enthusiasm for schumacher 's potential , the publicity for his latest release , " 8 mm , " raised new hope .
it promised to be something unusual .
it was n't .
the plot goes like this : tom welles ( nicolas cage ) is a private eye who is hired by a wealthy woman , allegorically named mrs .
christian ( myra carter ) , to investigate an 8 mm movie found among her late husband 's belongings .
the movie appears to be a snuff film in which a teenage girl is raped and murdered by a man in a leather mask ( who reminds me of bane in schumacher 's " batman & robin " ) . because murders can be realistically simulated in movies , mrs .
christian wants tom to discover if the girl is alive or dead .
by combing through missing persons reports , tom finds the girl 's name and tracks her to los angeles .
with the aid of max california ( joaquin phoenix ) , a video store clerk ( and another symbolic name ) , tom wanders through the underworld of pornography in search of snuff .
the plot bears an obvious resemblance to paul schrader 's " hardcore , " in which a father goes deeper and deeper into the industries of porn and sex to find his missing daughter .
both films are modeled on dante 's " the inferno , " of course ; " 8 mm " makes that connection overly obvious by casting max as virgil and having him constantly tell tom that they were heading toward a meeting with the devil .
" hardcore " is a much more subtle and meaningful film .
"
8 mm " had a lot of promise .
in its better moments it 's an examination of violence as entertainment and of the beast within even a nice guy like tom .
one moment of the first sort : when we first meet max he 's reading truman capote 's " in cold blood " underneath the cover of a porn novel .
" in cold blood " was the father of the true - crime genre , which is the literary equivalent of snuff films .
max promises that we will see examples of the second theme when he tells tom , " dance with the devil and the devil do n't change ; the devil changes you .
" tom does change - i'll
let you discover the specifics for yourself - but not permanently .
schumacher and screenwriter andrew kevin walker
did n't have the guts to take tom so far down the dark tunnel that he could n't come back .
( walker 's " seven " did a much better job on that theme by refusing to compromise ) .
cage tries hard to pull it off , but the script does n't give him enough to work with .
phoenix walks away with the movie - he 's smart , charming , and funny .
other cast members include " fargo " 's peter stormare camping it up as porn auteur dino velvet and " the sopranos " 's james gandolfini as a soulless porn merchant who pushes tom too far .
in the last analysis , since " 8 mm " falls short of its pretensions and its promise , its just another private eye story in the raymond chandler / ross macdonald tradition of having the detective uncover the depravity behind the glossy facade of wealth and privilege .
however , unlike other predictable fare in the genre - last year 's " twilight , " for example- " 8 mm " is especially disappointing because it could have been much more than it is .
[A]:
N