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

[EX Q]: stars : armand assante ( mike hammer ) , barbara carrera ( dr . charlotte bennett ) , laurene landon ( velda ) , alan king ( charles kalecki ) , geoffrey lewis ( joe butler ) , paul sorvino ( detective pat chambers ) , judson scott ( charles hendricks ) , barry snider ( romero ) , julia barr ( norma childs ) / mpaa rating :
r / review : in the 1982 updating of mickey spillane 's 1947 novel " i , the jury , " hard - boiled detective mike hammer is a vietnam vet who drives a shiny bronze trans am , dresses like don johnson in " miami vice " with less pastels , and has sworn off alcohol .
however , he still smokes his lucky strikes , detests all forms of authority , and kills at a whim .
beyond that , the updated film retains little or no resemblance to the original pulpy page - turner by spillane , probably the most infamous and often reviled of all mystery writers .
the movie starts off with a bang : a howler of an opening credits sequence that is a cheap steal from the james bond series , complete with cheesy graphics and an overbearing jazz score by bill conti ( " rocky " ) .
after that , the movie and the book begin the same , with the murder of jack williams ( frederick downs ) , a one - armed detective and hammer 's best friend .
hammer declares that he will seek vengeance for jack 's death , and with the help of his devoted secretary , the blond and shapely velda ( laurene landon ) , and the alternately friendly / antagonistic police chief pat chambers ( paul sorvino ) , he is immediately on the killer 's trail .
here the movie splits completely from the book , and dives into a convoluted and improbable tale of government conspiracy and mind control tactics involving the mafia , the cia , one of hammer 's vietnam vet buddies , and a kinky sex clinic .
many of the same characters from the book appear in the movie , but they take on slightly different roles .
for instance , charles kalecki ( alan king ) , a numbers runner and narcotics dealer in the book , turns into a suave mob boss .
and , more importantly , hammer 's suspicious love interest , charlotte bennett ( barbara carrera ) , morphs from a run - of - the - mill psychiatrist into the coordinator and founder of the sex clinic .
"
i , the jury " is one of several cinematic renditions of spillane 's books ( including a 1953 version which was made in 3-d ) , but this film differs from those earlier versions in one major way :
it includes all of the sex and violence spillane wrote about that could never be given screen treatment due to hollywood 's production code .
although this takes the 1982 version of " i , the jury " closer to the core of the original subject matter , it is in this aspect that the film received the most criticism , because it took this new license to extremes that many argued surpassed what was in the book .
rest assured , the movie not only includes a great deal of nudity , but it is thoroughly violent , especially toward women .
it features one woman having her neck slashed , a set of twins forced to strip before being stabbed to death by a psychotic sexual deviant programmed by the cia ( judson scott ) , and another woman shot point - blank in the belly by hammer himself .
no one would deny that spillane 's writing has a definite misogynistic nature , but the movie seems to take it a step further by giving it such glorious screen treatment ; its constant equation of sex and violence , much of which is played with the intention of being erotic , is quite unsettling .
it 's no surprise that the movie , like the book , fades to black with a dead woman on the floor .
"
i , the jury " had a troubled production and was not well - supported by the studio that made it , which is one explanation why it did n't do well in theaters and many people have forgotten that it was ever made .
the script was written by larry cohen , who is best known for his creatively cheesy but nonetheless effective monster movies , like " it 's alive " ( 1974 ) and its two sequels , " q " ( 1981 ) , and " the stuff " ( 1985 ) .
cohen wrote the script thinking he was going to helm the project as well , but he was yanked from the director 's chair after only a week 's worth of shooting because he was already $ 100 , 000 over budget .
he was quickly replaced by richard t. heffron , who has worked for the last three decades on a handful of undistinguished movies and dozens of television projects .
heffron was obviously brought in not for his talent , but because he could make the movie rapidly and efficiently .
it shows in the final product .
cohen had personal interest in the updated version of hammer , but heffron has none .
he shot the movie quickly and clumsily , and although some scenes ring true , most of them are flat , trite , and invariably dull .
the movie features numerous car chases , shoot - outs , and stunts , but heffron 's background in television is the dominant tone ; despite the graphic violence and full - frontal nudity , " i , the jury , " takes on the air of a made - for - tv quickie , with no real punch or depth . but the problems in " i , the jury " run deeper than the technical .
the central fault in this updating is mike hammer , whose character was lost in the shuffle while updating from the fifties to the eighties .
because spillane wrote all his hammer mysteries in the first person , hammer 's character is central to the tale because all the events are filtered through his persona .
we never really get that impression in the movie -- there is no first - person voice - over narration and some scenes do n't have hammer in them at all .
consequently , a great deal of the texture of spillane 's storytelling is lost .
the period updating turns out to be a detrimentally bad idea because much of hammer 's moral code is thrown to the wind .
despite his characterization as a hard - nosed , violent , misogynistic killer , hammer always stuck fervently to his own moral code .
the title itself , " i , the jury , " refers to his anti - establishment notion of being his own law .
unlike private eyes who seek out the bad guys and then turn them over the police
, hammer both pursues the criminal and exacts the punishment .
in this way , he can be seen as " above the law , " but he still adheres strictly to her own personal code of conduct , his own morality .
the movie forgoes that aspect of his character , and hammer comes off not only as amoral in society 's terms , but in any terms , especially his own .
if anything , hammer always had his professionalism , but the movie does away with that in the first three minutes by showing him rolling in the sack with the wife of a client who had paid him to find out if that wife was being unfaithful .
maybe the scene was intended for laughs , but it only cheapens hammer 's character and is , by all accounts , a lousy way to start the movie .
the blame for hammer 's character ca n't be laid on assante 's shoulders , because despite some unnecessary marlon brandon - like mumbling , he delivers a fine performance .
spillane never once described hammer 's physical attributes in any
of the dozen books in which he appeared
, so any actor could conceivably portray him .
of course , because of the lack of written description , those who have read spillane 's books will have a strong personal notion of what hammer looks like , and therefore almost any screen incarnation will somehow fall short of expectations ( spillane , who played the character himself in 1963 's
" the girl hunters , " is generally considered the best of the film hammers ) .
the rest of actors are most un - noteworthy .
with the exceptions of alan king and paul sorvino , everyone who appeared in " i , the jury " were up - and - comers who basically went nowhere .
many of them ended up working in television ( like carrera , who had a short stint on " dallas " in the mid - eighties ) , which only adds to the made - for - tv atmosphere of the film .
maybe someday , someone will manage to get the right elements together and make an effective film rendition of a spillane book , but this is certainly not it .
[EX A]: N

[EX Q]: jonathan demme 's _ beloved _ , based on the book toni morrison , is a study in skillful literary adaptation .
on the one hand , the film manages to recreate key moments from the novel , evoking morrison 's pragmatic narrative style without using her authorial voice .
on the other hand , beloved omits the some of the finer details of the book , favoring an ambiguously defined back story upon which to build the story 's main events .
this choice is a smartly made one , for it creates an open space in which the story 's wide range of emotions can gestate and grow
.
indeed , the impact of the film is so protracted that much of it can not be felt until long after the end credits have rolled .
_ beloved _ takes place in the second half of the 19th century , during the so - called reconstruction era after the civil war .
for newly - freed slaves , it is a time of confusion and turmoil .
oprah winfrey is sethe , a slave who escaped a kentucky plantation and took her children to an ohio farmhouse , where she hoped the terror would end .
what she did not know was that it would follow her there , and remain with her long after the physical threat had vanished .
_ beloved _ ultimately tells the story of sethe 's search for forgiveness , one long - hampered by an unforgettable sin .
the film starts off on a dreary day ten years after sethe 's escape , as a violent , unseen energy rocks her dilapidated farmhouse .
invisible hands terrorize her family , flinging objects across rooms , shaking tables , rattling floorboards .
sethe 's sons run away , perhaps for good , leaving sethe and her daughter denver to fend for themselves .
demme 's matter - of - fact handling of this supernatural element is just one of _ beloved _ 's intriguing aspects .
all of the characters take for granted that ghosts are real .
when paul d ( danny glover ) -- a former slave who escaped kentucky along with sethe -- arrives at the house eight years later and is confronted with the ghost 's hellish visions , he does n't run in terror .
instead , he asks who the ghost is .
as in morrison 's novel , demme quickly establishes that the horror of the story will not come from the fact of the ghost itself , but from the terrifying past in which the ghost was created .
sethe is the one being haunted , but the ghost in the house is the least of her fears .
in fact , the ghost is one of the reasons she chooses to stay .
the story takes an bizarre turn with the appearance of beloved ( thandie newton ) , a young black - clad woman who appears on sethe 's front lawn , leaned christ - like against a tree stump .
sethe and denver immediately take to the rasping woman and try to nurse her to health .
they know not who she is , but that does n't matter .
only paul d is suspicious of the stranger .
little does the family know that beloved will bring about many changes , and force sethe to release a guilt she has held onto so urgently for eighteen years .
winfrey is arguably beloved 's greatest asset .
she inhabits the role of sethe
so convincingly it is hard to believe this is the same woman who shines brightly on a tv talk show .
lisa gay hamilton does an impressive job in the emotionally demanding role
as the younger sethe , whose appalling actions make her the disturbed woman we see eighteen years later .
danny glover is affable
as the sympathetic paul d , as is kimberly elise as denver , sethe 's wanderlusting daughter .
as sethe 's sage - like mother - in - law old baby suggs , beah richards
authoritatively commands every scene in which she appears .
the film 's least palatable choice of casting is unfortunately that of the role of beloved herself .
thandie newton plays the glassy - eyed girl with a demented fervor which is endearing at first , but which becomes off - putting and unintentionally laughable by the end .
departing from the honed aesthetic he used in such films as _ the silence of the lambs
_ and _ melvin & howard
_
, director demme has used a bit of dramatic overstatement to get across the vivid descriptions in morrison 's novel .
totemic camera shots and color - saturated scenery are decidedly uncommon in demme 's films , but the few he uses here work to the film 's benefit .
_ beloved _ 's most memorable scenes are those of baby suggs ' gatherings in a forest clearing , where the bright yellow - greens of nature entrance the viewer as much as suggs ' words do .
for the most part , though , demme maintains his trademark directorial neutrality .
this , combined with morrison 's equally frugal method of storytelling , may make _ beloved _ somewhat of a challenge to watch , even to those familiar with the book .
though the film compliments the book extraordinarily well
, it falls short in allowing the sort of accessibility one usually expects from a film .
nothing is spoon - fed to the viewer .
morrison 's novel is just as enigmatic , but unlike a movie , a book can be put down to allow the various undercurrents and themes to churn and absorb .
the movie begins like _ poltergeist _ , and ends like _ the color purple _ , with shades of _ the scarlet letter _ and _ little women
_ somewhere in the middle .
taken as a whole
, beloved is a disquieting , one - of - a - kind experience , one to be viewed with guards down and spirits in abeyance .
[EX A]: P

[EX Q]: "
a breed apart " casts rutger hauer as a crazy , bird - loving recluse who picks his feathered friends over kathleen turner .
a bit hard to swallow ?
that 's only the first of many improbabilities in this film .
hauer stars as a man obsessed with keeping the birds on his island safe , while boothe plays a guy hired to steal a couple of rare eagle eggs by a rich egg collector .
turner is the woman caught between the two men .
"
a breed apart " is n't a bad movie , exactly .
indeed , i found myself rooting for both the hauer and boothe characters , even though their goals could n't be more different .
the problem with the film is that there are just too many inconsistencies .
for example , early on in the film , hauer physically assaults two drunken rednecks shooting at " his " birds .
later on , the rednecks come back for revenge with four other people , and hauer kills a few of them .
i have a tough time believing that the police would n't get involved at that point .
another problem is the silly love - triangle that develops .
i did n't care one way or the other who ended up with turner .
i was more interested in finding out which of the two men would be victorious in their respective missions .
however , despite this uninteresting sub - plot , turner did manage to give a great performance as the woman who reminds the two men that sometimes there 's more to life than money and birds .
as for hauer , he 's an actor i 've always admired .
he has a penchant for picking strange and unusual characters .
and this one is no exception .
he 's frequently seen riding around his island on a white horse , wearing pirate 's clothing , and holstering a cross - bow .
despite all his eccentric mannerisms , though , hauer always manages to let the human side of his character shine through
.
for example , there 's a scene in which he barks at turner and her son because they came onto his island a day early .
he comes off as crazy loner in that scene , but a few minutes later , he is apologizing to turner , and we believe his intentions .
soon after , we find out he 's a vietnam vet , and his actions become fairly clear to us . " a breed apart " is n't a great movie by any means , but it does contain good performances by all three leads , and it 's worth seeing for that reason alone .
[EX A]:
P