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: it was a crazy time in france , what with the french revolution right around the corner .
king louis xv would soon die , and his son would become king louis xvi .
such is the setting for beaumarchais : the scoundrel about the controversial playwright , spy and playboy pierre - augustin caron de beaumarchais .
beaumarchais was the author of the plays , " the barber of seville " and " the marriage of figaro .
"
today people think of them as quaint and harmless operas , but , back in 1773 when the movie takes place , they were so scandalous that beaumarchais was thrown into prison more than once .
the movie beaumarchais : the scoundrel takes a light - hearted approach to its subject , resulting in an inviting motion picture .
one of france 's most expensive productions ever , the movie was a huge hit when it opened there last year .
now in theatrical release in the united states , it eschews the seriousness of most art house films with a romping good story .
the secret of the film 's success , other than the lavishness of sylvie de segonzac 's costumes , has to be the performance by fabrice luchini as beaumarchais .
with his glistening eyes and his infectious smile , he mesmerizes the camera and the audience .
his wry little lips seem always to hint at some unspoken deviousness he is planning .
in a land where court intrigue determines one 's destiny , constant scheming was a way of life for the aristocracy .
as our story starts , we learn that beaumarchais has bought himself a judgeship .
into his court comes a member of the nobility demanding an immediate sword fight .
beaumarchais , who has been having an affair with the man 's wife , makes him wait until the current case on the docket is decided .
that over with , the fight is on .
with luchini 's charisma , it is hard to root for anyone other than him .
audiences may remember him from the marvelous colonel chabert , in which he played the attorney .
although he does not have half of the good looks of his assistant gudin , played by manuel blanc , he dazzles the women and the viewers with his grace and style .
michael epp 's
warm and intimate cinematography provides a nice accompaniment to jean - marc kerdelhue 's lush but realistic looking sets .
jean - claude petit 's music , especially the hauntingly lovely flute solos , make for an enchanting time at the movies .
director jean - claude brisville , who wrote the script along with edouard molinaro , fleshed out a play by sacha guitry which , according to the press notes , was just a series of historic vignettes .
the disorganization of the play still comes through at some points in the movie , but the actors smooth it over with their good - hearted style .
typical of the scenes that come out of nowhere is the one in which a rotund benjamin franklin appears in a large pot of hot water , taking his bath .
one episode has beaumarchais working with a renegade spy who may or may not be a man .
another has beaumarchais using his personal fortune to aid the american revolution .
all of this may sound like a dull historical drama , but it is anything
but .
the story plays more like theater of the absurd than a movie based on historical facts .
the radiantly lovely sandrine kiberlain plays marie - therese , the real love of beaumarchais 's life .
but he is so likable that members of the audience may want to compete with her for him .
still , with his beguiling smile , one can never quite be sure if you should trust him .
the movie , on the other hand , can be trusted to deliver a high old time .
beaumarchais : the scoundrel runs 1 : 41 .
it is in french with english subtitles .
the film is not rated but would be an r for some nudity and sex , and should be fine for most teenagers .

Answer: P


Question: jay and silent bob strike back , kevin smith 's swan song to his two most famous characters , is the best received comedy that i 've seen since there 's something about mary , which is a tea party in comparison to the foul - mouthed humor in jay and silent bob strike back .
the audience did n't just laugh ; they went wild with boisterous laughter and heavy applause throughout .
in short , if you like really raunchy humor , you may find it , as i did , to be the funniest movie of the year .
( on the other hand , if you are one of those who walked out in disgust with smith 's dogma , then jay and silent bob strike back is not the movie for you . ) in one of the fastest paced movies of the year
, the story has jay and silent bob ( jason mewes and kevin smith ) , a pair of card carrying drug dealers , traveling from their new jersey convenience store home to hollywood so that they can stop a movie .
it seems their comic book alter egos , bluntman and chronic , are being used in a movie without jay and silent bob 's consent .
jason biggs and james van der beek are slated to star in it .
jay and silent bob strike back has more and better used cameos than just about any movie that i 've ever seen .
among others , they include carrie fisher as a bible - toting nun , mark hamill as a comic book version of his famous alter ego and gus van sant as a director too busy counting his money to yell , " action !
" best of all are ben affleck and matt damon who mock themselves and their movies .
the film stops several times to make fun of itself and of the audience who was " stupid " enough to buy tickets to this movie .
( actually , purchasing tickets to this film is extremely smart given that it delivers more laughter per dollar than anything in recent memory . )
the film even skewers people who write about movies on the internet .
guilty .
although it 's filled with inside jokes , you 'll still be laughing even if you only get some of them .
it 's easy to understand enough so that they are still funny .
jay is a motor mouth who has n't met a subject that he could n't vulgarize .
his favorite topic is oral sex , but , being an equal opportunity profaner , he 's willing to make crude jokes about absolutely anything .
but it is his buddy , the aptly named silent bob , who is responsible for most of the movie 's success .
his reaction shots , with his wildly exaggerated eye movements , are comedic gems .
the story 's main subplot concerns four animal rights activists , justice ( shannon elizabeth ) and her three sexy buddies , sissy ( eliza dushku ) , missy ( jennifer schwalbach smith ) and chrissy ( ali larter ) .
these charlie 's angels types give a ride to our heroes on their trek to lalaland to stop the picture .
jay tries to put the moves on justice , but he does n't stay in command of the situation for long .
one of the funnier sight gags has the women using a pink , clam - shaped , birth control case that contains high tech gadgetry .
granted , it 's not the movie for everyone , but , if you like kevin smith 's brand of humor , you 'll find that this is his best .
and , as i said earlier , it 's the funniest movie of the year thus far .
no , wait .
forget , ` thus far . '
it 's bound to be the funniest movie of the year
.
in a time when almost every movie feels obligated to come in at pg-13 so that they can rake in the maximum cash , it 's great to see a filmmaker with the guts to target only a mature audience .
jay and silent bob strike back runs a lightening fast 1 : 35 .
it is rated r and contains pervasive crude humor and language and sexual situations .
it would be acceptable for high school seniors and older .
the film opens nationwide in the united states on wednesday , august 22 , 2001 .
in the silicon valley , it will be showing at the amc and the century theaters .

Answer: P


Question: john cusack is the kind of actor who seems to effortlessly slide into his respective film roles .
so effortlessly that people tend to forget he 's there , much in the way people rarely recall many of the great character actors ( anyone who can put the name james rebhorn with that actor 's face is invited to treat themselves to a product from one of my sponsors ) .
example
: the other day my mother asked me ( the expert , of course ) if there were any movies out worth seeing , never mind that our tastes could n't be more divergent--- i 'll never forget the day she recommended that i go see a night at the roxbury for god sakes , and to be fair
she was mightily pissed at me for telling her that go !
was a lot of fun ( which it is ) , so i did n't see this as anything more than a futile attempt at conversation .
i muttered , with a little trepidation , that she might enjoy high fidelity .
she responded with her usual query , " whose in that one ?
" this is a question whose answer that seems to immediately conjure up the kind of movie you went to see .
if the reply is julia roberts you probably assume it was something wispy and light , a sylvester stallone movie and you picture a bloodbath with few words and much involuntary bicep flexing , and a woody allen movie means hyper articulate white people ( usually of the jewish faith ) fretting about in some upper east side palace .
anyway , when i answered " john cusack " , she replied with a rather stunned " who ? " , as if it was unreasonable for her to know whom i was referring to .
now i know for a fact that my mother has seen several cusack movies , most recently being john malkovich and pushing tin , but i suppose it 's understandable that she would not recognize the name , after all , for most , names are tougher than faces .
i showed her a picture of cusack 's mug in the paper hoping for an " oh - him ,
yes he 's quite good
" instead i got
a " no - i do n't know him " .
at this point i was way beyond frustration into a realm of nose hair yanking anger ( yes , filmic ignorance is all it takes to get me into the nose hair pulling zone ) ,
till i realized something : i doubt that much of america would recognize cusack 's relatively bland visage , or even the name which is rather bland compared to the coolness of a brad pitt or tom cruise , one - syllable names that glide off the tongue with the velocity of a speeding car .
cu - sack .
cu - sack - no ,
not quite as cool .
i 'm sure that twenty years from now cusack will forever be referred to as " the guy from ( add in the cusack film of your choice ) " .
he 's not a brand name , and his movies usually are n't big moneymakers , but in his own unassuming way he 's kind of a genius .
with his pleasant , common man looks , and charming semi - articulate blatherings he has become one of the most likeable romantic leading men of the 90 's .
from the sure thing to say anything cusack has merged the talents of early tom hanks and early jack lemmon .
despite the fact that nearly every character he plays is a variation of the character before it ( the schlumpy every man ) , he 's a constantly enjoyable screen persona , like albert brooks or woody allen .
and he knows how to chose scripts , while the stephan baldwin 's and val kilmer 's seem to put them selves in everything
( the former actually had the insight to follow up oscar winner usual suspects with a pauly shore vehicle , and judging from his latest projects it looks like he still has yet to fire his agent ) , cusack generally picks rewarding projects ( save for the unwatchable hot pursuit , a 1988 film also featuring a young ben stiller ) .
high fidelity is his second collaboration with hit or miss english director stephan fears ( the grifters , the hi - lo country ) , and it 's a hit
.
it was also co - written by cusack , and some of his collaborators on the terrific comedy , grosse point blank .
it 's not quite as entertaining or as funny as that film , but as it progresses in its meandering fashion , the movie cast something of a spell over me
.
high fidelity begins as a hipster ode to the non - committal rob , a vinyl record store owner , who opens the film by breaking down the fourth wall with much abandon and educating us in his " top 5 break ups list " .
this is something cusack does the entire film a la ferris bueller 's day off .
at first the talking - directly - into - the - camera - schtick had me vaguely annoyed , mostly because it reminded me so much of the film body shots which used a similar conceit , but
it began to grow on me due almost entirely to cusack 's witty delivery .
he 's the kind of guy we do n't mind talking directly to us .
gradually the film settles into a shampoo - like tragi - comic character study , of a guy who must confront himself and his personal failures in order to figure out the true person he is ( yes it 's all very existential ) .
though that plot - line is mostly enjoyable , the thing i liked the most about the film is how much pleasure it offers in introducing us to minor characters , all of whom ( now this is really something ) are terrific enough to warrant their own films .
the best of which is jack black ( of the very funny show tenacious d , a program that sadly went the way of bruce willis ' hair ? ? ?
unfortunately that annoying smirk remains ) , an ardent record store employee who bullies customers into buying exactly what he wants them to buy .
he 's the kind of guy
i 'm sure we 've all met before , a blowhard who thinks he 's always right and will do anything in his power ( be it yell , argue , insult ) to hoist his opinion onto others .
but i like this guy , because of how black plays him .
the actor is portly with a round baby face and crazy eyes , but despite his size he leaps to and fro like a manic speed freak ( which might be a bit of a redundant description , seeing as how all the speed freaks i know are manic ) .
he 's the kind of supporting character who would be impossibly annoying comic relief in most other films .
( look at what that hack jan de bont did to poor phillip seymour hoffman in twister ) .
but fears and black never let that happen .
the character , for all his shucking and jiving is steeped in reality .
he 's over the top , but in a way we can all probably relate to .
catherine zeta - jones , in her brief role , gives a vivid portrayal of a women completely enamored with her own " charm " .
tim robbins registers in an even tinier part as a new age - type , a character played entirely for cartoon yuks , but
still manages to work its desired comic effect .
the one exception in the acting department is a bit of a doozy , the main love interest played by danish actress iben hjejle ( mifune ) , who completely obliterates any trace of a danish accent , replacing it with a stilted american phonation .
i give her kudos for attempting such a contradictory role , but instead of being likeable , she comes across as rather robotic , and as such it 's hard to see why cusack 's character would be so obsessed with her especially when he has a beautiful , intelligent writer ( natasha gregson wagner ) potentially waiting in the wings .
this reminded me of say anything , where the charming cusack was paired with the charmless ione skye , and in midnight in the garden of good and evil where the poor bastard had to put up with alison eastwood ( whose unbelievably more wooden then father , clint for those " special people " whose wheels turn a little slower ) .
in fact cusack is rarely paired up with a personality that matches his , though i 'd bet that if laura and natasha switched roles , the result would be more effective .
high fidelity works almost entirely on the strength of its characters and performances .
fears ' direction is somewhat stilted , and the script is sometimes a little too ( and this is a word i 'm beginning to hate to use
but alas i must ) quirky for its own good
( i think i 'll blame that on scott rosenberg , who judging from what he did with beautiful girls , con air , and things to do in denver while your dead , has his fingerprints all over the most irritating bits of this movie ) .
but cusack really does deserve an award , for being so damn ? ? ?
cusackian .
i 'm afraid that his talents are so understated that he may have to wait till his hip needs replacing to be offered such an award worthy of his considerable talent .
his character , rob ( whose sort of like an older , more bitter lloyd from say anything ) is funny and tragic without being pathetic , and that cusack can do all this , and still not imprint himself onto the minds of most audiences , is something of an achievement .

Answer:
P