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

Q: tom dicillo directs this superficial comedy about superficial people in superficial careers , all searching for deeper meaning .
however , they wo n't find much meaning in the real blonde , and not enough real humor , either .
joe ( matthew modine ) is a struggling actor , or he claims to be one , even though he has no credits under his belt .
his girlfriend , mary ( catherine keener ) has no pretensions about her career : she 's a makeup artist , working for the eccentric fashion photographer blair ( marlo thomas ) and supermodel of the month , sahara ( bridgette wilson ) .
sahara , who has acquired a new age spirituality from repeated viewing of the little mermaid , has an on - again , off - again relationship with joe 's best friend , bob ( maxwell caulfield ) .
however , bob has gotten his biggest break yet : a starring role on a soap opera opposite the beautiful kelly ( daryl hannah ) , who may be that illusive woman he 's always pursued : a real blonde .
there are some moments of good humor in the real blonde , but not enough .
the best stuff is in throwaway details in the background , such as sahara 's perfume ads : " depression -
it 's not just a state of mind " .
but to find humor in the superficiality of models and actors is to shoot fish in a barrel . and ,
unfortunately , the film 's forays outside the realm of comedy are pathetic .
take for example the film 's framing device of an old lady and her dog .
the story serves absolutely no purpose , makes little sense , and is completely tangential to the main plotlines of the movie .
matthew modine and catherine keener have the most sympathetic characters in the film , but they 're stuck in the most boring plotlines .
modine whines and complains and would be completely pathetic if he was matched against someone stronger than elizabeth berkley , who appears as another struggling actor .
keener 's character has a stronger edge , but the insult self - defense class ( taught by denis leary , no less ) she is stuck in makes little sense .
the movie 's running time is under two hours , but it seems like it is well over it .
there 's just not enough humor to speed things along , and not enough meaning to propel any drama .

A: N
****
Q: i can hear the question already .
what on earth do these two movies have in common ?
to most people , not a lot , except that both are by renowned directors .
as i saw them , however , both movies have flawed romantic scripts wrapped in distinctive packaging of lavish visuals musical numbers .
but oh , how differently the packages affect their films .
while " everyone 's " production numbers make an otherwise ordinary woody tale something special , jane campion 's imaginative visuals only serve to emphasize how pompous and uninvolving laura jones ' script is .
i left " everyone says i love you " not remembering a lot about who loved whom , but its infectious happiness put a grin on my face .
i left " the portrait of a lady " not remembering a lot about who loved whom , and i could have cared less .
" everyone " features nothing allen has n't done before storywise .
woody is again desperately in love with a beautiful woman ( roberts ) , and against the odds they manage to click for awhile before allen is left wondering what went wrong -- again .
similar situations happen to his family and friends .
some of the more outlandish comedy scenes even hark back to his " early , funny " films .
the scenes between tim roth and drew barrymore could have come out of " take the money and run , " his directorial debut .
however , nothing allen has ever done prepared me for this one - of - a - kind display of sheer good spirits .
in fact , in this movie , the feeling itself is what 's most important .
yes , the movie would have been better -- among his very best , i think -- if it had a meatier story .
but what it lacks in substance it makes up for in feeling .
and what better way to express feeling than through music ?
love is often best expressed in a song , and the numbers the cast break into here cut straight to the heart .
some are a tad too goofy , such as the number where a lot of ghosts prance around in a funeral parlor ,
but i admired allen for even putting them in there .
it also helps that as usual , allen has a top - flight cast working with him .
their singing voices range from quite good ( goldie hawn ) to not quite good ( allen ) to literally unlistenable ( barrymore , whose real voice was dubbed by a professional ) .
but while their vocal abilities differ , all the actors do a great job of putting joy up there on the screen , and making it rub off on the audience .
granted , some people will simply never accept characters singing in movies , but for those attuned to it , this film should work wonders .
jane campion , too , has a top - flight cast working for her in " portrait of a lady , " too , but even their considerable skills can do nothing to keep the film from being a stilted , virtually lifeless mess ,
albeit a visually interesting one . campion and her cinematographer stuart dryburgh come up with a great variety of eye - filling images that linger in the mind .
unfortunately , what did n't linger in the mind for me
was the story the visuals were supposed to be reflecting .
i remember very well shots of a train with its light beaming and shots of men vanishing around nicole kidman , but i can remember very little of what happened between all these people .
even worse , i do n't find myself feeling bad that i 've forgotten .
the problem , i think , lies not with the cast , which seemed to be trying very hard for the material .
it was the script that could n't convince me to care about anyone .
the characters were putting out all kinds of emotion , but i found no reason to connect with any of them .
i understood that the story was about cold , emotionally vacant characters , but for me to care about them , i have to identify with them somehow and want them to inject feeling into their lives .
jones ' script never simply gave me that opportunity .
in the end , it almost seemed as if campion was trying to inject some life of her own into the proceedings with her visual flourishes . unfortunately , as she kept painting these dazzling pictures , they only served to push me further away from the material and remind me that there was no connection between me and the film .
in the end , the movie 's one strength ended up hurting it .
so here we have two films with pretty uninteresting plots , and
yet i was able to truly enjoy one of them .
why ?
with both films , my head cared about neither story , but
only " everyone says i love you " was able to make my heart sing .

A: P
****
Q: there is a scene in patch adams in which patch is in the center of a courtroom , surrounded by people who are giving him a lively standing ovation because of his strong - worded attack on a group of stoic doctors .
when i noticed that the audience with whom i saw this film was reacting the same way , i realized that i was going to have a hard time finding someone who agrees with me about the quality of the picture .
you see , patch adams revolted me beyond all boundaries .
i hated this movie for every second that i sat watching it , and i actively hate it now , days later , with the simpering , superficial , nauseatingly sentimental images forever plaguing my memories .
i hate every element of the film , beginning with tom shadyac 's shameless direction , and all the way up to the misguided and mishandled themes that the screenplay wants so desperately to convey .
the badness of patch adams is stupefying .
it 's confounding .
i ca n't believe a film can be this bad .
and yet , it 's based on a real man who probably has a good point to make .
in the film , patch is played by the undefeatable and indefatigable robin williams , in
a performance of such insulting pathos and sledgehammer sympathy that i wonder now if he is even human .
in the beginning of the film , patch commits himself to a mental institution because he does n't want to kill himself .
while there , he notices that the doctors do n't care about the patients , and that the best way to get through to the patients is to treat them like human beings .
so , patch goes on a crusade to be a great doctor who actually talks to his patients .
he goes to medical school , where he meets truman ( daniel london ) and convinces him that it 's good to help people .
he also meets carin fischer ( monica potters ) , the anti - male med student who just wants to go through the motions and be a successful doctor .
naturally , the dean of the medical school ( bob gunton ) hates patch , and wants to thwart his plans , even though patch gets the highest scores on all of his exams .
so patch decides that he 's going to build a free clinic in the middle of nowhere to help people with any problem they may have .
and that , my friends , is the synopsis for what is easily the most abhorrent picture of 1998 .
on a superficial level , the film is not particularly bad : i would n't say the cinematography bothered me , and most of the performances seem to be exactly what shadyac was aiming for
( i actually liked potter 's performance , even if she is wasted ) .
but the film fails fundamentally in execution .
every scene swells with grand , " emotional " music , played at maximum volume just to get us all to cry real hard .
take , for instance , the first scene , which shows patch sitting on a bus .
we do n't know patch yet , but there 's sad music , and it 's supposed to make us really sad that he 's sad .
later on , patch makes a lot of progress : he helps a dying patient ( peter coyote ) to enjoy the last days of his life , and the music as patch is pushing the patient recklessly through the halls of the hospital is very lively .
and when that patient finally dies ( spoiler alert ! )
, the music is very very sad . but the problem with all of this is that the music should not be the center of the emotions .
real drama is character - based .
you grow to like someone , and then something bad happens , and you feel it .
we do n't ever grow to know the dying patient ; he 's simply a vehicle for patch 's greatness .
real drama does n't seem forced , or present just to make the audience cry .
that 's why patch adams is not real drama .
it goes for every cheap tear imaginable , wringing tired and overbearing sentimentality out of every scene .
even scenes that have very little impact on the overall film are drowning in marc shaiman 's sickening musical score .
sentimentality like this is indeed bad .
but it 's not as bad as half - baked , simplistic themes .
you see , patch is a really great student .
he aces his tests without studying , and does it so effectively that people think he 's cheating .
but patch does n't think that memorizing facts is the way to become a good doctor .
"
why do n't we see patients until the third year ?
"
he bursts out every three seconds .
well , patch , that might have something to do with the fact that you need to learn something before you go treating patients .
not everyone has the capability of memorizing facts with no effort .
most of us have to study .
and a doctor who really wants to help , but does n't know a toe from a finger , probably wo n't be too successful in preventing death .
oh wait
, i almost forgot : the point of doctors is not just to " prevent death , " but to " improve the quality of life !
" yes !
that is true !
and you can not do that without studying .
you can not do that without going to medical school .
what patch never seemed to understand was the possibility that maybe , just maybe , it is a good idea to study first and talk to patients later .
follow the rules ?
bah ! who needs the rules !
only uptight doctors follow the rules .
the real saviors are the ones running around the hospitals with big red spheres on their faces and sporting baggy yellow pants .
and then there 's the free clinic issue , which i find shockingly , frighteningly idealistic .
a free clinic .
in the middle of the forest .
where patients can be taken to be helped . for free .
how will patients be transported to the free clinic ?
will it have an emergency room ?
or is it just for mental patients ?
and who , may i ask , will pay for it ?
the film does give some token attempts to question patch 's motives ( i think another character asks him how he 's going to pay for it , in addition to a little bit of meaningless blather about hmos and medical insurance ) , but they certainly do n't explore or challenge patch 's ideas to any meaningful extent .
reader , please understand this : i am not making any kind of judgment on the real patch adams .
i know nothing about him .
if his beliefs mirror those of this film character , then i might like to have an intelligent discussion with him about them .
but regardless of what the real patch adams believes , the themes put forth in this film are simplistic and phony .
and in the last scene , the big , obligatory courtroom scene that forced my lunch halfway up my esophagus , patch does a lot of shouting .
actually , robin williams does a lot of shouting .
he shouts a lot about helping people , and a lot of people cry because they are moved by his words .
i wo n't tell you that you ca n't be moved by his words , because i , too , was moved by his words .
i was moved in such a profoundly negative way that i was reminded of how cheap and phony a cinematic experience can be .
patch adams is the cheapest of them all .

A:
N
****