polsci/sentiment-polarity-dataset-v2.0 huggingface dataset:
when i originally saw the trailer for " analyze this " a few months ago , i must admit , i thought it looked kind of lame . 
and then when the commercials started popping up a week or two ago , i thought it looked outright bad . 
but then when " analyze this " finally opened a few days ago , an odd thing happened . 
it got great reviews . 
critics were proclaiming it " hilarious " and a " dead-on parody of mob movies " . 
well , with praise like that , i figured , it must be good and so i headed off to the theater . 
you know that expression that says always trust your gut instincts ? 
well , turns out that expression is more valid than i ever gave it credit for . 
 " analyze this " is slow , unfunny , and badly acted . 
don't get me wrong , i think that deniro is one of the top ten greatest actors of the century , but he is just out of his league here . 
i think the problem is he didn't quite know how to approach this material . 
he plays his character , mob boss paull vitti , somewhere in between the realm of comedy and drama . 
if he had played the character straight , along the lines of leslie nielson in the " naked gun " series , he probably would have been a lot more successful . 
as it is , though , he plays the character completely serious at some moments , and for laughs at others . 
this doesn't work . 
it creates an uneven character that never breaks out of the deniro mold ; you always know it's him . 
and the movie is badly paced , too . 
it never takes off . 
it just crawls from one scene to another without any forward momentum . 
i think the blame for this should be placed on the script . 
it's obvious the writer had a good idea for a movie , mob boss faces breakdown and needs the services of a psychiatrist , but once this is established , the movie doesn't really go anywhere . 
the formula of the film seems to be this : billy crystal says no to deniro , deniro forces him , and much wackiness ensues . 
this formula of sorts is repeated several times throughout the movie . 
i've said it before and i'll say it again : the only thing that matters to me in a comedy is whether or not it's funny . 
if " analyze this " had been funny , the pacing and bad acting wouldn't have bothered me . 
i would have been too busy laughing to notice . 
but as it is , i only chuckled a few times . 
the only really funny scene is a dead-on parody of " the godfather " . 
sadly , though , i don't think anyone in the audience i saw it with realized it was a parody , because i was the only one laughing . 
but my sense of humour , i have come to realize , is vastly different from the general population . 
i loathed " there's something about mary " , yet loved " baseketball " . 
now , if you want a movie that * i * think is funny , go out and see " office space " . 
it's full of genuine laughs and won't leave you glancing at your watch every 10 minutes , as " analyze this " did .
jean-claude van damme movies tend to be , if nothing else , a lot of mindless fun . 
his latest film , " knock off , " skips on the fun part leaving a wildly incoherent exercise that is , well , simply mindless . 
you can't really blame van damme . 
no one , i suspect , has ever expected " the muscles from brussels " to contribute a heartfelt performance brimming with introspection and delicate shades of gray . 
and even his sidekick co-star , " saturday night live " alumnus rob " makin' copies " schneider , does what's expected of him , although neither appear to want the role of straight man . 
no , the problem with the film is its direction . 
the first five minutes of the film are incomprehensible . . . 
and it goes downhill from there ! 
five hundred characters , it seems , are introduced within the first fifteen minutes . 
van damme doesn't land his first kick until after thirty--too late for most action fans--and by the time the hour mark has rolled around , your jaw will be on your cup holder and you'll be wondering why you elected to spend seven dollars on this mess . 
director hark tsui , whose previous film was the van damme/dennis rodman teamed " double team , " films at such a frenetic pace that it's hard to know what's going on , who's on whose side , and what the point of all this is . 
faster than you can yell " fruit stand ! " 
we're watching a crazed rickshaw race with schneider being bounced along by an energetic van damme . 
when schneider starts whacking van damme in the behind with a four-foot eel while enthusing " move your beautiful big ass , " the movie takes an unprecedented turn to the bizarre . 
every now and again " knock off " will deliver some truly ingenious directorial flourishes--inventive camera shots and angles , wild rides down gun silencers and from the tops of buildings to the sprawling street below , revealing cut-ins within the frame--but they all happen too quickly , and within such a furious frame of reference , that they're wasted . 
if only hark could have slowed things down just for a minute . 
if you're interested in the plot , you're better off reading a capsule review than trying to extract any meaning from the on-screen shenanigans : " jean-claude van damme plays a shady bluejeans manufacturer who uncovers a russian mafia plot to terrorize the world with " nanobombs " hidden in cabbage patch knock-offs . 
maybe . 
with paul sorvino . " 
a more accurate summary would be " jean-claude van damme bums around hong kong failing to avoid large , blatant coca-cola product placements . " 
the fact that the film is staged during hong kong's last days under british rule gets some lip service but doesn't figure in at all . 
perhaps " knock off " 's most intriguing credit is that ron and russell mael composed the frenzied music score . 
some of you might remember the mael brothers as the '80s synth pop duo sparks ; their contributions here are as confused as the accompanying action-- " kimono my house " indeed ! 
like the cheap jeans and " pumma " sneakers manufactured in hong kong , van damme's latest is a real phony .
in " twilight , " a ex-alcoholic , ex-cop , ex-husband , ex-private-eye , harry ross ( paul newman ) , works for a pair of aging hollywood actors , catherine ( susan sarandon ) and jack ames ( gene hackman ) . 
jack is being blackmailed , and he asks harry to deliver the payoff . 
instead of the blackmailers , harry finds a dying ex-cop ( m . 
emmet walsh ) . 
as more bodies begin to pile up , harry realizes that he will have to solve the disappearance of catherine's first husband twenty years earlier to find out who's willing to kill to keep that secret buried . 
newman . sarandon . 
hackman . 
with an a-list cast of oscar laureates like that , " twilight " would seem very promising . 
however , the script is tired and predictable . 
it would serve well as a tv-movie-of-the-week , possibly with some 1970's detective hero reprising his role . 
the appeal of the project for its stars and its director , robert benton , is nostalgia . 
 " twilight " wants very much to be a 1940's film noir with alan ladd or dick powell . 
all of the standard tropes are here : a hard-boiled p . i . 
among the rich and beautiful whose glamour hides sinister secrets , a femme fatale who tempts and confounds the hero , shadowy figures shooting from doorways , dead bodies confronting the hero at every turn , cops dogging his path and interfering with his investigation . 
the script offers little originality , and co-authors benton and richard russo seem unaware that what was original in 1948 is a clich ? in 1998 . 
elmer bernstein's score is hauntingly melodic and could have been drawn note-for-note from a vintage noir . 
the lead actors try hard-none of the three has every made less than a full effort , even when burdened with a bad script . 
they try to invest every line and gesture with meaning , and they create a convincing sense of the relationships between the main characters . 
harry is fond of jack but is in love with catherine . 
jack is dying of cancer and is jealous of harry's love for catherine . 
catherine teases harry and enjoys his attention , but her real feelings are hidden beneath a carefully-maintained veneer . 
 " twilight " wants to be character-driven like " nobody's fool " ( also directed by benton , also starring newman , based on a novel by russo ) was , but the tired script gives the actors too little to work with . 
 " twilight " also squanders a fine supporting cast : stockard channing ( harry's friend on the police force ) , reese witherspoon ( jack & catherine's bratty kid ) , giancarlo esposito ( the humorous sidekick ) , john spencer ( harry's nemesis on the force ) , liev schreiber and margo martindale ( the blackmailers ) , and james garner ( a cop who bailed movie stars out of trouble ) .
there was probably a good reason that the warner bros . studio chose not to allow critics to view this steven seagal film when it first opened . 
and , after seeing this piece of toxic waste , i now know why . 
this movie is by far the worst offering that has hit the screen since possibly those ernest movies years ago . 
fire down below centers its story on a little mining town in god's country , somewhere in eastern kentucky . 
it's beauty and natural goodness is being slowly destroyed by an uncaring mining magnate ( kris kristopherson , who constantly looks like he wants to kill his agent for getting him this role ) . 
it turns out that he's filling the mines throughout kentucky with toxic waste for a tidy profit . 
seagal plays jack taggert , an aikido-versed , fighting machine , who is an agent with the epa . 
no . . . not the cia nor the fbi nor the nsa . 
it's the environmental protection agency . 
i had no idea that epa agents were trained to be killers ! 
taggert is sent to find the perpetrators and to bring them to justice . 
written by someone named jeb , i could already envision the stereotypes of incestuous relationships , banjo-picking preachers , and dumb-as-nails rednecks . 
but the script puts seagal right smack dab in the middle of all of these scenarios as he tries to discreetly fit in . 
seagal's idea of a disguise is a long-length $1000 leather jacket . 
but to get closer to the kinfolk , he will fix people's porches for free . 
that's another great epa asset - teaching agents how to fix porches . 
slow and plodding , this project is a total mess . 
the sometimes allure of watching seagal is watching him outmaneuver enemies that outnumber and outgun him like in under seige . 
here , his bravado basically turns into bullyness . 
townsfolk who are foolish enough to challenge seagal are quickly subdued . 
fight scenes are quick and senseless and offers no enjoyment value whatsoever . 
and his soap box message wears thin within the first 15 minutes . 
the most annoying moment comes when he barges into the middle of a sunday church ceremony , gets behind the pulpit , and beseeches the townsfolk to take control of their lives and to help clean up the environment . 
but the epitome of how moralistically mushy this film gets happens when the person responsible for the toxic dumping , kristopherson , meets up with seagal . 
kristopherson asks seagal how much it will take for him to go away . 
seagal gallantly replies : " i'll leave when you take the poison from the streams and the earth . " 
i was expecting patriotic music to start blasting and a show of fireworks in the background . 
this is truly nothing more than a pompous showcase for seagal's righteousness and narcissistic arrogance . 
seagal has been vanguard in trying to bring a new genre into the filmplace , that of the enviro-thriller ( on deadly ground ) . 
however , the message will never come across through poorly developed vehicles like this . 
still , i believe in preserving mother earth , so save your $5 and please donate it instead to some worthy environmentally conscious charity .
tom dicillo directs this superficial comedy about superficial people in superficial careers , all searching for deeper meaning . 
however , they won'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 .
" gordy " is not a movie , it is a 90-minute-long " sesame street " skit , and a very bad one at that . 
this movie is so stupid and dumb that it's depressing to think that some hollywood executives actually gave this the green light , and even more surprising is the fact that this is a disney movie . 
i'm sure children are the target audience of this movie , but only kids under the age of five may be able to tolerate it . 
it is the story of a farm a piglet named gordy ( voiced by garms ) , whose family has been taken away to " up north , " which we know means death . 
of course we can hear the animals talk to each other , and they actually went to the trouble of attempting to sync the voices with their mouths but it comes out terrible . 
actually , it's almost funny in a way . 
the only remotely interesting and likable character soon appears , a little girl named jinnie sue macallister ( young ) who sees gordy on the back of a truck and essentially steals him . 
jinnie is a country singer and the film goes off on a huge tangent to show her little concert and the people dancing to it . 
what is the point of this ? 
maybe she is one of the producer's relatives and they wanted to show her on camera to promote her or something . 
we then cut to a huge social gathering and drop in on another young kid named hank royce ( roescher ) who is sad because his divorced mother is dating . 
he leaves the party and meets jinnie sue , but he accidentally falls in a pool ( probably because he was sitting on the diving board with a $200 suit on - nah , didn't see that one coming ! ) , 
starts to drown , and is miraculously saved as gordy pushes an inflatable float over to him and saves him . 
if this had not been insanely stupid already the story quickly changes when jinnie gives gordy to hank who then ends up becoming the ceo of a food processing corporation when hank's grandfather , the original ceo , dies and leaves his fortune to hank . . . 
and gordy ! 
of course there must be a villain , but even this villain ( donadio as sipes ) isn't that evil . 
he never raises his voice or becomes angry , and of course he has the typical idiot goons kidnap gordy but this is just so beyond stupid and cartoony we are constantly two steps ahead of the story . 
it's hard to tell whether the overall corniness and cheesiness to the movie is intentional because it is a family film , or if the filmmaker's are just this untalented and stupid . 
at times " gordy " is tolerable to watch , thus earning it one star and not the dreaded " z- . " 
but it's just so unbelievably boring , cliche , dumb , unfunny , corny , and just plain bad it may scare children , it certainly disturbed me . 
 ( 4/21/96 ) ( 1/29/97 ) ( 6/13/97 ) [see also : " babe " ]
senseless ( r ) marlon wayans is a very talented physical comedian , and it is that gift that brings senseless moments of life . 
alas , moments are simply that , moments , which are not enough to lift this fantasy/comedy above its one-joke premise . 
granted , that one joke is initially amusing . 
when wayans's darryl witherspoon , an economics major at stratford university , hits some dire financial straits , he becomes a guinea pig for a experimental drug that heightens all five senses . 
after some initial side effects and problems controlling his superhuman senses , darryl learns to enjoy the benefits of his abilities and uses them to land a position at a highly esteemed corporate firm . 
at this point , the film sounds more like senseful than senseless , but through some turns of the plot , darryl finds himself only able to use four of his five senses at once , essentially leaving him--yes--senseless . 
this sets up some showcase moments for wayans's gift for physical comedy , especially when darryl loses his sense of feeling and his body goes completely , hilariously limp . 
but these gags , and the gag behind the entire movie , quickly grows stale . 
once darryl is shown without the use of all of the senses , instead of exploring any new comic territory , director penelope spheeris and screenwriters greg erb and craig mazin take the easy way out and simply recycle each form of senselessness . 
wayans approaches each go-round with gusto , but by this point he's simply treading water for the rest of the film's unfunny duration . 
senseless would not be as problematic as it is if it didn't strive to be anything more than a comic trifle . 
however , the raucous and often raunchy comedy is wrapped in a blanket of bogus sincerity . 
darryl goes through the experiment in order to help his cash-strapped family , and this " serious " angle seems to come from an entirely different movie . 
unlike wayans's last starring vehicle , the surprisingly effective ( and serious ) the 6th man , the " emotional " content of senseless is forced and unconvincing . 
any attempt at anything more substantial than broad comedy fizzles--darryl's romance with janice ( tamara taylor ) , a young woman who yearns for a man who is true to himself , does not generate sparks of any kind . 
once his wb television sitcom the wayans bros . comes to an end , the genuinely funny marlon wayans has a promising big-screen future ahead of him . 
but if he continues to associate himself with projects as flat as senseless , his film career could go the way of his once-promising older brother , damon , who is now set to make his comeback--on television .
a slight romantic comedy with a feminist bent , but one with no edge to it . 
it turns out to be a conventional film filled with the usual clich ? s and stock characters of this genre . 
though it's a well-written and well-acted fluff piece , it still does not have too much to say that is surprising . 
it's made for the gentle art-house set , those who don't want something too disturbing to think about . 
it's about a critically successful writer husband , alec ( pryce ) , who is so self-absorbed that he's threatened by his department store floor-walking model wife , kate ( bouquet ) , who wants to be a writer . 
she meets his crass publisher , vanni corso ( walken ) , another self-absorbed man , and a predictable relationship occurs . 
the fireworks occur because she outgrows her husband's first impressions of her as someone who was impressed with his genius and worships at his feet . 
she now wants her own identity and her independence . 
the film looked like the usual sitcom stuff , and is plagued with the cheap set design features reserved for a tv movie . 
the film sagged in the middle of the story from the weight of its tedium , and eventually landed on its rear end with its unspectacular climax . 
it's set in london , and it opens as model kate rebuffs sexual advances by a wealthy american shopper , vanni . 
she later meets him as her hubby's new upstart publisher who seeks to have her intellectual author husband in his stable in order to give him credibility as a publisher of quality , and he quickly wins favor with her by publishing her vanity novel . 
alec who is an obnoxious grouse , someone whom it seems it would be impossible to live with , tries to do everything to stop his wife from having her book published--which only pushes her into the grasping arms of vanni . 
the publisher is proud that he's a mamma's boy who never married and is a self-made man who has earned millions . 
he has recently acquired a failing old london publishing house and plans to revitalize it , as he proudly tells kate : " if my father could sell pizzas in harlem , i could sell culture in europe . " 
the only thing that couldn't be sold , is this stiff story and tired plot line . 
the mystery to me , is how the lovely kate could like either man unless she was an insensitive dummy . 
she soon divorces the beleaguered alec and marries the soon-to-become-beleaguered vanni . 
when she writes a second novel , he rebuffs her the same way her first hubby did . 
it ends with the same results that happened to hubby number one , as its story of ambition and lust winds down in a whimper . 
a business affair was loosely based on the real-life literary and romantic travails of married authors barbara skelton and cyril connolly , in their celebrated 1950s love triangle .
if you're the kind of person who goes to see movies just because you long for some of that overpriced theatre popcorn ( butter optional ) , then this is the movie for you ! 
indeed , this has got to be either one of the most unimaginative rip-offs of other recent action movies , or an incredibly unfunny spoof of them . 
it's difficult to fathom such insipidness unless you actually watch this film . 
but at least we're warned very quickly that we may regret our ticket purchase , giving us an opportunity to sneak on out and into the adjacent show . 
what are the four ingredients of a really bad action movie ? 
first , the movie gives us an introductory premise . 
huge caverns exist deep beneath the ocean floor , and in this area , many ships have disappeared . 
oooh . . . scary ! 
secondly , a cheesy soundtrack tries to connote a tone of mystery , but only succeeds in drowning our ears with an abrasive musical score . 
third , the main character is a mercenary that delivers goods without asking about the contents of his cargo ( treat williams ) . 
he operates a sophisticated military-style pt boat and every word that comes out of his mouth is awash in comical flippancy . 
finally , in the cargo hold , we see those that hired him . 
they are also mercenaries that have tough-looking haircuts , talk with accents , and try to show how macho they are . 
during their trip across the stormy sea , their boat suffers an incident and requires repairs . 
spotting a cruise ship in the distance , they make their way to the ocean liner and devise a plan to raid the machine shop , take the parts that they need , and then continue on their merry way . 
little do they know that this cruise ship has become infested by some kind of ocean monster . 
yet , they board the ship armed to the hilt with grenades and machine guns that can kill dozens in a matter of seconds . 
this is nothing more than a by-the-book action film . 
their realization of the situation that they're in doesn't happen until they are in the bowels of the boat . 
those who are dumb enough to stray off on their own will ultimately get killed . 
the corridors on the ship are narrow , misty , and provide the kind of atmosphere that all scare-fests must have . 
yet , despite the predictable nature of this film , there are some scary " boo " moments . 
but most of it is just outright silly . 
and this film is unusually gory too . 
monsters basically suck off the flesh and spit out skeletal remains . 
there is one particularly neat scene where a monster has been cut apart and reveals a victim that is still alive . 
he screams horribly as the monster's digestive juices continue to slowly eat him away . 
additionally , it borrows heavily from speed2 , alien and a bunch of other recent films . 
the mercenaries even run into a lone , surviving passenger ( femke jannsen ) who looks amazingly like sandra bullock . 
to be honest , when i left the theatre , i just had to laugh at how witless the film was . 
it's moronic fun at best . 
so , if you're hankering for a large bucket of popcorn served with a side of silliness , then this might just hit the spot .
synopsis : when a meteorite crashlands in the arizona desert , community college professors ira kane ( duchovny ) and harry block ( jones ) are first on the scene . 
they discover that an alien lifeform has arisen from the rock and is evolving at an amazing rate . 
soon the army , advised by dr allison reed ( moore ) , moves in and forces kane and block out . 
but when the aliens begin to menace society , it may take the scientists' combined efforts to stop them before they terminate the evolution of another lifeform : humanity . 
review : " evolution " certainly has the ingredients for a decent comedy . 
it's directed by reitman , clearly trying to parlay his " ghostbusters " success into a twenty-first-century counterpart . 
it stars duchovny , and although one might question his judgment in lampooning his " x-files " character so soon after leaving the tv series , it should certainly provide him with plenty of ammunition . 
and then there's moore , who may not have much prior experience in comedy , but who has certainly proven her ability as an actress . 
a shame , then , that it all deteriorates into such a hopelessly unfunny morass . 
 " evolution " is a movie more concerned with its special effects ( which are quite good ) than anything resembling a consistently funny script . 
it has its moments ( a scene in which jones' body is invaded by an alien is particularly entertaining ) , but there are embarrassingly long stretches that are utterly devoid of humour . 
moore is totally wasted , her clumsy shtick getting very old , very fast . 
duchovny has stunningly little in the way of material to work with . 
and the story is so formulaic , it could have been written by monkeys . 
part of what made " ghostbusters " so wonderful was a combination of a great script and characters the audience could root for . 
 " evolution " is so mind-numbingly tedious that it's difficult not to start cheering for the aliens .
deceiver is a plot twist in search of a movie . 
this overly constructed film succeeds in having many surprises , and , being true to its title , being deceptive . 
but there is little in the film that is worthy of deceit . 
braxton ( chris penn ) and kennesaw ( michael rooker ) are two cops investigating the brutal murder of a prostitute ( renee zellweger ) . 
their lone suspect is wayland ( tim roth ) , a wealthy young man whose phone number was found in the hooker's pocket . 
however , a routine lie detector test turns against the investigators , as the crafty wayland somehow turns the tables . 
braxton and kennesaw are forced to confront their own troubled lives . 
braxton is a gambling addict in deep to mook ( ellen burstyn ) , a local bookie . 
kennesaw is bitter about his marriage to a socialite ( rosanna arquette ) , believing his wife to be unfaithful . 
the plot is twisty and complex , with lots of lengthy flashbacks , and plenty of surprises . 
however , there are times when it is needlessly complex , and at least one instance the storytelling turns so muddled that the answers to important plot points actually get lost . 
take a look at l . a . confidential , or the film's more likely inspiration , the usual suspects for how a complex plot can properly be handled . 
the dialogue in deceiver is as overcrafted as the plot . 
for example , the film tells a few substories ( such as the tale of a woeful absinthe bender , or an alternative telling of how van gogh lost his ear ) , but they are so flat and so plastic that they come off as prefabricated and unbelievable . 
there's never the sense that these are real characters engaging in conversation . 
they appear to be nothing more than words on a screenplay . 
the characters , themselves , are rather pathetic and despicable . 
not one of them is an ounce sympathetic , and as a result , the labyrinthine plot is all for naught . 
what does it matter who is guilty of what and why ? 
writer-directors josh and jonas pate seem to desire to emulate the coen brothers' masterwork blood simple , or the wachowski brothers' less worthy bound . 
but , while they have got the plot twists down cold , they need to work on characterization and dialogue .
what are we going to do with jim carrey ? 
viewers of television's " in living color " know this one-man cartoon from such characters as fire marshall bill . 
viewers also know that " in living color " is a skit-show and that a little of jim carrey goes a long way . 
unfortunately , this fact was forgotten by the makers of the carrey comedy ace ventura : pet detective . 
three writers , including carrey , worked on the slapstick story , which sends a self-styled " pet detective " on the trail of a stolen dolphin . 
the missing mammal belongs to the miami dolphins , who need their mascot for the upcoming superbowl . 
for plot porpoises , this story works as well as any three stooges short . 
carrey gets to do his " official " schtick as he snoops around greater miami . 
he leers and sneers , craning his neck to funny effect . 
he even does his captain kirk impersonation . 
again . 
all of this is pretty harmless stuff up until the point that you realize that the writers have absolutely no intention of focusing on anyone * other * than carrey . 
 ( suggested alternate title--jim carrey : will do anything for a laugh . ) 
export it to france and you may have a hit . 
as it stands , ace ventura isn't even good kid's stuff . 
the profanity count , alone , is too high . 
which is ironic , since children are , probably , carrey's best audience . 
the film doesn't even have the goofball charm of chris elliott's recent no-brainer cabin boy . 
sure , carrey has his moments . 
but what can you say about a film whose high-points include watching carrey slink around to the theme from " mission impossible ? " 
ace ventura has one glaring incongruity . 
amid the butt-jokes and double-takes , the script takes great pains to set-up an elaborate and rather funny " crying game " gag . 
and , for * this * intended audience , that takes ( ahem ) cojones .
so , it's thirty years later , and oscar and felix are together again . 
that might have been an exciting notion if it wasn't for the fact that the " odd couple " of jack lemmon and walter matthau have been reunited in several recent movies : 1993's " grumpy old men , " 1995's " grumpier old men , " and 1997's " out to sea " ( i . e . 
 " grumpiest old men " ) . 
so , " the odd couple ii " ( i . e . 
 " the grumpiest old men of all , really " ) seems just another entry in a tired series . 
the plot is even similar to that of " grumpy old men " in that lemmon and matthau's mismatched characters are brought together by a romance between their children . 
oscar's son ( jonathan silverman ) and felix's daughter ( lisa waltz ) are getting married , and former roommates felix ungar ( lemmon ) and oscar madison ( matthau ) meet at the airport and decide to share a car . 
 . 
 . 
then hilarity ensues . 
well , a few chuckles ensue anyway . 
neil simon , the award-winning playwright who created oscar and felix , provides the screenplay , which is a shock , because the script is a piece of talentless hackwork from beginning to end . 
unlike the original play/movie , " odd couple ii " doesn't find its humor in the personality conflict of its characters . 
instead , it depends upon a series of humorous situations : oscar and felix lose the car over a cliff , are caught smuggling mexicans over the border , take up with two women on the run from their violent husbands ( the women are played by christine baranski of " cybill " and jean smart of " designing women " ) , and hitch a ride with a man who dies in the desert . 
the original 1968 movie " the odd couple " remains a classic comedy . 
it introduced the motif of roommate-as-spouse that has provided gags for movies and sitcoms ever since . 
it was the second outing for the lemmon/matthau team ( which debuted in 1966's " the fortune cookie " ) , and they made a couple more worthwhile comedies , " the front page " ( 1974 ) and " buddy buddy " ( 1981 ) , before going their separate ways . 
the reunion of lemmon and matthau in " grumpy old men " six years ago was delightful , and its sequel seemed appropriate because it tied up some loose ends from the first movie . 
but " out to sea " and " the odd couple ii " are just beating a grumpy old horse . 
 ( you can add lemmon's " my fellow americans , " i . e . 
 " grumpy old presidents , " to that list , too . ) 
let's hope that hollywood offers these two actors something fresh to do . 
let's hope also that we see neil simon's name on movies that do it justice ( this is his first since 1993's " lost in yonkers " ) .
except for a few bright moments of good verbal comedy , that old feeling is embarrassing to sit through . 
bette midler and dennis farina play lilly and dan , actress and author , once married , now violently divorced , and back together one last time for their daughter molly's ( paula marshall ) wedding . 
lilly and dan hate each other passionately -- so passionately that they have sex at the wedding and fall in love again . 
each ditches his or her current spouse of 14 years and runs off with the other . 
molly , married now only 24 hours , runs off in search of her irresponsible parents while her husband keith ( jamie denton ) tries to console the abandoned spouses . 
in molly's search for her parents , she somehow falls in love with lilly's paparazzo joey ( danny nucci ) . 
meanwhile , the newlywed keith ends up consoling dan's wife rowena ( gail o'grady ) in bed . 
the audience i saw this with apparently thought that all the adultery was hilarious . 
i'm no dan quayle , but i thought it was a bit creepy . 
the message seemed to be " ignore your responsibilities unrepentantly and have fun fucking who you wish . " 
 " family values " aside , there's something cruel about all this . 
perhaps this movie would have played well as a black comedy , but the movie is a romantic comedy . 
we are supposed to be rooting for these creeps . 
reiner and screenwriter leslie dixon tried to make it easier on us by making the victims unlikeable . 
lilly's husband is a new-age flake who rambles about " emotional valet parking , " so we can write him off as irrelevant . 
dan's wife is vain , manipulative , and jealous so we can write her off as a bitch . 
molly's husband is a career-conscious , self-centered republican politician who thinks she's too fat ( and just for good measure , he also fucked dan's wife ) , so we can write him off as a prick . 
everyone else falls in love . 
but still , that somehow doesn't justify the actions of the movie's main characters . 
 " he's a prick " or " she's a bitch " is no defense . 
the movie is somewhat redeemed by some funny dialog -- often during heated arguments -- and by above-average performances by midler and farina ( breaking out of his character-actor mold ) . 
other than that , it's a standard romantic comedy with a very substandard gimmick .
maybe this mission should have been scrubbed 
mission to mars 
a film review by michael redman copyright 2000 by michael redman 
there's a world of difference between artists and technicians . 
the artist has a vision to create something new . 
he may not do it well , it might be sloppy , but it's something you've never seen before . 
a good technician can make it look good , but without direction from his own inner artist or someone else , it's going to be just a xerox . 
obviously successful films need both skills . 
brian de palma is a masterful technician . 
he's spent his career copying others , most notably hitchcock . 
he usually knows exactly what to do to make a scene work , but only because he has learned it by rote . 
aside from rare flashes of originality , his films are often soul-dead . 
in de palma's latest , he turns his attention to stanley kubrick . 
to tell the truth , i enjoyed portions of this movie , but i liked it a lot better over 30 years ago when it was called " 2001 " . 
i enjoyed it even more when it was titled " close encounters " . 
nasa has set its sights for mars . 
when the first crew meets with disaster , a rescue mission is sent to the red planet . 
they don't do so well either , but eventually meet up the lone surviving astronaut-gone-rasta and solve the mysteries of the universe . 
and it's all so boring . 
there are so many scenes that just don't work , it's difficult to begin . 
when the first crew is a few feet away from a raging massive upside-down martian tornado ( which looks remarkably like a sandworm from " dune " ) destroying everything in its path , they just hang out watching . 
error . 
the most interesting character ( and that's not saying much ) is killed off . 
error . 
the alien is laughable . 
error . 
the rest of the characters are the dullest people imaginable . 
error . 
there's some nice eyecandy . 
the face on mars , which turns out to be a giant metal thai buddha head , looks cool . 
a three-dimensional holographic planetarium is more fun to watch than anything at disney world . 
maneuvering in space suits outside the ship seems realistic . 
but there's so much more that feels as if we've been there before . 
from " 2001 " , there's the rotating space station , the blinding white room . 
>from " close encounters " , they solve a sound puzzle and play it to the aliens . 
the list goes on . 
the actors are mostly mobile wooden statues . 
even gary sinise and tim robbins can't muster enough emotion to convince us they are breathing . 
no one seems to care about anything that happens . 
you won't either . 
the absolutely worst sin is the blatant product placement as dr . pepper , with a 20 foot tall logo , saves the day . 
they should save the commercials for those insipid bits before the film .
ingredients : possessed plastic dolls in love , plastic dolls having sex 
starring : jennifer tilly , voice of brad dourif , katherine heigl , nick stabile , john ritter 
synopsis : this is the fourth film in the chucky series , which debuted in the late 1980s . 
basically , chucky is a plastic doll that can walk and talk because it is possessed by the spirit of a slain murderer . 
in bride of chucky , chucky's longtime girlfriend tiffany ( jennifer tilly ) dies and her spirit inhabits a female plastic doll through voodoo . 
dolls tiffany and chucky get married and embark on a quest to reach a cemetery in new jersey , where a mystical gem might enable them to be humans . 
the dolls stow away in the back of a vehicle driven by a newly eloped couple , so in the side plot , the couple suspects each other of being a murderer . 
opinion : bride of chucky is an attempt at horror with humor , but doesn't succeed . 
somehow , chucky moaning about mid life crisis , and how he should have gotten married does not make for a very scary chucky . 
and tiffany harping about mid life crisis , and how she should have gotten married does not make for a very scary tiffany . 
the suspenseless bride of chucky relies mostly on jennifer tilly's cleavage to keep attention during the first half , and on occasional puns to keep attention during the second half . 
the best that can be said about bride of chucky is that it is sarcastic .
i was going to see ram shrasta on the big screen last night , but before that i stopped into my video store to rent some movies . 
luckily , my video guy was in the middle or recording ram shrasta ! 
i knew it was going to be a bad print with only half-faces and poor sound quality , but i couldn't help myself . . . 
i got it . 
well , after watching it ( it indeed was a bad print ) i was glad i didn't dish out $7 to waste three hours of my time sitting in a bad theatre watching a bad movie . 
this movie really sucks . 
it had so many inconsistencies it was driving me crazy ! ! 
for example , how can jackie shroff grow two feet of hair in just three or four days ? 
jackie shroff looked really stupid with his steven seagal ponytail . 
the songs are bad , the acting is bad ( especially deepti bhatnagar's ) , and the direction is the worst of all . 
the comedy scenes with jagdish and johnny lever just made me want to throw up . 
i didn't even finish the movie . . . 
i couldn't take it anymore . 
note : but if anyone out there liked aatish ( by the same director ) , i guess you'd like this movie . 
it's practically the same except that sanjay dutt is replaced with jackie shroff . 
aditya panscholi is the sidekick again . 
 ( i was going to give it a zero , but i personally like jackie shroff , so i loosened up a little . 
he looked fresh , wore good clothes ( as always ) , and his performance , even though it wasn't his best , was the only saving grace of the movie )
starship troopers is a bad movie . 
i mean , a really , really , bad movie . 
not only does it cross the line of bad taste when it comes to blood , gore and body parts shown on the screen , it blissfully jumps over that line , apparently unaware that the movie trailers appeal to an audience of five to fifteen year olds ( of which i saw many in the theatre ) . 
looking past the appalling sight of overdone violence , we are left with a movie with a thin plot at best , no strong lead characters , a blatant disregard for physics , and a very obvious naziesque theme . 
that being said , onto the review : the movie starts with a propaganda message from the federation ( who's logo bears a * strong * resemblance to a nazi german eagle ) , urging the populace to go off and fight the bugs , who are attempting to destroy earth . 
the film shows large rallies with young children in attendance , pledging allegiance to the federation ( again , sound familiar ? ) . 
as the movie progresses , we are shown terror tactic training , as a drill sargeant very graphically compound fractures one recruits arm , and throws a knife through another's hand . 
eventually , the recruits embark on a journey to a location two thirds of the way across the milky way galaxy , to fight the bugs on their home planet . 
as our faster than light travelling " heroes " arrive on planet , they drop onto the planet , and burst our of their craft brandishing . . . 
 " what ? " 
you say , " laser beam weapons ? 
sonic weapons ? 
phasers ? 
photon cannons ? " . 
nope , they hop out brandishing good old 1997 machine guns , pump action rifles , and tactical nuclear weapons ! 
i guess a lot of physics money r&d went into travel and not weaponry . 
as the assault begins , our group of troopers are seen walking in a straight line through a box canyon . 
two members of the group notice rocks slipping and falling above them , and one even sees a streak fly by , but disregards it as nothing . 
this of course , leads to more massive carnage , blood shed , and graphic depictions of limbs and heads being ripped and severed from their bodies . 
again , i see that military tactics in the future must have evolved at about the same pace as their weapons ! 
in the end , we see neil patrick " doogie howser " harris burst onto the scene in what could accurately be described as a nazi ss trenchcoat , hat , and gloves . 
he does a vulcan mind meld on the giant slug , and then proclaims that the bugs are scared ! 
this sets the troopers into a frenzy , as they are now one step closer to completing their goal , total genocide of a species ( again , sound familiar ? ? ) . 
i have tried very hard not to step on and spoil the plot with this review , but given it's non-existence , i may have anyway . 
i could go on for pages ripping this movie apart , but don't want to bore you too badly . 
in short , i felt as if i were subjected to a mix between a pro-nazi war film with bugs substituted for allies , a drivers education accident scene film , and a complete blank screen ( the plot , of course ) . 
i wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone , anywhere , under any circumstance . 
copyright ( c ) 1997 tim jandt " >
deserves recognition for : achieving the near-impossible task of making a grander monument to self-love than steven seagal's on deadly ground . 
capsule review : a question : after the floating baby ruth that was waterworld , what in the @$&% were the hollywood execs who gave kevin costner the money to make another post-apocalyptic movie thinking ? 
in this 3 hour advertisement for his new hair weave , costner plays a nameless drifter who dons a long dead postal employee's uniform and gradually turns a nuked-out usa into an idealized hippy-dippy society . 
 ( judging by the costuming at the end of the movie , the main accomplishment of this brave new world is in re-inventing polyester . ) 
when he's not pointing the camera directly at himself , director costner does have a nice visual sense , and it is undeniably fascinating to see such an unabashedly jingoistic film in the trust-no-one 90's ; but by the time the second hour rolled around , i was reduced to sitting on my hands to keep from clawing out my own eyes . 
mark this one " return to sender " .
as with any gen-x mtv movie ( like last year's dead man on campus ) , the movie is marketed for a primarily male audience as indicated by its main selling points : sex and football . 
those two items , wrapped in a guilty-pleasure package , are sure to snare a sizeable box office chunk initially , but sales will decline for two reasons . 
first , the football sequences are nothing new , nor can they be ; the sports genre isn't mainstream and it's been retread to death . 
second , the sex is just bad . 
despite the appearance of a whipped cream bikini or the all-night strip-club party , there's nothing even remotely tantalizing . 
the acting is mostly mediocre , not including the fantastic jon voight . 
cultivating his usual sliminess , voight gives an unexpectedly standout performance as west canaan coyotes head coach bud kilmer . 
kilmer is the driving force behind the coyotes' twenty-two conference championships and two state titles in thirty years ; this year he plans to make it twenty-three . 
unfortunately , when his star quarterback , lance harbor ( paul walker ) , goes down for the count , he's got to rely on the unreliable abilities of backup john moxon ( james van der beek ) . 
moxon leads the team through its last four games , and then must cope with his newfound stardom , the effect it has on his relationship with girlfriend julie ( amy smart ) , and other temptations that abound in football-crazy west canaan . 
most regions of the country are not nearly as football-crazy as texas , and so the atmosphere is likely to be lost on most . 
similarly , the set design is wrong for a high school setting : the teams are decked out with sparkling uniforms , radio headsets ( which never seem to work , however , and instead require coaches to signal plays manually ) , and even a giant bronze statue of coach kilmer . 
these elements ( as well as the heavy drinking and carousing ) might be more appropriate on a college campus -- but mtv's core audience is the high school demographic . 
this focus is further emphasized by the casting : james van der beek , of tv's " dawson's creek , " is an understandable choice for the reluctant hero , although he never manages to do anything with the role . 
other stars are similarly young and unmemorable . 
there's not much that goes right about varsity blues , and there's not much to like about it , either . 
everything herein has already been done , and if it hasn't , the movie manages to botch it one way or another . 
this is certainly missable .