polsci/sentiment-polarity-dataset-v2.0 huggingface dataset:
capsule : a science fiction allegory . 
at the millennium a lethal contagious virus has hit taiwan . 
officials have cut off water and other services to the center of contagion . 
life there devolves and degenerates . 
a man in an apartment has a hole in his floor and with it harasses his downstairs neighbor . 
a slow but harrowing film to be missed if possible . 
 , low -1 ( -4 to +4 ) 
- the taiwan virus is ravaging taiwan and the part of the city that is the center of the contagion has been evacuated of anyone who will go . 
one apartment building still houses people . 
a woman , formerly an office worker , ( yang kuei-mei ) is tormented by her upstairs neighbor ( lee kang-sheng ) who has a hole cut by a plumber in the floor and is using it as a drain . 
neighbor runs a small failing grocery store . 
- to make things more depressing , it is constantly raining hard . 
- upstairs neighbor vomits through , pours water , etc . a small and almost entirely one-sided war starts . 
allegory about callousness and selfishness . 
- woman is living on a pile of rolls of toilet tissue . 
- incongruous songs added to show downstairs neighbors dreams . 
these are the songs of popular taiwanese singer grace chang . 
- apartment is falling apart . 
wallpaper is separating from walls . 
plumbing is failing . 
- boredom shown by long cuts in which nothing happens . 
a lot of film seems to be used up . 
- this story might have been done much better as a ten-minute animated film . 
- stars are considered to be great dramatic actors by one reviewer . 
- this film seems longer at 95 minutes most two-hour films .
for those interested in the true spirit of moviemaking - or what's left of it in mainstream hollywood - movie which are star vehicles are terrible things . 
as a rule , the ignore general principles of cinema because they are not made to advance the media but rather to advance the career of a particular actor . 
an actor might be chosen on the up-and-up , to give him exposure ; or he might be chosen on the way down to hand him a paycheck . 
generally , though , the actor doesn't matter , and soldier , the latest from the beleaguered warner brothers , exemplifies this : the picture lacks pizazz . 
the star for the vehicle in this case is kurt russell , otherwise known as the man of thirty words or less . 
russell plays todd , a human trained from birth in the ways of waging war and becoming emotionally distanced from the carnage he has wrought . 
the movie lets us see this degenerate process , but by the time the real plot starts , we're into todd's later years . 
he's about to be replaced by a new breed of soldiers , ones who , instead of being trained * from * birth , are genetically selected * before * birth . 
the pride of this class - caine 607 ( jason scott lee ) - will be our villain , and you know he's the villain because he has a staring contest with our hero near the movie's start . 
between the two leads , less than a full typed page of dialogue is spoken , and it's possible to imagine a script which is ninety percent stage direction . 
director paul anderson , who helmed last year's icy thriller , event horizon , doesn't show any inventiveness here and instead is content to let the actions play out on screen ad nauseam . 
todd , upon being replaced , is left to die on a garbage planet ; but in order to stretch the running time out , the villains return to the garbage planet on a " routine patrol " and set the stage for the final firefight . 
events are predictable from the time that the setups are made , and neither anderson nor scriptwriter david peoples attempts to show any creativeness here . 
the most annoying plot facet is the reason that the whole of the movie comes to be : todd fails to show physical superiority against caine - in fact , not even todd and two of his companions can best the baddie - but near the end of the movie he shows remarkable prowess with automatic weaponry . 
it's not as though todd undergoes any significant character changes throughout the plot of the story , and so the plot has a very canned feeling about it . 
the best route through this disaster is to take it lighthearted in spirit , and treat it as a parody of typical action fare , like universal soldier . 
a strict interpretation , however , reveals an unmistakeable and unforgiveable lack of style , class , or substance ; and by next year , a large percentage of the people who have seen this will have taped it off of network television .
director doug ellin's kissing a fool , released earlier this year , is an aptly titled comedy about two plastic couples housed in an artificial story . 
like a sitcom with jokes so lame that it would be impossible to overlay a laugh track on it , the movie meanders along insulting the viewers' intelligence in almost every frame . 
the script by james frey and the director is filled with vapid actors who read meaningless lines you've heard before . 
 ( " i'm not wearing any underwear , " the bimbo tells the famous sportscaster , max , in what she assumes will be a sure-fire come-on line . ) 
max , chicago's biggest playboy , decides to get married after a whirlwind love affair with sam , short for samantha . 
max and sam possess two irritating personalities , and they hold little chemistry for each other or the audience . 
max is played without any style by david schwimmer . 
schwimmer , whose acting talent is playing characters devoid of personality , makes an unlikely lover . 
his costar , mili avital as sam , is cut from the same cloth , so they can be argued to be a matched pair . 
after all , people of the same intelligence are naturally drawn to each other , ditto for similar looks , so why shouldn't the personality-challenged be attracted ? 
the implausible plot has max asking his best friend , jay ( jason lee ) , to hit on sam as a test . 
jay is supposed to try to get her to sleep with him , but stop short of the actual act . 
max , being promiscuous by nature , worries that his future bride may have the same need to sleep around as he does . 
the idea of flirting with the beautiful sam makes jay so sick that he becomes unable to eat or work . 
neither the script nor the actors make this test believable . 
 " the 64 , 000 question is : how do you know you're with the wrong person so you can avoid wreaking havoc on major parts of your life ? " 
jay asks in one of the unsuccessful attempts at adding some seriousness to the film . 
finally , there is the film's attempt at physical comedy . 
jay's ex-girlfriend natasha ( vanessa angel ) becomes infatuated with jay again once she thinks he is going out with someone else . 
natasha rips jay's shirt open after pushing him down onto the sofa . 
as she throws her hair on his bare chest , she demands he pull it . 
this is supposed to be funny ? 
most films have some saving grace . 
some bit part was done especially well or some scene managed to be funny even if the rest of the picture wasn't . 
kissing a fool , on the other hand , has nothing to recommend it . 
kissing a fool runs 1 : 45 . 
it is rated r for profanity and sexuality and would be acceptable for most teenagers .
this talky , terribly-plotted thriller stars alec baldwin as dave robicheaux , an ex-new orleans cop who gets ensnared in a murder- mystery after a light-plane crashes into the bayou beside his fishing boat . 
he and his wife annie ( kelly lynch ) rescue a little salvadorian girl ( samantha lagpacan ) from the wreckage and that's when the trouble begins . 
the other major players include a local drug lord ( eric roberts ) , his scheming wife ( teri hatcher ) , a soused stripper ( mary stuart masterson ) , and a shady dea agent ( vondie curtis hall ) . 
everyone knows everyone else and it makes for a collective that's curious but never compelling . 
based on the book by james lee burke , heaven's prisoners is so badly plotted that entire * scenes * seem to be missing . 
early on , we have no idea of why dave and annie keep the child to themselves . 
nor how they eluded both the coast guard and the faa . 
later , dave is reunited with a drug-abuser who appears seemingly clean and sober and without any explanation . 
huh ? 
the whole movie is like this , perhaps the result of some unkind cuts that happened during the eighteen months that the film sat on the shelf . 
whatever the reason , somebody should tell director phil joanou ( final analysis ) to recut this mess . 
in its present form , heaven's prisoners runs only two hours plus change , but it feels like four .
i'm giving this stinker . 
normally , the worst that i would ever rate a movie would be . 
but the total waste of time that is blazing saddles is , compounded by the fact that this movie is incredibly offensive , helped me come to the big goose egg . 
i'm not sure what the hell mel brooks was thinking when he made this thing , or if he was even thinking at all . 
maybe in mel's little mind a horse being knocked unconscious because of a punch to the face is funny . 
in mine , it's not . 
or maybe mel graduated from the spike lee school of filmmaking . 
because only the self-righteous lee uses the n-word more often in his films than brooks did in this one . 
at least lee has the smarts to realize that nobody is going to find that term amusing . 
brooks bandies it about like he figures the audience will be rolling in the aisles every time they hear it . 
wrong mel ! 
i would call you a boob mel , but that insults breasts everywhere . 
this idiotic attempt at a comedy centers on the evil lieutenant governor's ( harvey korman ) attempts to clear out a town so he can buy up the land cheap and sell it to the railroad . 
he sends his goons to run the townsfolk out . 
but the town appeals to the governor ( mel brooks in one of many uninspired , and unfunny roles ) to send them a new sheriff to protect them . 
the governor pawns the task off to korman's character hedley lamarr . 
 ( i can tell you are rolling off your chairs right now just thinking of all the humor in that name . ) 
lamarr decides to send the town a black sheriff ( gasp ) in the hopes that the town will be so disgusted at the prospect of a black man living among them that they will all just leave . 
hold on , i've got to stop while these gales of laughter pass . 
it's just too funny . 
racism passing as humor -- gosh why didn't anybody ever think of that one before ? 
oh wait , i think somebody might have -- they are called the kkk . 
i'm not calling brooks a racist -- but i am calling him an insensitive bastard who wouldn't know what was funny if it hit him over the head . 
but i digress . 
anyway , the black sheriff rides into town amid a flurry of townsfolk using the n-word . 
golly , will the hilarity just never end ? 
he ends up joining forces with a drunk ( gene wilder ) , who happens to be the former fastest gun in the west . 
together , they save the day from evil . 
not one person in this movie gives a decent performance . 
wilder looks like he is recovering from a head injury for most of the movie , and korman looks embarrassed to be a part of the movie . 
ok , he really didn't -- but he should have . 
the films star cleavon little goes along with the black jokes as if they were discussing the time of day . 
i did not laugh once during this whole sorry experience . 
i admit to starting to snicker on a couple of occasions . 
actually , the end started to look as if it was going to have some promise , but alas , it ended up being as crappy as the rest of the movie . 
i can say with full confidence that blazing saddles has no redeeming qualities whatsoever . 
mel brooks would be doing the world a favor if he burned every last copy of this film .
2 days in the valley is more or less a pulp fiction knock off . 
it basically involves how a bunch of quirky characters in the los angeles area end up having their lives become intertwined in some very unusual ways . 
i'm not going into much greater detail than that , since it would take forever to explain , and quite frankly , i'm not willing to spend any more time on it than the 2 hours that i've already wasted . 
while it tries very hard to be pulp fiction , 2 days in the valley falls way short . 
this is quite a condemnation considering the cast includes danny aiello , james spader and jeff daniels . 
while the story isn't much , and the dialogue and characters rate only marginally better , 2 days in the valley does have a couple of bright spots . 
james spader's character , while not much better than the rest , is at least fun to watch in a sick sort of way . 
and we do get to see a nice cat fight between uber babes teri hatcher and charlize theron ( in her first role ) . 
you know a movie isn't that good when the highlight is a brawl between two women . 
even if they are both gorgeous . 
i will give the writers some credit for the fairly clever ways in which they managed to intersect the lives of this group of characters that would have otherwise never interacted . 
but marveling at that ingenuity is a far cry from actually enjoying the result . 
while some of the characters and their respective stories are fairly interesting , they inevitably are brought down as they intersect with the other half of the characters that i really cared absolutely nothing about . 
if i were to put a number on it , only about half of the story and half the characters in this movie were particularly interesting or otherwise enjoyable to watch . 
this is the sort of movie that only a huge fan of one or more of the cast members should rent , and even then prepare for disappointment . 
not even charlize theron being naked would get me to sit through this movie again . 
or at least not all of it anyway .
what would inspire someone who cannot write or act to pen and star in a movie ? 
a better question , what would inspire a studio to produce said movie ? 
if you have an answer , let me know . 
foolish , the new movie written by and starring master p is a jaw-droppingly horrible film , one with no redeeming value socially , cinematically or otherwise . 
comedically it has some potential , but only in its stand-up comedy moments , which i can turn on comedy central for . 
master p stars as fifty dollah' ( beat that ! ) as a mobster ( i think ) who is trying to start a comedy club/act with his little brother foolish ( eddie griffin ) . 
but the two of them have to deal with an angry mob boss ( played by andrew dice clay , for the very first time entertaining ) , a stubborn club owner and family problems ( the latter in foolish is a perfect example of roger ebert's " idiot plot , " if everyone here wasn't an idiot , there would be no problem ) 
so what does foolish have to offer beside a bunch of idiotic character names ? 
not a hell of a lot . 
as i have mentioned , master p cannot act or write . 
he acts like the rapper that he is . 
the occasional despair that his script requires him to exhibit is excruciatingly forced , as are his warm and fuzzy scenes with his little bro . 
as for his script -- well , i suppose he delivers what one would expect from a musical artist with no previous screenwriting experience . 
if you haven't yet figured it out , that is not saying much . 
co-star eddie griffin ( really the star of the show ) is quite a different story . 
the fact of the matter is that griffin , whose most significant screen outing to date is probably the mildly successful tv show malcolm and eddie on the fledgling upn network , is an extremely talented comedian , stand-up and otherwise . 
he has much in common with chris tucker ( rush hour , money talks ) in how quickly and effortlessly his speech flows from his lips . 
he spouts profanity with impressive dexterity ( to the extent which that can be done ) , and while i hope that does not become his trademark it works in a few scenes in this movie . 
and indeed , i laughed at a few stand-up scenes here , but from a feature-length movie i expect more . 
foolish provided me with no reason to care for these characters . 
every scene which has any potential for dramatic impact is effectively diffused by either a stupid joke ( in a scene where tension escalates between the two brothers , foolish blurts out towards his jewelry-sporting sibling " you lay one hand on me and this cemetary is going to be a gold rush " ) or something even more idiotic such as foolish smashing his own car ( to which i said , a bit too loudly for the occasion " huh ? " ) after getting slightly upset with his wife . 
believe me when i say that there is nothing in foolish that warrants parting with your hard-earned $8 . 
you'll get more laughs from watching 30 minutes of comedy central or any virtually any sitcom if you don't have cable . 
eddie griffin fans may enjoy this derivative ( although offensive ) yarn , but everyone else should stay the hell away . 
&#137 ;
synopsis : a novelist struggling with his latest work buys a weird brain with a protruding eyeball encased in a jar . 
the brain exerts its evil influence upon the novelist and his secretary , while his wife disapproves . 
meanwhile , a loan shark in need of a shave tries to leave his profession . 
comments : why is this movie called possessed by the night ? 
it's hard to speculate . 
most of this film takes place during the day , and the only thing possessing anyone is an icky , pulsating , bubbling brain thingie in a jar . 
in case you haven't picked up on this yet , possessed by the night is a bottom-of-the-barrel " thriller " ( i use the term " thriller " loosely here ) which is really cheap and bad . 
the plot , which sounds like a cheesy pulp science fiction story from the 1950s , actually serves one purpose : to exploit nude women as often as possible . 
writing a movie review for a film like this proves oddly challenging . 
there's really not much to say . 
the acting is lousy ; although , occasionally , the attempts at acting are so absurd that they garner a chuckle or two from the audience . 
most humorous is frank sivero , who plays murray , the novelist's agent . 
he is so horrible in this role that one can't help but be amused . 
the plot sucks . 
nearly half the film is devoted to a loser loan shark who wants out of the profession , even though he has only limited relevance to the movie as a whole . 
the dialogue stinks . 
a loan shark , for instance , tells another how much he loves bimbos , which is something the audience really doesn't need to know . 
everything about possessed by the night is second rate , even the film credits . 
as the names of the not-so-talented film crew scrolled by at the end , joseph scales came up , credited as being " assistsant to foley artist . " 
someone could have used an editor ! 
to be honest , the film is basically an excuse to flash frontal nudity and show some sex scenes . 
playboy playmate shannon tweed , after all , is the star here . 
i suppose that if one wanted this sort of thing , he would like this movie . 
why did i give this turkey two stars and not one ? 
as a bad movie , it is unintentionally funny enough to keep someone passingly interested in the film . 
if you feel possessed to see possessed by the night , however , i'd recommend you exorcise this impulse and watch something else .
okay , okay . 
maybe i wasn't in the mood to watch a mindless action movie ; i am the same person that liked lethal weapon iii , even while admitting that it wasn't as good as the others . 
howewer , the latest segal picture didn't look that bad , and since none of my friends would go see a woody allen movie even if i paid them , i went to see it expecting a mild die hard rehash . 
boy , was i wrong ! 
in the first half of the movie , we are already assaulted with segal's acting , ( he is not simply wooden ; he is like a wall ) , gratuitous violence , an incredible plot , sexist and even more gratuitous nudity , and bad lines that obviously were meant as jokes . 
by the end , it is obvious that hundreds of navy men are no match for thirty armed special forces soldiers . 
not once in the movie did segal appear worried or undecided , which did not do much for increasing the unexistent suspense . 
of course , in movies like these , there must be a sidekick , and a love interest . 
in these one we are given a two for one package in the form of a playboy model ( in the movie ) , which only functions as a supposed comic relief ( by the way of extremely stupid unfunny lines ) , and to have watering eyes and look away every time something bad happens in the movie . 
oh , of course , she appears naked from the waist up , and , of course , segal kisses her at the end after no development of their relationship ; they did not even seem to be interested in each other . 
i have never seen so little chemistry between two people in a movie . 
often , the villain saves the movie ; unfortunately , the villains here are cartoonish , stupid and unfunny , unmenacing . 
how many movies have psycho ex-special forces bad guys ? 
too many . 
i was able to predict the action all throughout the movie , including the moment where the sidekick saves the hero from certain death , the scene where the bad guy can kill the hero but proceeds to explain his plan to him , the scene where we are shown the hero's superiors are stupid , the scene where the bad guy loses his gun and has to fight the hero hand to hand , etc . . . 
simply said , this is movie-making by the numbers , boring , and potentially offensive in going for the lowest common denominator of the audience . 
my recommendation : if you go see it , bring a watch . 
you'll be looking at it for most of the movie . 
my . 
rent die hard . 
read a book . 
stare at the sky . 
do not waste your time on this worthless piece of celluloid . 
the real sad thing is that there are a lot of movies out that i would rather have seen ; once again , dragged in by my friends , which by the way , liked the movie halfheartedly . 
they probably like wrestling too : - ) .
in life , eddie murphy and martin lawrence play two young men wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison . 
after about an hour of watching this movie , you begin to realize how their characters feel . 
fortunately , for audience members there's a chance to escape the nearest exit . 
this , undoubtedly , is eddie murphy's worst movie and that's an accomplishment . 
remember the golden child , harlem nights ? 
compared to life , they look like citizen kane . 
life is long , predictable , foul-mouthed and only intermittently funny . 
its 100-minute running time feels like 100 years . 
robert ramsey and matthew stone's script basically consist of murphy and lawrence referring to everyone around them as " motherf . . . s " or " n . . . . . 
s . " 
you lose count how many times both those obnoxious , offensive words are used . 
and if that all it takes to write a script , than any illiterate jackass can sit at a word processor and compose a movie . 
but , like life , it will probably stink . 
to be honest , the screening audience surrounding me in the theater yucked it up . 
but these were the same people who howled at all the flatulence and fat jokes as well . 
life is as sophisticated as a belch . 
it's crude and stereotypical . 
years ago , movies stereotypically portrayed blacks subservient , second-class people , good for being only maids and servants . 
for the most part , the lot of blacks and other racial groups have improved . 
but a new , more insidious stereotype is creeping into movies . 
in many recent films , through actors such as murphy and chris tuckers , blacks are presented as fast-talking , conniving , scam artists or hip-hop , gun-crazy , sex-crazed youths . 
both sets of caricatures are demeaning . 
and the fault does not rest with the actors . 
they have to eat , too . 
it is with the people who write the scripts , the studios who green-light the projects and the audiences who accept these portrayals without protest . 
life's only redeeming virtue is the artistry of makeup legend rick baker who flawlessly ages murphy and lawrence into 90 year olds . 
otherwise , life is an embarrassment , a blot on the resumes of those associated with it . 
see it at your own risk .
there may not be a critic alive who harbors as much affection for shlock monster movies as i do . 
i delighted in the sneaky-smart entertainment of ron underwood's big-underground-worm yarn tremors ; i even giggled at last year's critically-savaged big-underwater-snake yarn anaconda . 
something about these films causes me to lower my inhibitions and return to the saturday afternoons of my youth , spent in the company of ghidrah , the creature from the black lagoon and the blob . 
deep rising , a big-undersea-serpent yarn , doesn't quite pass the test . 
sure enough , all the modern monster movie ingredients are in place : a conspicuously multi-ethnic/multi-national collection of bait . . . excuse 
me , characters ; an isolated location , here a derelict cruise ship in the south china sea ; some comic relief ; a few cgi-enhanced gross-outs ; and at least one big explosion . 
there are too-cheesy-to-be-accidental elements , like a sleazy shipping magnate ( anthony heald ) who also appears to have a doctorate in marine biology , or a slinky international jewel thief ( famke janssen ) whose white cotton tank top hides a heart of gold . 
as it happens , deep rising is noteworthy primarily for the mechanical manner in which it spits out all those ingredients . 
a terrorist crew , led by squinty-eyed mercenary hanover ( wes studi ) and piloted by squinty-eyed boat captain finnegan ( treat williams ) , shows up to loot the cruise ship ; the sea monsters show up to eat the mercenary crew ; a few survivors make it to the closing credits . 
and up go the lights . 
it's hard to work up much enthusiasm for this sort of joyless film-making , especially when a monster moview should make you laugh every time it makes you scream . 
here , the laughs are provided almost entirely by kevin j . o'connor , generally amusing as the crew's fraidy-cat mechanic . 
writer/director stephen sommers seems most concerned with creating a tone of action-horror menace -- something over-populated with gore-drenched skeletons , something where the gunfire and special effects are taken a bit too seriously . 
deep rising is missing that one unmistakable cue that we're expected to have a ridiculous good time , not hide our eyes . 
case it point , comparing deep rising to its recent cousin anaconda . 
in deep rising , one of the creature's victims is regurgitated back into view , partially digested and still alive . 
he shrieks in horror at his freakish appearance and pain , in a moment a bit too disturbing to be laughable . 
in anaconda , we also see a regurgitated victim , partially digested and still alive . 
he looks at another character . . . and 
winks . 
make no mistake , deep rising has anaconda beat all to heck when it comes to technical proficiency and pacing . 
it's also gloomy , uninspired and not nearly enough fun . 
i don't ask much of my monster movies , but i do ask that they act like monster movies . 
you don't have to show me a fantastically impressive , massive beast with tentacles a-flailing . 
just show me the massive beast burping , and i'll figure you get the point .
renee zellweger stars as sonia , a young jewish wife and mother frustrated by the constraints of her hasidic community in brooklyn . 
her husband ( glenn fitzgerald ) is a religious scholar whose all-in-a-day's-work attitude on sex fails to tame the " fire " she feels within , as so she confesses to the rebbe ( after hearing her fiery confession , the rebbe suddenly gets frisky with his pleasantly surprised wife--and dies the next morning ) . 
sensing her frustration , her husband's brother ( christopher eccleston ) gives her a job in his jewelry brokering business in exchange for raw , passionless sex that just fans sonia's still-burning flame . 
on the job , sonia befriends ramon ( allen payne ) , a cool blast of hunky puerto rican water who does his own jewelry designs when not working as a grunt in an upscale jewelry store . 
can fire-taming be far be that far behind for the ever-smoldering sonia ? 
just about everything in writer-director boaz yakin's rings false , starting with the improbably cast zellweger , who does an adequate enough acting job but simply looks too waspy for the role . 
a better fit would have been julianna margulies , who outshines zellweger as sonia's take-no-crap sister-in-law . 
some of sonia's baby steps toward liberation , such as indulging in a non-kosher egg roll in chinatown , come off as silly . 
yakin attempts to spice up the proceedings with a touch of magical realism--in the form of the recurring presence of sonia's long-dead brother's ghost--make the story feel even more trite than it already is . 
 " i didn't know what to expect . 
it's like something you chase for so long , but then you don't know how to react when you get it . 
i still don't know how to react . " 
--michael jordan , on winning his first nba championship in 1991 . . . or , 
my thoughts after meeting him on november 21 , 1997
don't let this movie fool you into believing the romantic noirs of william shakespeare . 
no one will truly understand the heart and soul of this man except through his work , and this movie makes a vain attempt at that . 
any moves to ? glamorise' his life , which hollywood has an annoying tendency to do , will only subtract from his achievement rather than expound on his greatness . 
this movie about his life , although well written , puts too much make-up on a man whose life was probably more pork and potatoes , rather than lobster and champagne . 
oh well , let's fantasise onwards an assume that he was a bit of a flirtatious play-write , who falls in love with a beautiful woman ( gwyneth paltrow ) and from her inspiration , several plays develop - ? romeo and juliet' , and ? the twelfth night' . 
it is easier for me to believe that he had a wet dream and that's how all his plays develop , but please spare me all of this unnecessary melodrama . 
but i guess my version probably wouldn't draw a crowd or make a dollar on screen . 
so is there any justification in romanticising the man shakespeare , when all we need to do is read his work in order to find his soul . 
i think not . 
as for the oscars were they deserved by this movie ? 
i think not . 
in many aspects ? private ryan' and ? life is beautiful' were far superior movies , but one should never assume that this should be a criteria for winning an oscar , as time and again , for reasons unexplained , an undeserving movie will win the accolade . 
another sore point is the fact that gwyneth won the best female lead , over a more polished cate , but i guess if you go on enough about your grandfather dying and your nephew being hospitalised - people will start feeling sorry for you .
it's a good thing most animated sci-fi movies come from japan , because " titan a . e . " is proof that hollywood doesn't have a clue how to do it . 
i don't know what this film is supposed to be about . 
from what i can tell it's about a young man named kale who's one of the last survivors of earth in the early 31st century who unknowingly possesses the key to saving and re-generating what is left of the human race . 
that's a fine premise for an action-packed sci-fi animated movie , but there's no payoff . 
the story takes the main characters all over the galaxy in their search for a legendary ship that the evil " dredge " aliens want to destroy for no apparent reason . 
so in the process we get a lot of spaceship fights , fistfights , blaster fights and more double-crosses than you can shake a stick at . 
there's so much pointless sci-fi banter it's too much to take . 
the galaxy here is a total rip-off of the " star wars " universe the creators don't bother filling in the basic details which makes the story confusing , the characters unmotivated and superficial and the plot just plain boring . 
despite the fantastic animation and special effects , it's just not an interesting movie .
walken stars as a mobster who is kidnapped and held for ransom by four bratty rich kids . 
it seems that a woman has also been kidnapped--she is the sister of one of them ( e . t . 's 
henry thomas ) and the girlfriend of another ( flannery ) --and the asking price is $2 million , which said snots are unable to cough up alone . 
they even cut off walken's finger to show they mean business , because they are desperate to save the woman's life . 
suicide kings is a terrible film . 
walken aside , there isn't a single appealing cast member . 
o'fallon creates characters that are functional types without any resonance . 
in an amusingly unironic scene , walken plays poker with the foursome and describes each of their personalities to a tee--it's as if he was reading the summary sheet for a casting director . 
the plot is another issue entirely . 
o'fallon is someone whom i'm betting has seen reservoir dogs and the usual suspects too many times , for not only does his story veer off on bizarre tangents from whence they never return ( do we really need the scene where dennis leary beats up an abusive father with a toaster , which is entirely unrelated to both the story and leary's character , or the numerous anecdotal sequences ? ) , but the central plot itself is a serpentine mess , filled with crosses and double crosses and triple crosses . . . 
by the fourth big revelation/twist , i had completely tuned out , wondering what on earth attracted these actors to the material . 
recently a peer , a fellow young filmmaker , informed me that he had an idea for a movie about four guys , the mob , and the fbi . 
it occurred to me then what's wrong with indies like suicide kings : i suspect o'fallon has never met a mobster , is not a rich man , doesn't deliver endless " clever " monologues to his friends about his favourite types of boots . . . 
in short , these guys are just riffing on other movies , and in doing that , making the same film over and over and over again . 
tarantino found his niche and now hundreds of genxers with movie cameras are trying to find tarantino's niche instead of carving their own . 
-reviewed at the toronto international film festival
frank detorri's ( bill murray ) a single dad who lives on beer and junk food with no apparent understanding of sanitation or hygiene , much to the dismay of his preteen daughter shane ( elena franklin ) . 
when he uses the '10 second rule' to retrieve a hard boiled egg from a chimp's cage at the zoo and downs it , he introduces a lethal bacteria into his system . 
inside his skin , the city of frank is in turmoil thanks to the vote-pandering of mayor phlegmming ( voice of william shatner ) , so it's up to one frank pd white blood cell ( voice of chris rock ) to save the day in peter and bobby farrelly's " osmosis jones . " 
the city of frank is a brightly animated ( animation directed by piet kroon and tom sito ) cellular municipality where osmosis jones is a typical rogue cop looking for another chance . 
he's inadvertently teamed up with drix ( voice of david hyde pierce , tv's " frasier " ) , a cold capsule with 12 hours worth of painkillers to dispense . 
this quarrelling duo are about to go on a " fantastic voyage " in order to hunt down thrax ( voice of laurence fishburne ) , the virus intent on shutting down frank . 
while the animation is certainly colorful to look at , osmosis jones' story is a hackneyed one . 
the story cries out for puny puns , but we only get occasional sprinklings of wit or bodily humor ( drix graduated phi beta capsule , he departs on a bus headed for bladder ) . 
neither the hero or villain is particularly interesting ( thrax looks like an animated " predator " ) , although hyde pierce is a delightful sidekick . 
adults can desperately keep their eyes peeled for small amusements the animators dot along the landscape . 
meanwhile , back in live action land , bill murray is reduced to nothing more than a walking gross-out joke . 
there's no particular enjoyment to be found watching him vomit on molly shannon ( she plays shane's teacher , mrs . boyd ) or hoisting his ingrown toenail onto a restaurant table . 
one must wonder how the climatic flatlining of a child's father will play to the family audience as well . 
rest assured , the whole enchilada is wrapped up with a fart joke . 
while far less offensive than the farrelly's last effort " me , myself and irene , " that film at least spiked some comic highs with jim carrey's hijinx . 
 " osmosis jones " will probably be ok for the kids , but the farrellys playing for the family audience is like watching marilyn manson croon a phil collins tune .
woof ! too bad that leap of faith was the title of a 1992 comedy starring steve martin and debra winger , because that's what's required to watch this incredulous howler starring bruce willis as--of all things--a psychologist . 
not since the reagan administration has there been an acting stretch of such magnitude ! 
alas , mickey rourke , we hardly knew ye . 
story opens with a campy kick--willis is treating a patient who abruptly steps out of the window to take the best flying leap since charles durning dove in the hudsucker proxy . 
she goes splat , he goes ugh , and his character spends the rest of the film colorblind . 
really . 
the good doctor then moves to sunny l . a . , where he rooms with an old college chum ( scott bakula ) , a therapist who's getting death threats from someone in his monday evening group . 
buddy bites it in the second reel ( no surprise there ) and willis agrees to take over both the group and the death threats . 
for his troubles as therapy man , willis gets to share some cut-from-nc17 love scenes with the lover's jane march while dodging nails , cars , and rattlesnakes . 
why'd it have to be snakes ? 
color of night is the worst movie of the year . 
period . 
forget north , clifford , or , heaven help us , even on deadly ground . 
here is a movie misfire so audaciously awful that you can't help but wonder how the actors all kept straight faces while filming . 
for starters , the " group " is a collection of mixed nuts better suited to bob newhart than bruce willis . 
these are realistic portrayals of the mentally unhealthy ? 
playing a prissy obsessive/compulsive , cuckoos nest alumni brad dourif , alone , may set the psychology profession back ten years . 
the plot's a wreck with laughable dialogue , pointless pov shifts , and the one big secret solvable in the first fifteen minutes . 
director richard rush , who once helmed freebie and the bean , doesn't seem to mind . 
unfazed by the nincompoop plot and cuckoo characterizations , he overfills the film with enough canny camera shots and zany set-pieces to make the effort almost worth watching . 
his token freeway chase is ok , but the director has more fun with a vertiginous ending ala ( most recently ) fatal analysis . 
acting credits are across-the-board awful . 
willis can be forgiven because he's filming die hard 3 as we speak . 
but what about ruben blades insulting presence as the cop ? 
or lesley ann warren's stereotypical sex addict ? 
or worst offender jane march as a mystery-girl-who's-no-real-mystery ? 
shudder . 
bottom line : how they all kept straight faces , i'll never know .
there's only one presidential election every four years , but it seems like every few months we get another presidential conspiracy movie painted as _the_ thriller of the year . 
in 1997 , we've had absolute power , air force one , shadow conspiracy and murder at 1600 . 
this one is about as lame duck as old gerald ford , trying to bring us a complex plot of cover-up and intrigue but copping out over and over again with rehashes of action flick standbys . 
here's what happens this time . 
it's night at the white house . 
a secretary is having sex with some unidentified guy with a cute butt . 
the next day she's dead and hotshot detective wesley snipes is called in . 
how do we know he's a hotshot ? 
we've seen the traditional action flick opener -- the clever hostage negotiation scene . 
it's not so clever this time , consisting of snipes disarming a suicidal ex-government employee holding a gun to his head in the middle of the street . 
snipes is off to the white house , where he finds the secret service head ( the shiny bald head of daniel benzali ) won't cooperate with him at all . 
in fact , if not for the intervention of national security adviser alan alda , snipes wouldn't have been allowed in the white house at all . 
alda helps snipes out further , assigning a sexy secret service agent ( diane lane ) to act as his liaison . . . 
a very dangerous liaison . 
well , not really , i just wanted to say that . 
almost immediately , a suspect is found , an eccentric night janitor seen flirting with the deceased on one of the security videos . 
snipes doesn't buy it , and launches into an independent investigation of his own , one that reveals planted evidence and romantic involvement by the president's son . 
snipes' partner , an always- wisecracking dennis miller , calls him up every once in awhile with more news and lane , who at first doesn't believe snipes , eventually and predictably comes around , and risks her ass to break into social security storage and break out some classified information . 
for the first hour or so , murder at 1600 looks like it could be going somewhere interesting . 
sure , we have to sit through the lame opening sequence and plenty more lame scenes after that , but the whole murder in the white house thing makes for an interesting premise that is never quite delivered upon . 
snipes and lane don't make for a bad action team , but with nothing to work with , they're just cogs in the bad movie machine . 
dennis miller might as well not even be in the movie ; they waste his talents more in murder at 1600 than they did in bordello of blood , and that's saying a lot . 
when you get to the last half-hour , the movie has descended metaphorically and literally into a wet sewer , busting out the old break-into-the-building underground climax . 
and when they finally reveal who killed the woman and why , you'll wish you never sat through this movie at all . 
the " 1600 " in the movie's title doesn't represent an address , it represents the number of satisfied customers worldwide . 
serving the world for nearly 1/25th of a century !
ah , and 1999 was going along so well , too . 
 " she's all that " has the dubious distinction of being the worst movie i've seen so far this year . 
and quite frankly , i doubt i'll see anything equally bad . 
 ( at least , i * hope * i don't see anything equally bad ) . 
 " she's all that " tells the story of the most popular guy in school ( played by freddie prinze jr . ) who accepts a bet to transform the geekiest girl in school ( rachel leigh cook ) into the most popular . 
that , right there , is problem #1 . 
how many times have we seen this storyline ? 
as cook comments near the end of the film , " it's kind of like " pretty woman " , except without the prostitution " . 
of course , had the filmmakers attempted to try something new with this material , the well-worn storyline would have been a device to propell the movie forward . 
as it is , though , " she's all that " relies * completely * on the lame and overused formula to push it ahead . 
there's not one original or interesting character in the film , either , and if that wasn't bad enough , there's not one good performance featured . 
the star of the movie , rachel leigh cook , is simply horrible . 
i usually don't like to get so personal , but in this case , i think it needs to be said . 
cook wears the same expression throughout the flick and looks to be having as miserable a time as i was . 
i was never convinced that she was a " nerd " , and her transformation was unconvincing and unnecessary . 
the movie seems to be saying it's better to be popular than to be who you are . 
as for freddie prinze jr . , an actor i ordinarily enjoy , he too is quite bad here . 
he coasts through the film on so-called charm , and never establishes a real character . 
kieren culkin is here , too , as the brother of cook . 
and for some indiscernable reason , he's got hearing aids . 
no explanation is given and they're never brought up . 
were we supposed to feel * sorry * for him just because he wore hearing aids ? 
i don't think so . 
that single element of the film was one of the most offensive things i've seen in a movie in a long time . 
 " she's all that " sucks . 
that's what it boils down to . 
it's not entertaining , and it's not even a good time passer . 
the hour and a half running time goes by slower than a 5 minute hair-removal system informercial . 
and what's worse , it sends out a bad message to teens . 
it appears to be telling them , " hey , it doesn't matter if you're happy the way you are . 
that's unimportant . 
if you want to * truly * be happy , dress in the latest fashions and act like a bubble-headed moron . " 
ugh .
in the mid-1980s , following the splendid debut in hugh hudson's greystoke and relative success of first highlander film , it looked like christopher lambert's acting career might go somewhere . 
but , it wasn't meant to be , which became obvious following highlander ii . 
in this decade christopher lambert became associated with films with low budgets and even lower quality . 
very often such films were science fiction , which meant that the fans of that genre learned the hard way what to evade anything starring christopher lambert . 
whether it was because of real lack of talent , terrible miscasting or simple bad luck isn't important - the end result was almost always horrible . 
the same can be said for fortress , 1993 science fiction film directed by stuart gordon , director who created cult following with his 1980s horror gorefests like reanimator and from beyond . 
the movie is set in 2018 . 
for some undisclosed reason , usa introduced strict population control and couples are barred from having more than one child . 
jake ( christopher lambert ) and karen brennick ( lori laughlin ) broke that law and are caught by authorities on the border . 
sentenced to 31 years in prison , they are both thrown into fortress , privately owned correctional facility , equiped with state-of-the-art futuristic technology and run by computer called zed . 
although equiped with gismos that regulate every aspect of inmates' lives and make any escape impossible , prison authorities often use violence . 
jake survives many ordeals and earns respect of some inmates which would help him when he begins planing the escape . 
such escape should become necessity , because the warden poe ( kurtwood smith ) begins showing unhealthy interest in karen . 
after rather intriguing beginning and some interesting special effects that depict the futuristic settings of prison , this film soon starts sinking into mediocrity . 
the reason is in the screenplay that quickly degenerates into whole series of prison movie clich ? s and situations that are painfully predictable . 
by the time brennick begins his escape from fortress , those situations not only begin to look predictable , but utterly implausible too . 
of course , film never tried to explain why the country that lacks resources to support its present population happens to spend bucketloads of money on ultra-expensive supertechnology with sole intention of keeping alive most useless and dangerous members of the society . 
the initially interesting plot is done even more wrong by stereotyped characters , played by not too interested or talented actors . 
lori laughlin , although physically attractive , shows the acting ability of sequoia . 
kurtwood smith as prison warden is rather uninspired , capable of solid , yet forgettable performance . 
lambert's performance is also good , but even the bigger talent couldn't help this film , destined to end in oblivion .