polsci/sentiment-polarity-dataset-v2.0 huggingface dataset:
the tagline on random hearts reads " in a perfect world , they never would have met . " 
in a perfect world , i never would have seen this movie . 
the biggest flaw is that 20 minutes into this film , kay chandler ( kristin scott thomas ) and dutch van den broeck ( harrison ford ) are the only two major characters alive ; resulting in little doubt that they will end up together at some point during the laborious two-hours-and-then-some production . 
dutch is a sergeant in internal affairs at the district of columbia police department . 
kay is a congresswoman from new hampshire . 
although they both think they are happily married , their spouses are cheating with each other behind their backs . 
dutch and kay are soon widowed when a plane goes down carrying their partners ; they subsequently discover the affair . 
the rest of the film is the pointless , unrealistic and often-times boring story of their researching the sexual relationship that they were blind to , and getting to know each other in the process . 
two sub plots are of little help to the already problematic film . 
dutch is trying to arrest a fellow officer , a task that seems rather ordinary for hollywood fare . 
all the great stereotypes get pulled , including my personal favorite of the key witness that makes bail and is murdered soon thereafter . 
kay's distraction from the film's primary focus is her campaign for re-election and attempts to shield her 15 year old daughter from the truth about the father she put on a pedestal . 
these sub plots could have made for semi-interesting points , but the film seems afraid to explore politics or mother-daughter relations in depth , and consequently suffers . 
random hearts' two primary characters seem to live in shells . 
although both kay and dutch are given their own sub plots , they seem to never deal with anyone other than themselves or each other . 
there is plenty of opportunity , dutch having a partner and kay having close friends and her daughter , but the movie shies away from exploring these relationships . 
veteran actor and director of this film sydney pollack , and critically acclaimed up-and-comer dylan baker both have cameo roles , but be careful not to blink too much or you will miss them both . 
other than its weak plot , it is hard to criticize random hearts . 
however , it is also hard to compliment it . 
had the film taken some small risks and more fully explored its extra characters and plots it may have tasted more like a well frosted cake , rather than the dry one that equates to be .
synopsis : melissa , a mentally-disturbed woman who likes to smoke , seduces doug , a minor-league baseball player who likes to study anatomy , work on motorcycles , and make out with his girlfriend in a public library . 
when doug decides to stop seeing her , melissa maliciously takes revenge on those around him , including his girlfriend , his mother , and his cat . 
comments : malicious , i suppose , is an acceptable moview for what it is : a cheap , b-movie thriller which rips off dozens and dozens of spurned-psycho-lover-who-wants-revenge films ( like fatal attraction , hand that rocks the cradle , etc . etc . ) that have come before it . 
malicious , however , really doesn't provide very many particularly suspenseful moments . 
the plot starts off energetically enough , the main characters are introduced and the affair between doug and melissa begins and ends pretty early on in the film . 
it starts to drag , unfortunately , after this . 
melissa will obviously try to take her revenge on doug ( as always seems to happen in movies like these ) , but she does so in unimaginative ways that have been done in other , better thrillers before . 
she drugs someone . 
she kills a family pet and leaves it in the girlfriend's apartment . 
and , of course , she stalks , so we see a number of shots , which are supposed to be suspenseful , where she's spying on doug and his girlfriend . 
i won't reveal the ludicrous ending to this turkey , but i warn you that it's both painfully obvious and a real yawner . 
john vernon does a remarkably good job at playing the not-so-bright baseball jock who initially gets swept away by melissa ( one of the script's faults is to try to pass off a character like this as a pre-med student ) . 
the same cannot be said , though , for molly ringwald . 
at times , she can effectively pull off the obsessed lover routine , especially during her silent , i'm-going-to-stare-you-down scenes . 
at other times , however , she just seems somehow goofy and out of place . 
in one particular scene which i guess was supposed to be suspenseful , she screeches " f--k you , you b-----d " and throws a phone . 
she delivers the line so ridiculously that one can't help but laugh . 
malicious certainly isn't the worst thriller of its kind out in the video racks ( a number of really fat turkies in this genre are out there ) , but it isn't all that good or original either . 
feel free to treat this film maliciously , watch something else .
running time approximately 1hr 40mins 
reviewed by jack choo 
rating : 
the movie starts with a rather se7en-ish opening sequence , rather cool and sets the mood for things to come . 
the story propels the audience into a neo-reality ; somewhat very close to conscious reality but laced with weird tinges of blue and red . 
existenz is actually the name of a new virtual-reality game . 
supposedly , vr games are highly popular as is considered a legal-drug in this neo-reality . 
 * * * * ( leigh ) is the ultimate game creator and introduces her ultimate game-experience in the form of existenz . 
players are required to have bio-ports embedded in their spine , which plugs to a game-pod in order to enjoy the immersive experience . 
during a secretive beta-testing-cum-teaser meeting for this new game , an assassination attempt on * * * life occurs and she runs off with fellow bodyguard * * * ( law ) . 
 * * * is more of a realists than anything else , afraid that he'll lose reality if he begin to play these games but * * * requires his help to immerse together with her into existenz to check if the program is still functioning properly after the assassination attempt . 
as they soon discover , they are transported between realities within existenz uncovering more than they initially expected . 
existenz has all the cronenberg-gore that is expected of him . 
even so , this film is no-where near his cult classics such as videodrome or scanners . 
not even half as suspenseful as the commercially successful the fly . 
existenz can probably be looked upon as his 90's version of videodrome , even so , it is a poor follow-up . 
while in most of his famed films , his penchant for gore always hit the right note with theme of the film and plot . 
in existenz , the gory sequences are no more attached to spirit of the film and seem to be an act of over-indulgence than anything else . 
jennifer jason leigh and jude law , both commendable actors , looked aloof and miss-directed throughout the entire film . 
the scripting and acting barely pulls the film out of the b-grade category . 
it was obvious that cronenberg worked on a really tight-budget and it seems that he handled that pretty well in the production design and values created for this film ( the opening sequence , though , probably formed a considerable portion of the budget ! ) 
which is actually quite good . 
existenz is too predictable and cliched in these times . 
10 years ago , it would have been another classic for cronenberg . 
cronenberg fans however , ( those people who enjoy seeing friends getting queasy over mutilation on film ) should not give this film a miss as some form of appreciation can still be offered by you .
how do films like mouse hunt get into theatres ? 
isn't there a law or something ? 
this diabolical load of claptrap from steven speilberg's dreamworks studio is hollywood family fare at its deadly worst . 
mouse hunt takes the bare threads of a plot and tries to prop it up with overacting and flat-out stupid slapstick that makes comedies like jingle all the way look decent by comparison . 
writer adam rifkin and director gore verbinski are the names chiefly responsible for this swill . 
the plot , for what its worth , concerns two brothers ( nathan lane and an appalling lee evens ) who inherit a poorly run string factory and a seemingly worthless house from their eccentric father . 
deciding to check out the long-abandoned house , they soon learn that it's worth a fortune and set about selling it in auction to the highest bidder . 
but battling them at every turn is a very smart mouse , happy with his run-down little abode and wanting it to stay that way . 
the story alternates between unfunny scenes of the brothers bickering over what to do with their inheritance and endless action sequences as the two take on their increasingly determined furry foe . 
whatever promise the film starts with soon deteriorates into boring dialogue , terrible overacting , and increasingly uninspired slapstick that becomes all sound and fury , signifying nothing . 
the script becomes so unspeakably bad that the best line poor lee evens can utter after another run in with the rodent is : " i hate that mouse " . 
oh cringe ! 
this is home alone all over again , and ten times worse . 
one touching scene early on is worth mentioning . 
we follow the mouse through a maze of walls and pipes until he arrives at his makeshift abode somewhere in a wall . 
he jumps into a tiny bed , pulls up a makeshift sheet and snuggles up to sleep , seemingly happy and just wanting to be left alone . 
it's a magical little moment in an otherwise soulless film . 
a message to speilberg : if you want dreamworks to be associated with some kind of artistic credibility , then either give all concerned in mouse hunt a swift kick up the arse or hire yourself some decent writers and directors . 
this kind of rubbish will just not do at all .
a backdrop of new year's eve in 1981 would seem to lend itself to a great party movie . 
the decor possibilities are endless - disco balls had yet to migrate into the dark corners of the attic , big hair was worth its weight in aquanet , and the louder the fashion , the better the look . 
but despite this setting , these details and a soundtrack that includes some 40-plus irresistible hits from the early days of the me decade , something is inherently wrong with " 200 cigarettes . " 
a better title for this nostalgic mess would be " 50 missed opportunities . " 
what is it that makes this retro-comedy such a downer ? 
it's certainly not the cast , which includes enough hot , young talent for several movies . 
there's courtney love , cementing her reputation as a serious actress ; christina ricci , hot off her shoulda-been-nominated turn in " the opposite of sex " ; paul rudd , who gets even more appealing with every role ; kate hudson , inheriting some fine acting genes from mom goldie hawn ; and affleck brothers ben and casey , two of the best things about " good will hunting . " 
perhaps the question is this : what drew these and other immensely talented actors to such a dreary project ? 
maybe it looked good on paper . 
 " 200 cigarettes " is composed of a series of vignettes , as various characters make their way through new york's festively decorated east village to a holiday bash thrown by a jittery bundle of nerves named monica ( martha plimpton , all dressed up in her best cyndi lauper ) . 
among the potential guests are likeable cad kevin ( rudd ) and his best friend lucy ( love ) , busy bickering over his recent break-up , and a clumsy but seemingly charming bartender ( ben affleck ) who opens his mouth only to spew forth bad pick-up lines . 
more subplots - _many_ more - dot the big picture , but those listed above are the only ones worth noting in a positive light . 
all the other story tangents are as frazzled as a cokehead trying to solve a rubick's cube . 
ricci and gaby hoffman grate as two ronkonkoma gals ( the kind that have trouble pronouncing hard consonants ) out to have a high time in the big city . 
infamously acerbic comedienne janeane garofalo is wasted in what amounts to a several-scene cameo . 
hudson , as a pretty-in-pink klutz recently devirginized by a reprehensible ladies' man ( jay mohr ) , trips , pukes and gets smeared with dog poop . 
are we laughing yet ? 
the film boils down to a mixture of the good , the bad and the gaudy , with the latter two overtaking the former . 
game performances - especially by love , rudd and plimpton - are almost shot down by the bizarrely colorful parts and a constantly roving focus , here a combination that mostly sputters when it should crackle . 
too many sidetracks rate as uninteresting and have little payoff until a lengthy final montage where we find out many of the performers served as one night stands for each other . 
if this is " 200 cigarettes , " then get me 200 nicotine patches .
the premise of the new james wong film , final destination , is that alex browning , the protagonist , prevents six of his friends from boarding a doomed airplane , thereby cheating fate . 
however , fate is not so easily bested , and alex's friends soon begin dying in unusual circumstances . 
essentially , this premise is a clever-way to make a slasher-flick without the slasher . 
unfortunately , this is practically the only clever thing about the film . 
as far as teen horror flicks go , final destination is better than many . 
there is enough shocking death , graphic gore , and requisite black humor to provide the essential " roller coaster " type thrill at the heart of the average horror flick . 
unfortunately , this film also suffers from the worst characteristics of this genre . 
the relationships between the main characters are tenuous and their motivations are meaningless except as excuse to set-up the next death . 
the scene where two of the characters break into a funeral home to view the body of their recently killed friend is suppose to be scary and dramatic but features some of the dumbest dialogue i have witnessed . 
if you are looking for a saturday night thriller to scare your date , this film might do the trick . 
other than that , wait until it goes into heavy-rotation on cable .
staring , george clooney , arnold schwarzenegger , chris o'donnell and uma thurman with alicia silverstone . 
well to start this off i'd just like to say a couple things . 
first is , i miss michael keaton , i miss tim burton and would much prefer to think that these last two batman films are all like a dallas dream sequence . 
not even from the first film was batman really the 'star' though he was damn close in the first couple anyway . 
in 'batman forever' and now in 'batman & robin' he's almost pushed to being a bit player . 
i can't really say if clooney ( who regardless was better than kilmer ) was a very good batman or not . 
he's given next to nothing to do at all , he might as well not have been there and it wouldn't have made much difference . 
now , joel schumacher has said that he refuses to bend to the masses that have hated his films and cheered for the return of buton that he wont make batman brooding and dark . 
fine , i mean granted 'batman returns' while being an awsome film was a bit to dark sometimes . 
yet his bright neon , campy style is just killing anything this series meant to me . 
i'm usually very easy on films . 
i loved 'con air' and other films some critics have slammed . 
granted that film really was paper thin , cliche ridden , except for one thing , it was fun . 
there is virtually no fun in this film at all . 
i couldn't have cared less . 
it'll thrill the little ones as theres no violence really , none everyone comes out fine in the end like those old tv shows where it ends with everyone laughing . 
schwarzenegger is awful , i mean really , really bad . . . 
and this is coming from a regular fan of his work . 
i love his movies most of the time and the basic reason is he never says much in any of them . 
he talks all to often in this movie . 
i would have much prefered to have seen patric stewart in the roll . 
i believe to truely like a film you have to care about at least someone in a film . 
i liked alfred but the reason behind it is a cheap shot .
movies about teenagers and teenage culture rarely prove to be either interesting , entertaining or convincing , because of one fundamental reason : movies are made by adults and not teenagers . 
occasionally , however , films like say anything , dazed and confused and the breakfast club will break the mold and offer genuine insight into the lives of those bizarre creatures which surround us called " teenagers . " 
can't hardly wait , however , does not . 
instead , the writing/directing team of harry elfont and deborah kaplan manages to take every clich ? found in the teenage genre , strip it completely of perception , intelligence and wit - and turn it into one of the most nauseating cinematic experiences i have ever been subjected to . 
can't hardly wait follows a group of characters as they attend a house party on the night of their high school graduation . 
the main characters are such perfected stereotypes that no analysis needs to be provided to perfectly understand them : there's the average male protagonist preston ( ethan embry ) , prom queen and cheerleader amanda ( jennifer love-hewitt ) , football star mike ( peter facinelli ) , white rapper wannabe kenny ( seth green ) , computer geek william ( charlie korsmo ) , and brainy outsider denise ( lauren ambrose ) . 
i couldn't stand any of those characters . 
whether it was william getting drunk and signing along to heavy metal songs or kenny proclaiming " yo , i gotta have sex tonight ! " , 
all i could think of was how elfont and kaplan possibly managed to con columbia pictures out of ten million dollars to fund their film . 
apparently , can't hardly wait is supposed to be a comedy , but it tends to fail in this respect because of the fact that it's not funny . 
in all honesty , elfont and kaplan should be forced by their employers to attend remedial classes in humour . 
and when i say " forced " , i mean it . 
they should be strapped down to a chair and have their eyes wedged open in a similar fashion to alex in a clockwork orange . 
this is how desperately they need to be educated about the concept of humour . 
for instance , can't hardly wait features a foreign exchange student who is instructed to repeat absurd statements such as " i am a sex machine . " 
for some reason , elfont and kaplan believe that if this character repeats it enough , eventually it will be funny . 
if only elfont and kaplan could recognise the irony that they actually got paid for making this junk - now that's funny .
adam sandler turns up the charm in his latest romantic comedy , the wedding singer . 
unfortunately , that also has the effect of softening his edge . 
he's nowhere near his peak of happy gilmore , not that it was much of one . 
he's certainly not helped here by a rather frail plot . 
the year is 1985 , letting the whole film obsess with 80s nostalgia . 
adam sandler is nice guy robbie , the titular wedding singer , who entertains at the local reception hall by belting out his interpretations of classic 80s hits . 
robbie's life is thrown into turmoil when his fiancee , linda ( angela featherstone ) , leaves him at the altar . 
however , things are looking up when he meets julia ( drew barrymore ) , a waitress at the hall . 
she's the perfect woman , but for one small flaw : she's engaged to be married to a slick junk bond king , glenn ( matthew glave ) . 
so , most of the film deals with the slow realization by robbie that he and julia are in love , and his attempts to stop the wedding . 
as far as plots go , it's a pretty thin and tired one . 
to fill the gaps , the wedding singer delivers heaping spoonfuls of 1980s nostalgia . 
from boy george to michael jackson , from miami vice to dallas , from the first cds to the last rubik's cubes , this film revels in all the minutiae . 
and then there's the music . . . 
learning a lesson from the successful soundtracks to grosse pointe blank , and romy and michele's high school reunion , this film packs more 80s songs in the film than the running time will allow . 
as a result , most songs get maybe a lyric or a half , but you can almost see the bright gleam in the record executives' eyes : the wedding singer vols . 
2 , 3 , and 4 ! 
while the nonstop 80s riffs get incredibly tiring , at least they distract you from the plot . 
at least last year's my best friend's wedding stirred up the standard " keep your true love from marrying someone else " plot by making the rival a nice person . 
here , glenn is such a lowly rat of a man that you never see what julia saw in him . 
barrymore , on the other hand , is simply charming as julia . 
which leaves us with adam sandler . 
he's at his best in the film when his nice guy persona fades a little ( such as when he has a breakdown on stage during a wedding reception ) . 
when he's in full nice-guy mode , he's more pathetic than endearing . 
the film boasts several cameos ( most notably by steve buscemi and jon lovitz ) . 
but none of them work well at all . 
buscemi's role as a drunken best man simply fails to be humorous . 
lovitz , on the other hand , as a rival wedding singer , makes you long for his good old days on saturday night live , where he was actually funny . 
the only cameo which has some appeal is a guest appearance by a classic 80s rocker during the film's finale ( surprisingly , one of the only plot-related scenes which actually works . ) 
adam sandler still has some work to do before he can become a dependable leading man . 
while he attempts to change his image in the wedding singer , the end result is no net gain .
the new austin powers film continues a movie tradition begun in the eighties . 
produce something , anything , that will get the high school and junior high kids in the theater because they buy more soda and popcorn than senior citizens . 
the usual hallmarks of this filmmaking tradition are all here . 
gross humor , sex jokes , silly sight gags , more sex jokes . 
and the film is a strong contender in the current race to be cruder , grosser and more outrageous than that last film . 
what the film is not , however , is funny . 
the plot centers around the return of dr . evil , who goes back in time to steal austin powers' mojo ( a liquid with red stuff in it extracted from austin's pelvis ) which gives austin his sexual prowess and the charisma to defeat his enemies . 
austin must go after him , and returns to the swinging sixties where free love and sexy secret agents had their heyday . 
i almost avoided this film because i did not like the original . 
but the films premise sounded like an excellent comic vehicle and the film received many good reviews . 
i wish i had stuck to my first impression . 
myers is trying to be the jerry lewis of this generation . 
and he has the talent to do it , at least as an actor . 
but the material he is working with here , much of it his own , falls short of anything resembling comic genius . 
this movie tries to carry the day with sight gags about drinking distilled feces , a five-hundred-pound fat man's butt crack , and a barrage of sex jokes aimed at the level of the average 15 year old . 
after some of these scenes , one has to wonder how gross the next generation of films will have to go to get an audiences attention . 
the direction also helps the film achieve a new low point in cinematic humor . 
for the most part , i felt as if i was watching a saturday morning chalderns live action tv show . 
there is no sense of comic timing or subtlety . 
the director just throws the material at us , giving us nothing except the hope that anyone with a camera could be a film director . 
i am sure the film will have appeal to many of the under 22 crowd , at least the one's who have yet to discover literacy . 
certainly the movie is directed towards the generation that prefers everything described as 'in your face , kick you in the teeth , take no prisoners , ( action-verb +blah blah blah ) . ' 
if you see the film and you find you're not laughing , there is nothing wrong with you . 
it just means you grew up since seventh grade .
to sum the entire film " 54 " up in one sentence , it would be : watch a vh1 documentary instead . 
 " 54 " , seems like someone brought william faulkner into 1978 , brought him into studio 54 , got him really drunk , told him to write about it , and then dumbed that down to be released to the public . 
a sloppy version of almost stream of conciousness spirals down into an oblivion of the illusion of sex , drugs , and disco . 
the narrator , shane o'shae ( ryan phillippe ) , works as a grease monkey in new jersey who , of course , on a whim decides to go into new york and try to get into studio " 54 " . 
phillippe gives a passable performance which could have been made by any young , attractive actor with a six pack stomach . 
he is let in by steve rubbell ( mike myers ) , the infamous co-owner of studio 54 , because he is attractive . 
he eventually becomes a bus boy and then a bartender . 
 . 
 . 
you expected more , didn't you . 
there isn't . 
the film builds up from nothing and becomes nothing as it's climax ( isn't that an apt word for studio 54 ) lands with a thud . 
the glitz of the club and perpetually semi-clothed patrons are used in an to attempt to show the it's glamour . 
for much of its target audience , college age to early thirties , it attempts to show celebrities mixing with " normal people . " 
this even fails since the only two celebs truly introduced are andy warhol and truman capote . 
you can be sure that half of the audience hasn't heard of them , another quarter only know their names , and the other quarter knew they were there already . 
the humor , if you can call it that , is built on an eighty year old woman getting high and 70s references like john travolta and olivia newton john making us laugh at how stupid we were back then 
the best performance in the film is given by mike myers as the perpetually high , sexually ambivlaent , very new york steve rubell . 
he seems to play rubell better than rubell would if he was still alive . 
he looks like rubell and sounds just like him while giving a subdued , almost nostalgic performance , when needed . 
it reminds you of his saturday night live character linda richmond on " coffee talk " sans dress and wig . 
the supporting cast of salma hayek , breckin meyer , and neve cambell are their only there to give added subplots which are introduced but lead absolutely nowhere . 
the romance between phillippe and cambell , as a soap opera star , is completely implausable . 
the two share about half as much screen time as there are shots of the eighty year old hooked on amphetimenes . 
hayek's wanna-be singer seems extremely forced and her husband , greg ( meyer ) stands in as shane o'shae's surrogate best friend . 
the subplots seemed forced and seem like they have been added just to make sure the film was over an hour and a half long . 
overall , " 54 " tried to give a view of the brashness of the place where crack flowed like heroin which flowed like wine . 
the film never leads to anything , has no obserable point , and covers up a lack of real plot with a veil of beautiful people . 
in truth , that reminded me of the eighies .
in the finale of disney's " mighty joe young , " a 15-foot tall , 2000-pound gorilla holds a frightened young boy in its clutches as it topples from a crippled ferris wheel and plummets to the ground . 
upon impact , rugged everyman and perennial do-gooder bill paxton rushes in , containing the emotional crowd with an earnest " move along now folks , there's nothing to see here . " 
ok , so those aren't exactly the words he uses , but it's probably one of the few clich ? s not uttered in this unnecessary remake of an unnecessary remake of that mother of all monster movies , " king kong . " 
1949's " mighty joe young " was an update of that classic creature feature , also based on merian c . cooper's original story ( 16 years after " 'kong " it appeared the world was ready for a new take on the beauty and the beast fable ) . 
now some 49 years later , at least according to disney's way of thinking , the world is ready for one more . 
not so . 
the only--and i mean only--reason to see the 1998 version is for the special effects . 
and these , unfortunately , run hot and cold . 
today's joe young is designed and produced by special-effects whiz rick baker , who has been wowing audiences with his state-of-the-art make-up effects since 1971's " schlock " ( which , incidentally , featured a baker-enhanced " gorilla " ) . 
joe is a combination of animatronic effects , computer graphics , and that old standard , a man in a monkey suit . 
while there are occasional flashes of brilliance--baker's had a lot of practice with simian effects , after all , including " gorillas in the mist , " " greystoke : the legend of tarzan , lord of the apes , " and the 1976 remake of " king kong " --there's also some surprising cheesiness . 
one of the film's most embarrassing moments is when paxton's band of african trackers first encounter and pursue the larger-than-life primate ( in a scene unashamedly ripped off from " the lost world : jurassic park " ) . 
paxton jubilantly extols the beast's majestic gait at the same exact moment as joe , and the computer effects driving him , stutter to a halt . 
also , if the film's producers had wanted us to focus our attentions on the titular ape they shouldn't have paraded female lead charlize theron ( " trial & error " ) around in a seemingly-endless wardrobe of spaghetti-strapped tops . 
even joe seems distracted at times . 
the film piles on the clich ? s like there's no tomorrow , including the predictable plot ( anthro-zoologists ship gigantic gorilla to l . a . where urban havoc is inevitably wrought ) , predictable villain ( a lithuanian i think i overheard someplace ) , predictable love story ( bill and charlize--surprise ! ) , and predictable denouement ( " 'twas box-office receipts that killed the beast " ) . 
kids raised on " men in black " ( non-monkey effects also by baker ) are going to find ron ( " tremors " ) underwood's outing a little lame by comparison . 
while certainly better than 1978's " king kong lives " ( itself a lousy sequel to a not particularly good remake ) , " mighty joe young " proves how the mighty keep falling .
an attempt at florida film noir , palmetto fails at the most fundamental levels . 
it's slow moving , uninvolving , and plain just uninteresting . 
harry barber ( woody harrelson ) is an ex-newspaper man , just out of jail after being framed for a crime . 
his luck hasn't been the best , but things are looking up when a mysterious woman , rhea malroux ( elisabeth shue ) , approaches him with a proposition . 
she wants harry to help her and her stepdaughter , odette ( chloe sevigny ) , pull off a fake kidnapping scheme to get $500 , 000 out of her stingy , but rich , husband felix ( rolf hoppe ) . 
at first , all harry is expected to do is provide a threatening voice on the phone , and to collect the money ( of which he gets to keep 10% ) . 
but , as the deed is carried out , things are not what they seem , and harry gets caught in the ensuing storm . 
palmetto pulls out all the stops to achieve a film noir film , but the effect never quite comes together . 
it's got the sultry florida heat , seductive women , and even curvier plot twists , but the whole thing smells of paint-by-numbers . 
sure , the right ingredients are there , but the end result is much too artificial . 
a lot of the problems lie with the script , which , though providing some genuine surprises , is packed full of leaden dialogue and bland situations . 
even the plot twists don't seem to flow well with the rest of the story . 
some of them , for example , come from so far afield that they seemingly only make sense because the writer needed a twist ( for example : harry's spontaneous job offer , or the whole typewriter situation ) . 
the characters are mostly lifeless , played to type , but not much more . 
woody harrelson plays harry with such imbecilic thick-headedness that it's hard to even picture him as an ex-journalist . 
elisabeth shue vamps it up , but doesn't add anything special to the role . 
chloe sevigny gives a terrible performance , trying to be a sexy 17-year old , but she just leaves a bad taste in your mouth . 
some of the supporting cast ( notably gina gershon and michael rapaport ) give stronger , but , in the end , meaningless performances . 
and to top it off , the pacing of the film is much too slow . 
as the movie grinds to a halt , you're given too much time to wonder why you're wasting it watching palmetto . 
if you're in the mood for this type of movie , you'd be much better off going out and renting some classic film noir .
this film is worth seeing for those who want to see what mick jagger looks like when sporting an abe lincoln beard . 
the rock and roller is asked to carry the film as the action antihero of australian legend . . . ned 
kelly , the so-called robin hood of the aussies . 
but he fails to be convincing , in my opinion he is better suited to play gene kelly than ned kelly . 
the film opens to a b/w prologue of ned kelly bravely going to his execution . 
then it goes to technicolor and ned is seen in what goes for flashback , coming home from jail after a 3-year sentence to see his mom and reacquaint himself with the large kelly family . 
this scene is set in 1871 . 
in the background we hear the booming voice of waylon jennings , as he sings shel silverstein's lyrics , which tells -- of ned's hatred for the british rule and hope for ireland to be a republic . 
ned says a debt must be paid . . . 
as he hears voices from his dead father , his class-divided country , and his conscience , all telling him to get revenge . 
so begins ned's romp through australia's outback , seeking justice for all the wrongs his people have suffered . 
he begins by stealing horses , after complaining about the unfair tax law on horses that stray , which favors the rich landowners . 
when he's only 20 he forms a gang , causing him to hide the rest of his life from the police , who put a price on his head of two thousand pounds . 
when ned's mother ( clarissa kaye ) is jailed on a false charge of abetting criminals and sentenced to 3-5 years , ned offers to surrender in exchange for his mother's freedom . 
when the authorities refuse , the kelly brothers go on a robbing rampage , burning mortgages of the poor found in postal vaults and murdering some soldiers . 
rampaging through the outback , they gather sympathy among the poor and lower classes , who don't trust the traps ( police ) . 
spoiler to follow in the next paragraph . 
in the climax , kelly and his gang plan to ambush a train with british police , but someone kelly trusted tips the police on the train and kelly is trapped in a saloon and captured . 
ned's brothers commit suicide rather than be taken alive . 
but kelly's gang escapes , as ned heroically has the police go after only him and his brothers , as they become decoys . 
this was a flat presentation , hardly touching an emotional button on what all the fuss was about over ned kelly's call for justice . 
jagger didn't have a prayer in succeeding in this dry script offered by ian jones and tony richardson . 
the story failed to focus on australia , seemingly a more british film than australian . 
under richardson's lackluster direction , all jagger seemed to do , was proclaim his innocence and vow revenge , which soon became a shrill cry . 
if you want to see a better film about ned kelly , catch " mad dog morgan " ( 76 ) , a much truer and more daring version , with dennis hopper giving a much better characterization of ned kelly's madness , something this film could only do in a ho-hum manner .
i think we should , as responsible citizens , all get together and stop jim carrey from making another movie . 
he's changing the cinema as we know it--and for the worst . 
i would willingly rewatch batman and robin rather then again sit through this miserable collection of filmic moments--prologues , epilogues , etc . the premise : a lawyer can't lie for a day . 
ho , ho . 
normally a movie made from this premise would be terrible--mr . 
carrey suceeds in making it unwatchable . 
i laughed once--and i was laughing at the sight of everyone else laughing . 
grinding doesn't begin to describe . 
it pounds on your head so forcefully and so unstoppably that , if you are a normal person , you leave feeling sick . 
when it's not trying to be funny , it's trying to be melodramatic--but it's just annoying , stupid and sappy . 
at best . 
this movie is intended to make people laugh , yes , not to be voted best picture of all time by sight and sound . 
but , it fails on every possible level . 
it fails to be funny . 
it fails to be insightful . 
it fails to be suspensful . 
it fails to be fun . 
they should pay people to see it . 
it suceeds on one level--it makes me want to get down on the ground and start thanking orson welles , for having lived . 
if you go in with the intention of coming out alive , please make sure that you are overly fond of boob , fart , pimple and fat jokes--otherwise you will go insane . 
yes , literally insane . 
stark , raving mad . 
it is boring , stupid , melodramatic and in the end ugly . 
i reccemond it strongly . 
to ed wood .
you always have to be careful with the first official studio release out of the gate each year . 
they're obviously films for which the studios have no great hopes ( having missed both the deadline for academy award eligibility and the big box-office holiday season ) . 
combine that with howie long's first starring action role , and you've got a doozy of a movie that , while not as bad as it could have been , isn't a very good film . 
howie stars as an ace smokejumper ( a firefighter who parachutes into forest fires unreachable from the ground ) . 
in the slightly contrived opening scenes , we witness his heroism in action , as he , and his mentor ( played by scott glenn ) attempt to rescue a small girl and her dog from an oncoming forest fire . 
william forsythe plays the bad guy , a mass murderer who has several million dollars tucked away to help fund his jailbreak . 
he ( and five convict cohorts ) manages to get selected for firefighting duty when a woodland blaze just happens to ignite nearby . 
his escape plan bets a lot on the laxity of the guards , but ( since there must be a movie ) luck is with him . 
soon the now-escaped convicts are masquerading as canadian firefighters . 
why canadian ? 
who knows , eh ? 
along the way they pick up a pretty birdwatcher ( suzy amis ) to be their hostage . 
enter howie long . 
he's called in to help fight the blaze , and when he spots the group of " ground pounders " , apparently lost , he parachutes in to help . 
when he discovers their true identity , he is the only thing standing between them and escape , and the only hope of help for the hostage . 
long's acting talents are above those of , say , steven seagal , but not by much . 
although his delivery is mostly flat and wooden , he's a likeable hero , and there are some hints here and there that he may get better . 
the script doesn't help him out any , however . 
all too often , it veers into the realm of the unintentionally funny . 
the dialogue is strictly b-movie material , and the plotting relies too heavily on coincidences to be believable . 
long's co-stars are a mixed bag . 
at least they're all comfortable in their respective roles . 
forsythe has the scenery-chewing villain down cold , down cold , and scott glenn is always enjoyable to watch , even when he doesn't seem to be stretching his talents ( as is definitely the case here ) . 
suzy amis plays peril pretty well , but isn't given much more to do . 
some of the nature and wildfire shots are interesting , but many are rather bland . 
you'd think that the director , dean semler , a former cinematographer , would at least produce a film with interesting visuals . 
that's not the case . 
there's a lack of originality to nearly all the sequences . . . we've 
seen this stuff before . 
it's not the most auspicious start to 1998 , but it could have been worse ( just think back to 1996's debut , bio-dome ) . 
however , after a month of oscar-caliber pictures , a movie like firestorm at least gives you some perspective on how good those movies really were . 
in fact , there's a good chance that some of them are still playing near you . . .
american pie 2 is filled with laughs . 
but they are mostly cheap ones built primarily upon sexual degradation and adolescent humor more fit for a locker room than a movie theater . 
i'm no prude and i admit to laughing along with everyone else at the preview screening to this sequel to the 1999 hit comedy . 
but the laughs are built on discomfort and embarrassment , not on any intrinsic humor from within the story itself . 
what separates american pie 2 from its predecessor is heart . 
of the original , i noted it was " a warm , pleasant outing about the travails of growing up . " 
well , the quartet of chums - jim ( jason biggs ) , oz ( chris klein ) , kevin ( thomas ian nicholas ) and finch ( eddie kaye thomas ) - have grown up . 
at least they are a year older , but don't seem any wiser . 
fresh from their first year of college the quartet , along with the obnoxious stifler ( seann william scott ) , rent a summer house by the lake in order to attract girls in an attempt to score . 
as usual nothing goes right until the last reel . 
but what we are left with is five guys spending nearly two hours drooling over various young women . 
and american pie 2 is rather degrading to women . 
for the most part , they are not shown as individuals . 
they are nothing more than potential recipients of over-active , raging hormones . 
it is telling that the most normal couple , oz and heather ( mena suvari ) spend the bulk of the film trying to have phone sex - she's overseas on an exchange student program . 
despite having been to college , jim is still klutzy and awkward , unsure of himself around the opposite sex . 
most of the pratfalls and humiliations are heaped upon him , including a painful episode involving an instant glue-like substance . 
also uncomfortable to watch is a sequence involving three of the lads with two young women roommates , whom the boys suspect of being lesbians . 
it is offensive and plays upon outdated , adolescent stereotypes to generate laughs . 
the first film , despite some raunchy moments , had an innocent charm to it . 
the sequel is more cynical . 
it knows what its predominantly male audience members want and unabashedly gives it to them : the many mentions of finch's encounter with stifler's mom becomes a tiresome running gag throughout as does eugene levy's return as jim's well-meaning , trying-to-be-hip dad . 
the only performer who is actually given some new , fresh material is alyson hannigan as michelle , the band geek from the original . 
in the sequel , she imbues her character with vulnerability , wisdom and maturity . 
american pie 2 is a pre-sold commodity that will earn several million at the box office . 
it is a shame , though , that in its rush to rake in some bucks screenwriter adam herz , who also penned the original , could not have set his sights higher . 
american pie 2 is funny , but it's still a comedown as well as a letdown .
if the 70's nostalgia didn't make you feel old , the 80's nostalgia is bound to . 
one of the latter set , " the wedding singer , " seems to be written by someone who did not experience the 1980's directly but only read about them in an article in parade magazine . 
the wacky fashions are here . 
 . 
 . 
and the music . 
 . 
 . 
and references aplenty to celebrities and signs of the times , but it all seems tediously-and too obviously-inserted for the didn't-we-dress-funny-back-then chuckle . 
the plot is standard romantic comedy with nothing original : robbie ( adam sandler ) is a wedding singer ; julia ( drew barrymore ) waits tables at weddings . 
both are engaged ; however , robbie's fiance ( angela featherstone ) dumps him at the altar , and julia's fiance ( matthew glave ) is a skirt-chasing speculator in junk bonds . 
robbie and julia go through the expected ups-and-downs as they realize they were meant to be together . 
i'll fess up-i've never found adam sandler funny . 
whatever his appeal is , i've missed it . 
 ( other comedians i don't get include pauly shore and pee wee herman-make your own judgments ) . 
the stupidity and artificiality of the whole project is summarized in a cameo by billy idol as himself . 
idol looks like hell , and the ravages of his lifestyle are barely concealed by thick makeup . 
he's mocked by a photo of his younger self on a rolling stone cover in the same scene . 
we're not supposed to notice that , and we're not supposed to notice how silly it is that billy idol suddenly appears to play fairy godmother to robbie . 
other cameos , by steve buscemi and jon lovitz , provide the only real laughs in the movie . 
lovitz is especially good , playing a rival wedding singer plotting with the mania of a bond villain to take advantage of robbie's post-break-up depression .
synopsis : nice girl susanne has sex with her boyfriend daniel in his car , visits daniel's rich family during thanksgiving at their mansion in the middle of nowhere , and has sex with daniel again in the basement . 
susanne and daniel must then decide where to hide from evil art thieves who shoot everyone else in the mansion to steal paintings . 
brace yourself for one of those painfully obvious " surprise endings . " 
comments : thanksgiving . 
for most , it's a time to be with your loved ones and enjoy a good , home-cooked meal . 
for the makers of body count , however , thanksgiving is a time for multiple murders , violence , profanity , family dysfunction , and sex . 
boy , do i feel all the more better having sat through this crap . 
alyssa milano , the former child star of who's the boss ? , matures to made-for-video sludge like this movie . 
someone somewhere thought it'd be a great idea to pair her with rapper ice-t , who has since guest-starred in the made-for-the-sci-fi-channel series welcome to paradox . 
this isn't exactly a winning combination . 
outside of permanently ruining a holiday for me , what else may be said for this turkey ? 
well , it teaches us that beautiful , attractive women who look strikingly like alyssa milano fall in love with nerds who drive down long winding roads with their eyes closed and complain about being english teachers . 
it presents us with a heartwarming thanksgiving dinner attended by alcoholic , stuck-up rich white people waited on by black servants . 
it shows us that old guys , try not to laugh , sit around and talk about " the appeal of postmodernism " during their free time . 
and , it proves that you can have sex in your parents' basement when they have a dozen or so guests over , and no one will notice . 
before i go any further , if any young male reading this has hopes of seeing alyssa naked , forget it . 
the filmmakers cleverly shoot the simulated sex scenes in a manner that makes sure you don't see any of milano's attributes . 
they do , however , inexplicably throw in a scene where ice-t whistles " jingle bells " after killing people , for whatever that's worth . 
this film was originally titled below utopia . 
perhaps they should have renamed it hell . 
avoid this clunker .