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

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: when i watch a movie like mike nichols ' what planet are you from ?
i ca n't help but feel like everyone is looking at me .
it 's as if all the audience is gazing at the back of my head in the darkness , eyes shooting daggers , quietly blaming me for the fact that they paid hard - earned money to spend their time watching this . . .
this .
. .
thing .
i shift uncomfortably in my seat .
i 'm reminded of how i feel when i see a pair of second- or third - rate celebrities engaging in a teleprompted " funny " conversation to introduce the next blockbuster award .
it 's not my fault , i know it 's not my fault , but dammit ,
someone 's got ta be embarrassed , because it does n't look like anyone on the screen is ready to take the blame .
i 'm about to give you a list of names of people who are gon na make a movie together : garry shandling , annette bening , john goodman , greg kinnear , mike nichols .
do any of these names make you instantly shudder ?
the answer i would have come up with before today is no , this is quite a list of talented individuals we 've got here .
granted , john goodman was in the flintstones , and greg kinnear has turned in some less - than - lackluster leading man performances in certified failures like a smile like yours , but even so , they 've got proven power as excellent supporting players .
garry shandling has two television classics under his belt , his ingenious little
it 's garry shandling 's show and the larry sanders show .
and for god 's sake , mike nichols directed the graduate , and annette bening is just walking away from american beauty .
so explain this .
. .
this .
. .
thing .
what planet are you from ?
purports to be a comedy exploring the relationship between men and women satirizing the whole pop - psychology mars / venus phenomenon .
but what this movie winds up being is a collection of unfunny cringe - inducing moments coupled with uninsightful cringe - inducing moments ; the end result is , unsurprisingly , an unfunny , uninsightful , cringe - inducing , thoroughly icky embarrassment .
garry shandling plays an alien from a planet populated by technologically advanced but emotionally vacant males
( they reproduce through cloning , of course ) .
his leaders put a select group of males through a series of tests designed to determine which one is most fit to fly off to earth , find a female of the species , and impregnate her .
they 're taught how to pretend that they 're listening by nodding and saying " uh - huh , " and how to compliment shoes .
imagine my delighted surprise when , oh heavens , all their carefully practiced tactics turn out to fail miserably , producing comedic results !
the lucky winner is fitted with a penis ( since theirs , after generations of disuse have long since shrunk out of existence . . .
i will restrain myself from mentioning the implausibility of such a scenario since the population has stopped evolving due to the fact that they 're all just clones . . .
whoops , too late . )
the penis , when aroused , tends to make a humming noise .
the writers , when frequently strapped for ideas , tend to turn to this as a source of " comedy .
"
it is n't funny the first time .
it is n't funny the eighth time .
it is n't funny the eighteenth time .
if anything , it made me feel vaguely self - conscious .
garry meets up with a coworker at a bank played by greg kinnear , who turns out to be a generic , unlikable scumbag .
he 's meant to fill the part of unfortunate role model for shandling 's alien character , but he 's so flatly drawn that even the writers quickly give up and toss him aside .
kinnear 's scumbagginess is demonstrated by the fact that he claims other peoples ' work as his own to worm his way into a vice presidents ' position and goes to aa meetings to pick up chicks .
wow .
what a magnificent bastard .
nearly every man in the movie , in fact , is played as the same sort of sex - driven slimeball .
when kinnear 's wife walks into the office , there is n't a single guy who does n't trip , bump into a wall , or otherwise pratfall as if they 'd never seen a woman before .
the few guys that are n't particularly slimeballs , such as john goodman 's detective character , are simply uncommunicative workaholics .
shandling meets up with annette bening , who will inevitably prove to be the love he never knew existed , at one of kinnear 's aa meetings .
shandling 's mission is to have a baby , and when he reveals his desires to her , bening instantly falls for him , and the next day . . .
they get married .
yup .
the next day .
cuz ya see , it turns out she wants a baby too !
bening 's character perhaps was the most difficult to watch , especially after seeing her come apart at the seams so effectively in american beauty . . .
if her character here is supposed to be representing the female of the species as a whole , then woe , i say , to the species .
she 's unfathomably insecure , and succumbs so easily to all of shandling 's lines and lies that it borders on tragic .
there 's a point where , after thinking she may not be able to bear children , she learns that she is indeed pregnant .
when garry comes home after nearly cheating on her , she strolls into the kitchen and sings " high hopes " ( you know , the uplifting ant and the rubber tree plant song ) to deliver the news , and then says to him , " now you ca n't leave me .
"
we 're supposed to empathize with shandling 's discovery of the feeling of " guilt , " but instead i wanted to weep for bening that she was placing her entire life and soul firmly in the lap of a great big nothing .
and eventually , shandling falls in love with her . .
.
for real , i suppose , though i 'm not sure exactly what prompted it .
what 's the message i derive from all this ?
men are liars , inherently empty creatures , but if you hang around long enough . .
.
well , maybe something will click .
ha ha .
. .
ha ?
i 'm thankful such broad cynicism is n't frequently allowed to run so rampant .
let 's all join hands and pray that the planet these folks are from is not this one .
there 's also a subplot involving john goodman as an airline incident investigator that wades in the bog of stupidity .
goodman , through a series of astoundingly implausible realizations , puts together the fact that shandling is a being from another world with a magic , vibrating penis .
it has all the makings for a subplot of having shandling be discovered , that , thankfully , never comes to the inevitable hackneyed fruition .
instead , it just dangles limply on the branch for a while , withers , and falls away .
further proof that goodman should just stick to doing coen brothers movies .
but let 's not dwell on this any longer , i 've already wasted plenty of your time and my own .
let 's move on , forget about what we 've seen here , and get on with our lives .
and to help us out , let 's end things on a happy note .
. .
congratuations go out to annette bening , winner of this week 's " title !
" award , for delivering the awkward line of dialog containing the movie 's name .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: " soldier " , by director paul anderson , is a film in which any presence of originality is fleeting .
the best moments of the film are in the opning scenes where kurt russel 's character todd is shown growing up under strict military supervision .
brutality through the eyes of the innocent and stripped of it every single day growing up is something that has a lot of emotional potential power behind it , and the opening scenes tap into it a little .
then it goes nowhere with that idea .
there is perhaps one rather fleeting scene afterwards that deals with the potential trauma of this dehumanization , and the rest of the film is just some of the biggest action movie cliches
i 've ever seen .
the whole idea of the inhuman , soldier - type character gaining some degree of humanity by defending a potential female love interest and family from his evil counterpart out to kill her is done , and it 's been done much better .
i was able to predict the plot of the _ whole _ story , which would n't be so bad if other aspect of the film somewhat interesting .
between the action sequences , it tries to deal with the aforementioned issues of humanity through the performance of mr .
russel in the film and the tiny little window to his soul that is his eyes , since
his dialog is extremely limited .
his performance in that way is n't all that bad , but certainly is not enough to carry this film .
other performances in this film are really not worth much mention at all , and they generally are about as weak as their characters .
but enough of this stuff about plot and character , right ? is n't the most important part of an action film , well , the action ?
even in this aspect the film is a disappointment .
in mortal kombat ( 1995 ) , director paul anderson proved that truly engaging use and choreography of action in a film can override problems with plot and produce something entertaining . however ,
he fails to repeat that in this film .
the combat scenes , particularly the big one at the end , is incredibly unimaginatve .
fighting and combat scenes are supposed to bring about thrills in this type of movie , a point which even an otherwise unimpressive film like starship troopers seemed to realize .
but instead of reaching for something truly interesting to end the film with , it goes for the old , shoot - em up , one guy vs .
an army type of cinema
that i thought died with the military action films of the 80s .
if the film went with some of the ideas it opened up with the introduction more seriously , it could have been a rather engaging science fiction film . however ,
it utterly failed to go in any new directions after that , making the film a big disappointment .

SOLUTION:
N