Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: Susan Seidelman seems to have had a decent career with a few top notch credits under her belt. I'm certainly glad she bounced back from this film which seems to have its admirers. I'm not one of them.

I've seen better acting in high school plays than I did in Smithereens. The plot such as it is involved young Susan Berman who is ambitious to make it in the world of music and is willing to do just about anything to get there. She even rejects the sincere advances of a young artist who is living out of his van off the East River played by Brad Rijn.

Young Mr. Rijn contributes the worst performance in the film, in fact one of the worst acting jobs I've seen in a long time. No wonder he's not gone anywhere.

I will say that Seidelman's eye for the camera is a good one in capturing the familiar East Village locations where the film was mostly shot. But her work with her live performers didn't measure up. I'm not sure she had that much raw material to work with.

Look fast and you'll see a very young Christopher Noth before Law and Order and Sex in the City as a street hustler.

If you like punk rock, you might sit through this for the soundtrack. I'll stick to Bing Crosby.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
=++++=
Answer: I was shocked by the ridiculously unbelievable plot of Tigerland. It was a liberal's fantasy of how the military should be. The dialogue was difficult to swallow along with the silly things Colin Farrell's character was allowed to get away with by his superior officers.

I kept thinking, "Hey, there's a reason why boot camp is tough. It's supposed to condition soldiers for battle and turn them into one cohesive unit. There's no room for cocky attitudes and men who won't follow orders." I was rooting for Bozz to get his butt kicked because he was such a danger to his fellow soldiers. I would not want to fight alongside someone like him in war because he was more concerned with people's feelings than with doing what was necessary to protect his unit.

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An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Citizen X tells the real life drama of the search for a serial killer dubbed "The Rostov Ripper" This great film shows the long journey it took to try to apprehend a killer. The film shows how politics may haver helped the killer to continue his rampage for over 12 years. (Possibly over 50 victims, mostly women and children) The performances of Stephen Rea as the lead detective and Donald Sutherland as the overall investigation lead was superb. Jeffrey DeMunn as the Ripper Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo. This is the type of film which will mesmerize you and immediately have you on the internet researching the real case. This a film not to be missed. It debuted I believe on HBO and never did get a theatrical release to my understanding. Great film
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: Don't get the impression from other reviewers that this film stinks cos it's ambivalent about the Japanese whaling industry (which, morally, is no worse than the US meat trade or the Scottish haggis cull), it stinks cos it's pretentious tosh, the sort of up-its-own-behind guff that gets modern art a bad name. That said, there are some stunning images, but there are stunning images in the average bus ride if you use your imagination, so that's no reason to go and see this nonsense. What happens in the film happens very slowly and often accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds like a cat being gutted, and then, just when you thinks it's finished, it starts again. I saw it it in a porn cinema in Rome which had been hired for the weekend to show Barney's film works, which is an admirable and clever way to reclaim what had once been a local fleapit from the dirty-old-men-in-macs brigade, but if the trendy young things and the slightly older beard-stroking Bjork fans were to be honest, everyone might have had a lot more fun if they'd just shown one of the pornoes!
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: It seems to me that Stephen King's "Bachman" pen-name was a way for him to put out some of the grimmer, rawer, more mean-spirited stuff that he wanted to write without 'contaminating' his 'brand name'. If you look back at the "Bachman Books" (Running Man, The Long Walk, Roadwork, Thinner) you notice they have a sealed-in feeling of airlessness and hopelessness about them that is distinct from mainstream King. I realize that we are talking about the guy whose first novel featured a humiliated, blood-covered, emotionally crippled teenage girl slaughtering everyone at her high school prom...but mainstream King always at have characters and plot elements that leaven the grimness of the proceedings a bit, and mostly have endings that offer at least a glimpse of hope and human feeling. Bachman books are just plain mean and always end badly. (BTW, "Pet Semetary" could have easily been a Bachman book if King hadn't revealed the alias by then. And "The Dark Half" seems to be at least partially about his "Bachman" persona.)

"Thinner" was the last Bachman book, and man, with its themes of class warfare, revenge, and death by starvation, it is nasty. So it should be no surprise that the movie follows suit.

What is a surprise is that the adaptation seems to be filmed at a "TV Movie Of the Week" level of talent instead of something worthy of a theatrical release. (These days, something like this would probably go directly to DVD or cable). The makeup work and the striking motif (starving to death in the midst of plenty, a metaphor for the overfed, undernourished American middle class if there ever was one) is all that keeps you watching this misfire.

What went wrong? My first thought is that the director was going for the nasty Bachman vibe, but he also somehow sucked all the interest out of the movie with poor casting choices - the actors here (with the exception of Joe Monetegna) simply can't carry the movie. And then he squished the warmth and life out of the rest of the movie with awkward pacing and scene structure. Plus he couldn't leave the plot alone, and his changes don't really help. The script and dialog ought to work, but mostly the movie just lies there. Everything is muffled, dull, airless, and no fun to watch...with the vivid exception of the spectacle of the main character getting....thinner, and thinner, and thinner.

As other have pointed out, "Thinner" is by no means the worst King movie ever made (or even the second worst). And it does have a dreadful, compelling fascination owing to the theme and the careful makeup work. But first time viewers should approach this one with lowered expectations.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
Holy freaking God all-freaking-mighty. This movie was so bad, I thought I was on drugs. In a bad way... The character acting is the poorest thing I've seen in quite some time. This movie was more akin to Lord of the G-Strings, IMHO(it's a real movie). Most of the movie appeared to be done on a horrible green screen. My favorite part was when they are in the carriage, and you can tell there's no horse. They're fleeing from alien monsters, and going about the same speed as a swift jog. Then it switches to a far-shot with a ridiculous CG horse. And the CG in general seems to be sub-par to 1992's Beyond the Mind's Eye. I mean, Come on, really. It felt like a horrible episode of Hercules, only without Kevin Sorbo there to save the day. Worst. Movie. Ever.