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

Q: "
the 13th warrior " comes at the end of as summer where we 've already experienced man eating sharks ( " deep blue sea " ) , man eating crocodiles ( " lake placid " ) and even a man hunting witch ( " the blair witch project " ) .
now , " the 13th warrior " presents a tribe of flesh eating men who believe that they are bears .
the story , if that 's what you want to call it , follows ahmed ibn fahdlan ( antonio banderas ) an arabian poet who falls in love with his king 's wife and is banished from his home land .
he then travels to the land of the vikings and becomes an ambassador to them .
eventually the vikings are called upon to protect the people of the village who are being hunted by the flesh eating men .
thirteen warriors are chosen to go on the mission , and as you guessed it , ahmed is chosen as the thirteenth .
he 's not a warrior , and at first not well accepted by the vikings , but as the movie advances he 'll have to prove himself both on and off the battlefield .
that 's basically the entire plot .
there is also a romantic subplot that has been so badly mishandled and , one assumes , drastically cut that you begin to wonder why the filmmakers did n't just edit out all of the scenes attaining to that part of the story .
instead they chose to leave just enough of those scenes in to annoy the viewer .
the film is basically non- stop action and when it pauses and tries to develop a story
it becomes a laughing stock .
the battle scenes , although well choreographed , are not involving and not the least bit exciting .
we do n't get to know any of the characters
and so we do n't care who lives and who dies .
the film , which wants to be beowolf , comes across more as a failed action - adventure story aspiring to epic proportions but not achieving it on any levels .
it was directed by john mctiernan who 's , " the thomas crown affair " is also playing in theaters currently .
and it 's not that mctiernan worked simultaneously on both films but that , " the 13th warrior " was placed on the shelf for so long with the studio just waiting for a time to dump it on audiences .
it belongs back on the shelf .

A: N
****
Q: " varsity blues " is the best film of 1999 thus far .
unfortunately , it is also the first film i have seen from 1999 .
it is another one of those small - town sports movies that involves a flawed , but good - heartedfrom 1999 .
it is another one of those small - town sports movies that involves a flawed , but good - hearted protagonist ; a rough and meanspirited coach ; and the " big game .
"
by the end , will the underdog overcome great odds and triumph ?
will everyone in the town turn against the coach ?
will the team win the climactic game ?
do cats bathe themselves regularly ?
the so - called " hero " in question is john moxin ( james van der beek ) , a senior at west canaan high school who plays for the varsity football team , but is really just hoping to get a scholarship at brown university so that he can get out of the dead - end town .
at least he 's got the right idea , since west canaan , texas is portrayed in the film as , frankly , pathetic , with the whole town treating the weekly football games as the second coming .
heck , in one scene , the front page of the town 's newspaper is proclaiming about the west canaan badgers ' big win the night before .
when the team 's star quarterback is severely injured , tearing the ligaments in his leg , john finds himself taking over as the team 's leader , but his few minutes of glory do not last long , as he begins to have problems with his girlfriend ( amy smart ) when she discovers he spent an evening with another girl ( ali larter ) . and after staying out all night with his drinking buddies at a strip joint ( all of the teenagers in the film are portrayed as raging alcoholics ) , the team loses their second - to - last game , putting john at feuds with the coach ( jon voight who , like gary oldman , is overstaying his welcome in the typecasted role as the " bad guy " ) .
worse yet , the coach is threatening to ruin john 's scholarship chances if the badgers do n't win their final game .
the plotting of " varsity blues " is as old as the hills , and contains every cliche in the book .
admittedly , i was never exactly bored while i was watching it , but i hasten to add that i was rarely ever entertained
.
throughout , all i could really think of is how virtually the same exact story had been filmed with a great deal more thoughtfulness and maturity in 1983 's " all the right moves .
" one of the biggest problems
i had with the film is how little of interest any of the characters actually were , least of all certainly not john , who , played by van der beek ( of tv 's " dawson 's creek " ) , is pretty much a bore without any engaging qualities .
while i probably should n't blame this on van der beek , since the inauspicious and
" by - the - numbers " screenplay by w .
peter iliff is n't of any help , he is still certainly not in the league of tom cruise in " all the right moves .
"
the story revolving around john , meanwhile , is extemely thin throughout , particularly for its 104-minute running time , and it alternates between uninspired comic relief ( as in when the students see their sex education teacher working as a stripper at the club ) and heavy - handed melodrama .
the romance between john and his girlfriend had the potential to be an adequate subplot , but we also learned very little about her , which is unfortunate since amy smart , whom i do n't think i 've seen before in past films , is probably the only character written with any sort of intelligence .
smart does not allow her character to become the " passive girlfriend , " instead coming off as a young woman with her own ideas and opinions .
it 's too bad the camera did n't linger on her long enough
so we could hear some of those thoughts .
the adult characters probably fare the worse of any , since they all must play residents of a dim - witted town that cares about nothing but football .
john 's relationship with his parents can also be telegraphed far in advance .
his father is set on him becoming a football player at a university , but john does n't want any part of that .
his mother stands beside her " big , strong husband " and is a passive female .
finally , jon voight plays the stock bully coach character and he does nothing to make the thankless role any more than one - dimensional .
saving " varsity blues " from being a total washout are a few amusing sequences , including one set in the sex education class , which did get a laugh out of me .
the scenes of playing football were well - shot and thankfully did n't overstay their welcome , as many sports films fall victim to .
but leaving the theater , the question i had in my mind was why did this film need to be made ?
i seem to be asking this question quite a lot lately , since the same old stories seem to be cranking out of hollywood .
do we really need another high - school sports film ?
no , we do n't , and certainly not one of this low - caliber , which felt like a cut - and - paste job of spare parts from much better , but similar , films .
" varsity blues , " no doubt is the first one , however , to include an earnest scene in which one of the characters is only wearing whipped cream on their private parts .

A: N
****
Q: uncompromising french director robert bresson 's " lancelot of the lake " achieves the exact opposite effect of sir thomas malory 's " morte darthur .
" instead of enshrining the legend of king arthur and his knights of the round table , it dethrones them by revealing arthur as a weak , ineffectual leader and the knights as a group of jealous , bickering men who failed to live up to the legends prescribed to them .
chivalry has no place in " lancelot of the lake , " except as that of a dying ideal .
bresson begins his tale as the knights of the round table are returning , decimated , after failing merlin 's command to retrieve the holy grail , the mystical cup that was filled with christ 's blood .
bresson immediately gives us his impression of the essential meaning of the grail quest : bloodshed and failure .
the opening sequence is a series of clumsy , disjointed fights amongst anonymous knights -- a head is hacked off , a stomach is impaled , a skull is split open , skeletal remains hang from trees , and
burning bodies smolder in the ruins of a flaming house .
since the film starts with camelot in near - ruin , and takes only an hour and a half to arrive at its inevitable conclusion , it does n't carry the grand , tragic resonance of other arthurian films .
we never get to see camelot at the peak of its power , therefore there is no real downfall to witness .
but , then again , it is not the name of camelot that is evoked in the title of the film .
rather , it is lancelot , and bresson is more interested in the internal battle within his heart , than the external downfall of a kingdom .
lancelot has always been a tragic figure in the arthurian tales , and bresson uses him as the central figure to explore the battle between the spirit and the flesh .
the greatest of all knights , he was flawed only in his love for arthur 's wife , queen guinevere , and it was that illicit affair that eventually caused the downfall of camelot .
even when lancelot attempts to end the affair with guinevere ( laura duke condominas ) , he only finds himself falling back into her arms against his better judgment .
he knows it means the destruction of the idealized kingdom , but he is powerless in his passion .
when sir mordred ( patrick bernhard ) accuses lancelot of the affair , other knights , including sir gawain ( humbert balsan ) spring to lancelot 's defense .
it is this battle within the knights that is the eventual undoing of the round table ; the flesh wins out over the spirit , and the consequences are dire .
bresson is an intensely personal filmmaker most interested in the interiors of men 's hearts and minds .
" lancelot of the lake " is filled with his particular trademarks : a stripped - down , minimalist style , flat , expressionless dialogue , and a grand use of natural sounds in place of music .
he uses background music only twice in the film , during an opening narration segment and during the opening credits .
the music here is a heavy drumbeat and accompanying bagpipes , but the rest of the film is scored with natural sounds that punctuate the film 's thematic elements : the incessant clanking and creaking of heavy armor , the neighing of horses , the rhythm of hooves beating down dirt roads , and the natural chirping and whispering of the forest .
like most of his other films , bresson employed nonprofessional actors who recite the dialogue in emotionless , flat voices .
all the actors he used in " lancelot of the lake " had never acted before , and with the exception of patrick bernhard , they never acted again .
never once do they raise their voices or put any emphasis on a given word .
instead of using vocal inflection , bresson strove to create emotion through images .
in some ways , this technique works ; in other ways , it does n't .
the final montage of arthur 's men battling each other is quite marvelous , and the final image of the knights in shining armor reduced to a literal scrap - pile sums up the entire film in one moment .
however , other times bresson 's uncompromising methods are distracting and questionable .
for instance , during an important jousting contest , bresson films the majority of the action so that the only things visible are the horses ' legs .
he does this repeatedly , opening each shot with the same few notes from a bagpipe and the raising of a different flag .
while there might be symbolic value in this , the resulting experience of watching it can be bothersome .
nevertheless , " lancelot of the lake " is a fascinating cinematic experience boldly made by a master filmmaker .
bresson 's style may not be for everyone , but one has to respect his strength as an artist .
by re - evaluating the arthurian legends and making them his own
, he turns " lancelot of the lake " into something rare in modern cinema : a truly personal film .

A:
P
****