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

A: Shiner, directed by Christian Calson, centers around three "couples" and their relationships with obsession and violence. Pretty good start as far as I'm concerned. Interesting. The couples break down into a heterosexual couple, two heterosexual male friends and a straight guy being "harmlessly" stalked by a gay man.

The "het" couple really don't have much of a role in the film. There are some scenes that show how they like to be aggressive when having sex or playing around with each other, but seem to have no real purpose since the are so marginalized. My assumption is that they represent a more day to day illustration of how sex/violence are integrated in a couples life. The couple aren't very aggressive and it's not even shot in any kind of erotic way. As characters, they don't add much to the theme or plot.

The two male friends make up the bulk of the plot. They engage in some gay bashing of sorts by convincing a homosexual man to have sex with them in an alley. This escalates into violence. And the violence changes them. It becomes a means of sexual gratification. And their need for violence t release grows as the film progresses. The main problem I had is the violence is not convincing. Never once does it seem that any of the characters is in any real danger. It just doesn't work. Given that the whole theme of the film is about the characters' relationships with violence, this is a major problem. Unfortunately, the make-up doesn't help either. Sometimes, it's okay, other times it is very bad. In one scene, I really wondered why one of the characters had rouge smeared on his face. Confusing.

The more interesting pair of the characters is the "stalker couple." Here Calson seemed to have more to say and was able to develop a more coherent storyline. Perhaps it is because the characters seem to develop more and have resolution at the end. Shiner may well have been much better if it had stuck with these two.

I appreciate that Calson wanted to achieve a lot with this film. It is admirable. Most low budget flicks don't aspire to much. I don't think Calson achieved want he was aiming for. Myself, I found nothing particularly controversial or unsettling. Shiner was unconvincing. This doesn't mean, however, that the director can't achieve something with his next film.

He seems to have something to say.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: Kurt Russell (as Steven Post) works as a mail-boy for struggling TV station UBC (that's United Broadcasting Corporation); he is going nowhere at work, offering ridiculous projects like "Abraham Lincoln's Doctor's Dog" to studio executives - because Lincoln, doctors, and dogs are popular. Programming director Joe Flynn (as Francis X. Wilbanks) wisely rejects Mr. Russell's proposals, but has no idea how to pick a hit TV show. His secretary Heather North (as Jennifer Scott), who does double duty as Russell's girlfriend, has a chimpanzee who bugs the heck out of Russell when he wants to watch TV. Turns out, the monkey watches all the popular shows, and can easily pick the hits. Russell discovers the chimp's talent, and uses him to advance his own career. Understandably, things gets HAIRY for Russell and the cast!

Raffles the chimp (handled by Frank Lamping) performs well; Raffles does look bored and/or distracted during a few scenes, when the chimp is supposed to look interested; these could have been corrected with re-takes or editing. A mild satirical edge is present - imagine a monkey picking hit TV shows! AND, it's a monkey who gets a BEER during the commercials (drinking in a Disney film)! A look through the cast will reveal s bunch of fun TV actors to recognize and try to place. You could make a drinking game, in honor of Raffles' beer-guzzling, by guessing actors, and where you've seen them before. Here's a start - Hey, isn't that "Dr. Bellows" from "I Dream of Jeannie"? Down the hatch!

**** The Barefoot Executive (1971) Robert Butler ~ Kurt Russell, Joe Flynn, John Ritter
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: I rented this film to see what might be a bloody, non stop action movie and got this overly sentimental and super cheap low budget action-drama that makes Kickboxer look like Die Hard. Lou and Reb are in Vietnam and as Lou saves Reb from the gooks, he gets shot in the head in what is easily one of the worst effects ever. The Vietnam scenes are shot in someones backyard, I swear! Lou is now brain damaged and Reb and him live together and own a bar. Super homoerotic. Lou is convinced to fight in a cage for money and Reb goes on a killing spree to get him back. There is no good fight scenes at all, the punches are two inches away from a person. Characters personalities change in matter of seconds. One guy is a bad and in the next scene he's good. The acting is horrid and the music is some overly sentimental Frank Stallone sounding song that would make you sick. I hated this film.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
=++++=
Answer: I guess this movie will only work on people who were all turned off by the giant hype of Lord of the Rings. Well, so I was. And so I really love this movie. Especially I like all those flawless superheroes from LotR being so perfectly and disrespectfully parodied. Most brilliantly is the counterpart of Gandalf (the brave and wise and completely humorless know-it-all wizard): Almghandi, the cowardice and brain dead transvestite. Sauron's counterpart ("Sauraus" from East Germany, of course) is wearing a simply bucket with eye holes as a helmet. Aragorns alter ego is yet another accident prone idiot who tries to fix his broken sword ("Ulrike" the legend) with scotch tape. And "Strunzdumm" (the counterpart of Wormtong) indeed has some strong resemblance with Brad Dourif! And don't forget Grmpfli and Heidi... huh-huh
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: I don't get this. The movie obviously has a pretty good budget. It has very good cinematography. It has nice pacing, good editing and pretty good directing too. Then WHY OH WHY didn't they hire someone to do a final rewrite of the script so it would not be so damn cheesy and WHY OH WHY did they hire such lousy actors that can't act their way out of a paper bag? This movie could have been good. At most times it LOOKS good and FEELS good but in the end, you realize that the movie was no good at all.

So I would say it's a good production but a bad movie. Too bad actually.

And eels? Come one, really!
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A:
Had fun watching this film.. despite the feeling I got a lot of the time, that this film was almost copying Monsters Inc. There're quite a few things that are extremely similar between the two, the relationship between an animal/monster and a small child, other animals trying to break that relationship, etc. It felt like that pretty much throughout the film, to me.

One of the redeeming features though, is Scrat :) Very very funny character, even if he serves no purpose :)