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

Answer: Somewhere between the Food Court and Zip's, the mall in this film

has an explosives store. This is the only place the title character

can purchase the bomb he plants in the mall in the dull finale.

A fictional town has a new mall, built on some land that was

condemned. Cute Girl (I didn't catch her name) gets a job as a

waitress there. She lost her boyfriend in a fire at the site where the

mall stands. The villainous mall owner hires the arsonist

responsible for the fire as a security guard after his first security

guard ends up dead. Rob Estes, eons before "Silk Stalkings," is a

photog/reporter trying to find a story. He hooks up with Cute Girl,

and their mutual "funny" friend Pauly Shore, and try to find out if Eric

is still alive. He is, living in the mall basement (?) and traveling

through the air ducts and offing different people who upset his

former girlfriend, including the arsonist. Eventually, he kidnaps her

and the finale involves the bomb and everyone running from the

scene before the big kablooey. Morgan Fairchild is along for the

ride as the mayor...yes, she's the mayor.

Of course, you probably did not need a plot sketch since the entire

story is in the title. Someone named Eric is taking revenge against

people as a phantom of a mall. This also means there is no

suspense. We know Eric is behind this, but we still have to see

Estes and Cute Girl go through the motions of a silly investigation.

Watch as Fairchild, who we know has been in cahoots with the

mall owner all along, pull a gun on our heroic duo in the middle of

a crowded party, yet no one says a word as she leads them to her

office, and her eventual death. The fictional town is huge, yet nary a

policeman is ever called, everyone relies on mall security for order.

Eric has been hiding since the mall was built, but I am not sure

where. He seems to live in a basement area, but you would think

some construction worker would have found him. He also has

furnished his love pad quite well, and found a few outlets, since he

has electricity. It might be nicer than your own apartment!

Pauly Shore fans, both of you, take note. He tricks a security guard

out of his booth by mooning the camera. Yes, stop scanning

Celebrity Skin and Playgirl, this is where you get to see a grainy

black and white shot of Pauly's south shore, although no weezil.

This is just junk, and proof positive that I am down to renting just

about anything at the video store to stay in the horror section. This

film is not Eric's revenge, it is the film maker's revenge for me

being dumb enough to watch it. Here is my revenge: I do not

recommend it. That'll show 'em!

This is rated (R) for physical violence, some gun violence, gore,

some profanity, some female nudity, brief male nudity, and some

sexual content.

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

Answer: I've just returned from a showing of "My Left Foot" at our public library. What an emotional experience -- I feel drained and uplifted.

It's the story of Christy Brown, Irish writer and painter, and based on the author's autobiographical "My Left Foot." Christy was born with a form of cerebral palsy such that the only limb he had good control of was his left foot. Doctors advised his parents he was hopelessly mentally retarded but his mother didn't give up on him and, somewhat as Annie Sullivan had done with Helen Keller, helped him achieve a breakthrough in which he learned the alphabet and then to read, write, and paint.

This film won Academy Awards for Daniel Day-Lewis (best actor) as well as best supporting actress for the actress playing his mother; it also received Oscar nominations for best picture, best director, and best adapted screenplay.

As a retired clinical psychologist and family therapist, while many films may entertain me, many also often leave me having to overlook gross fictions or improbabilities in realistic psychological reactions.

Not this film--it was absolutely "spot on" in portraying typical Irish parental roles & behaviors (see, e.g., see typical Irish families in McGoldrick's "Ethnicity & Family Therapy") as well Christy Brown's uneven emotional maturation--some immature personality reactions that were even further amplified by his picking up traits of his father.

The film presents the greater truth while changing certain sequences in his development (painting & writing) and condensing several important people into one person, for the sake of telling a coherent, believable story, not burdened by small, distracting, less important actualities. (See Christy Brown in Wikipedia for more accuracy.) The DVD version we were shown had some English subtitles that were a great help in understanding Christy's speech (& some of the Irish speech); the initial release of the film may have lacked this. (If you see this on DVD, enable that option.)

The performance by Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the greatest, believable acting jobs I've ever seen. Truly magnificent, outstanding, superlative.

"My Left Foot" bears more than some similarity to a more recent film, "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly," in that each portrays the life of a real person successfully surmounting the imprisonment and isolation of an extremely severe physical handicap.

And in doing so, it resonates with William Ernest Henley's "Invictus" which begins: "Out of the night that covers me,//Black as the Pit from pole to pole,//I thank whatever gods may be//For my unconquerable soul."

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

Answer: If you want to watch a film that is oddly shot, oddly lit, weird stories of these men (and one woman) who enjoy beating the crap out of each other, if you want to enjoy a story that goes nowhere of these two guys, one a boxer and the other a gay man, then you should watch this film.

After watching this film, I almost felt as badly bruised up and cut up, like the director (of the film) himself beat the hell out of me.

This is a movie where one is not meant to watch for plot or for great acting, this is a film to gawk at in horror and wonder. A lot like watching an airplane crash or a train wreck.

If you want to watch a great movie, a good movie, a "B" movie, or even a mediocre movie, this movie is not it.

A warning to all who watch this film, please don't eat beforehand. You might want to puke by the end of the film.

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

Answer:
Apparently Shakespeare equals high brow which equals in turn a bunch of folks not seeing something for what it really is. At one point in this film, someone (I believe Pacino's producer) warns him that film is getting off track, that it was once about how the masses think about Shakespeare through the vehicle of RICHARD III. Instead he decides to shoot a chopped up play with random comments sprinkled throughout. Some scenes seemed to be included as home movies for Al (was there really ANY reason for the quick visit to Shakespeare's birthplace, other than for a laugh about something unexpected which happens there?), and, before the film has really even begun, we are treated to seeing Al prance around and act cute and funny for the camera. I thought his silly act with Kay near the end of GODFATHER III with the knife to his throat was AN ACT - but apparently it's how Al really behaves in person.

Enough rambling. Here's a shotgun smattering of why I didn't even make it 3/4 of the way through this: 1) pretentious - Al always knows when the camera is on him, whether he's acting as Richard or in a 'real' conversation with someone - you can see it in the corner of his eyes, also, some of the actors around the rehearsal table become untethered and wax hammy to the extreme. If anyone reading this has ever spent any time with an group of actors and has witnessed this kind of thing from the outside, it's unbearable. "Look at me, chewing all the scenery!" 2) Winona Ryder. When she appears as Lady Anne, this film comes to a screeching halt, which it never recovers from. She has nothing to add in the discussion scenes but the camera lingers on her to bring in the kiddoes. Her performance is dreadful, to boot. 3) the only things you really learn from this are told to you by the very scholars the filmmakers are trying to keep out of the picture. Of course, you also learn that Pacino shouldn't be directing films (or doing Richard in the first place). I'd rather watch BOBBY DEERFIELD than this.

Lastly, read the play and learn it for yourself. Go out and see it performed. In 1997 I saw the play performed at the University of Washington Ethnic Cultural Theater, and it made what we see in this film seem like high school drama (except for the gratuitous throat slashing of Clarence! My God! Was that necessary?!)

It's all just a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nada.