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

Answer: When I noticed that "Hamish Macbeth" was being broadcast in the United States, I was thrilled. I then had the misfortune to watch the darn thing. I adore M. C. Beaton's books about the wonderful Scottish Constable. The characters in the book are entertaining and very well-written. The powers that be who are responsible for this mish-mash apparently have never have read one of Beaton's books. Only the name "Hamish Macbeth" has anything to do with the series. Besides the lack of familiar characters, I find the whole show offensively loud. It seems that the actors feel they must shout their lines and scream at each other. If you love M. C. Beaton's adorable Hamish Macbeth don't waste your time on this rubbish.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
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Answer: Simon Pegg plays the part of Sidney Young, a young entertainment writer who has begun the beginnings of a career writing for a grassroots magazine that specializes in badmouthing the shallowness and superficiality of the rich and famous. He is making a career out of lampooning celebrities, although he has a desperate wish to be a celebrity himself. The movie is based on the very bizarre career of Toby Young, who also ran a small magazine in Britain called the Modern Review, which offered scathing criticism of pretty much everything imaginable, until he closed the magazine in a hail of verbal bullets with his co-editor, and then went on to a spectacularly failed career as a writer for Vanity Fair, which is pretty much the part of his life told in this movie.

He is at first thrilled to go work for a major publication (called Sharp's Magazine in the movie), and despite active nerves he is positively beaming on his first day. He meets the chief editor, Clayton Harding (played by Jeff Bridges), who is hard as nails but who is also exactly the kind of editor he needs to be for a goof-off like Young to keep his job at the magazine. He offers little in the form of immediate acceptance of Young, but he also has what can only be described as a liberal tolerance of Young's off-the-wall antics and inappropriate behavior.

Much of the comedy in the movie is derived from Young's misunderstanding of or indifference to the generally accepted code of public behavior and the peculiar etiquette involved in dealing with the rich and famous. But Sidney's reasons for acting in such a weird way and for giving outwardly offensive interviews is because he believes that he loathes the entire celebrity culture and, it would seem, he believes in that age-old saying 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'emand THEN beat 'em."

Complicating matters are two very different women. There is a charming, regular girl at the magazine named Alison Olsen (Kirsten Dunst) who at first is appalled by Sidney's obvious arrogance and womanizing ways, and a stunning model named Sophie (Megan Fox), who represents the celebrity culture. Needless to say, Sidney's endless attack of superficiality and stardom is a superficial lust for Sophie, the one with the look of a star.

Sophie is stunningly beautiful, it's true, but also comes across as having not a single thought rattling around in her head. Alison is a regular girl, not very interesting or attractive, but Dunst's performance makes her a real person. A relationship with her would have all the reality of a Britney Spears marriage, and yet the movie retains some level of believability because, despite how obvious this is, we also feel Sidney's pain in not pursuing her (I felt it, anyway).

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People has a pretty interesting premise and is full of honest, satisfactory performances, and although it turns into a bit of your standard romantic comedy by the third act, it has a variety of well-developed and interesting characters. Danny Huston, for example, gives us a great performance as Alison's other love interest, who pays homage to The Big Lebowski (also starring Bridges) with his ever-present White Russian, one of my personal favorite drinks. Buying Absolute and Kahlua here in China costs the equivalent of about $350, but my kitchen is never without them.

I am looking forward to the day when Simon Pegg will branch out a little bit, because I love his films but I am completely unsure about his range. He played a serious character in Hot Fuzz, but only serious in relation to the lunacy surrounding him, and ultimately went back to being himself again, which he has pretty much been in Shaun of the Dead, Run, Fat Boy, Run, and now How To Lose Friends. He's a rising star, it will be interesting to see what else he can do.
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: but I want to say I cannot agree more with Moira.

What a wonderful film.

I was thinking about it just this morning, wanting to give advice to some dopey sod who'd lost money on his debit card through fraud, and wanted to say 'Keep thy money in thine pocket' and realised I was talking like James Mason.

Even tho he didn't say those words, I still think he would! I've never forgotten 'Are ye carrying?' in his reconciliation with his son, Hywel Bennet: 'Always have money in thine pocket!' Good advice.

Not enough kids have fathers with such unforgiving but well-meant attitudes any more. Or any father at all.

It would be a good thing for us to reinstate 'thee', 'thy' and 'thine' in our language to show we care. It is only the same as 'tutoyer' in French or 'du' in German.

Addendum: I just realised that a lot of my remarks were about James Mason in The Family Way!

I think it's because I mixed up Susan George with Hayley Mills. Well, easy mistake.

I stand by the comments tho'.

And Spring and Port Wine is so very similar to The Family Way.

When you took a girlfriend to the pictures in those days, you really had something to say and talk about afterwards, something that affected your knowledge of the world and your personal development.

Theatrical experiences are almost real, and they are important in helping young people to grow up.

It doesn't happen now, I think, that teenagers can just go to the pics like we did.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: I guess every time I see one of these old movies from the 80's it puts me back at a simpler time, no matter how corny they may seem today. This movie is a good one. I remember seeing it as a small kid and thinking it was the greatest movie ever. It has all the heroistic characters that a young cowboy wants to be. Now as an adult, I can look back and laugh and still feel sad, but this time I actually know what's going on. I did find one thing weird. How many people can move to Houston and hook up with Sissy,get married,move into a trailer,have a falling out,cheat, have an uncle die,then get back together, all in the course of a month? Only in America.
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
Return To the Lost World was filmed back-to-back with the 1992 version of The Lost World.

In this sequel, the same five people, lead by Challenger return to the plateau where a group has started drilling for oil which is threatening to destroy the land. Gomez has something to do with this. They manage to defeat the drillers and the plateau is saved, much to the delight of the natives.

Like in The Lost World, what few dinosaurs we see are made of rubber and these include a T-Rex and Ankylosaurus.

John Ryhs-Davies and David Warner reprise their roles as Challenger and Summerlee and three of the other actors are also back.

Despite reading several bad reviews of this and those cheap looking rubber dinosaurs, I enjoyed Return to the Lost World.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.