Teacher: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? If you are still confused, see the following example:
plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
Solution: N
Reason: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Now, solve this instance: the caveman 's valentine starring samuel
l .
jackson , ann magnuson , aunjanue ellis , tamara tunie screenplay by george
dawes green , based on his novel directed by kasi lemmons
*
* * for more film , dvd and books about movie reviews , plus annual coverage of the toronto international film festival , visit _ film freak
central _ - http :
//filmfreakcentral .
net
| now with search engine *
* * a strange mixture of _ shine _ ,
_ basquiat _ ,
_ angel heart _ , and grant morrison & dave mckean 's graphic novel " arkham asylum "
, _ the caveman 's valentine _ is a feverish tale of a homeless madman - cum - detective who , on the morning of february 14th , discovers a " valentine " just outside his new york cave : one of ella fitzgerald 's strange fruit , stuck in the crotch of a tree -- a young male model murdered and frozen to a branch .
believing at first that his imagined nemesis stuyvesant , shooting evil rays into his mind from atop the chrysler building , is responsible for the murder , romulus ( samuel l .
jackson ) is put on the trail of an avant - garde photographer in the mapplethorpe mould , david leppenraub ( colm feore ) .
his minor sleuthing interrupted by the occasional delusional fit and bouts with an ecstasy of creation ( romulus was a brilliant julliard - trained pianist prior to his psychosis ) , romulus uncovers clues and harasses suspects on his way to convincing his police - woman daughter ( aunjanue ellis ) that even though he 's a nut , that does n't mean that he ca n't solve a high - profile society murder .
every moment an exhausting workshop of ideas , and every character the same ,
_
the caveman 's valentine _ is a concept so " high concept " that it suddenly became clear to me that the film fits into the comic book genre of entertainment , with romulus 's " caveman " a slightly more mundane version of todd mcfarlane 's urban noir hero , spawn .
with a long - vanished wife ( tamara tunie ) acting as a spiritual guide , the occasional social caste commentary , the secret base in a cave , a divergent genius personality with a network of informants and supporters , and a wickedly colourful arch - enemy , the film piles on the lurid comic book details and dizzying slapdash colours to such a lavish extent that i was vaguely surprised that the blue police cars were n't inscribed with " gotham pd .
" that being said , _ the caveman 's valentine _ can only really succeed as a heroic fantasy , a frank miller graphic novel that has the audacity to portray the blood staining a field of virgin snow expanding to form the shape of a heart .
the difficulties with the film spring from the misunderstanding that it somehow adheres to the conventions of a thriller or a police procedural when , in fact , _ the caveman 's valentine _ is a superhero fable that takes on the cause of the homeless ( again like mcfarlane 's spawn ) while attacking the entrenched ruling classes in government and the arts .
it is no small detail that our hero , romulus , is not only named for a member of the ruling class who lived his life ( in legend ) without knowledge of his royal birth , but also that our romulus has turned his back on the comforts of the literati in favour of a mystical existence living in a cave in a park .
in the romulus mythology , signs of romulus ' royal blood is brought by twelve vultures , while in the film , the call to action for our hero comes in the form of not the carrion birds , but of the carrion itself .
whether or not romulus of _
the caveman 's valentine _ will found a nation , or , in the case of novelist george dawes green , upon whose novel his own screenplay is based , a franchise , the fact remains that _ the caveman 's valentine _ is easily the most misunderstood film of 2001 thus far .
it , along with m .
night shyamalan 's _ unbreakable _ , is a mature cinematic extrapolation of the graphic novel format which has , since miller 's seminal " the dark knight returns " , redefined the comic medium as one suitable for mature ruminations on psychologically sticky topics .
readers of sam keith 's brilliant " the maxx " comic series ( or of mtv 's short - lived animated adaptation of the same ) are already familiar with the idea of a homeless man placed in the position of knight errant and king of his own twisted demesne .
the failure of both " the maxx " tv show and of _ the caveman 's valentine _ ( not forgetting the initial backlash against _ unbreakable _ ) suggests that the public may not be ready for america 's surprising contributions to dark fantasy .
luxuriantly lit , brashly saturated , and comic - panel framed with a virtuoso grace by cinematographer
amy
vincent
( _ death in venice , ca _ ) , while inhabiting robin standefer 's ( _ practical magic _ ) mesmerizing sets ,
_
the caveman 's valentine _ is an unremittingly gorgeous film .
kasi lemmons , following up her brilliant 1997 debut , _ eve 's bayou _ , which played on similar themes of manufactured realities and mysticism , fulfills much of her immense promise with a tale of seraphs and lost boys , artists and suffering .
_ the caveman 's valentine _ is an elegant and piquant expression of hope for justice in a tilted landscape .
clearly not for every taste , when approached with the correct paradigm , it is one of the most stunning and intensely fascinating films of the year : a redefinition of the hero archetype for a post - modern audience with urine - stained wool trench coats in place of blue tights and red capes .
_ the caveman 's valentine _ is a fine and a courageous film , crazy enough to suggest that the delirious yammering of an idiot savant is the best and truest paladin of order in the chaos of eliot 's rat 's alley wasteland .
Student:
P