TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you are given a review of movie. Your task is to classify given movie review into two categories: 1) positive, and 2) negative based on its content.
PROBLEM: The writers and producers of this little outing have plummeted new depths of depravity. Did writer's block set in so badly, OR had ideas dried up so much, that they were forced to include a disgusting scene where a young woman defecates in the back seat of a van, and then promptly throws the excrement at the car behind (mind you at least this summarises what this film is worth). We had already been treated to one of the other women urinating over one of her friends at gunpoint, as well as numerous episodes of graphic vomiting; once would have sufficed... we got the message! This really is taking toilet humour to another level! Had the script and acting been better then I could have easily forgotten that I was watching a film shot entirely on low budget video. This was a fairly original storyline, with a clever (the only) piece of direction in that we only ever got to take the viewpoint from inside of the van; thus making it feel much more real. We never got to see inside any other locations, such as the store or the field where several of the women disappeared, and this could have added much needed tension.The script was dire. Lines like: 'I don't feel too good... I want to go home' after one of the girls has been pursued by a psychopath; subjected to rape by a screwdriver and shot at, seem a little undercooked.The acting was diabolical (apart from the maniac). Did all the main 5 actresses in this learn acting by taking a correspondence course during a long postal strike! The sound was so bad that I had to watch the entire film with the subtitles on.The director seemed to have an easy job in this. It seems that the only direction he must have given was: 'Scream girls'.AND AS FOR THE SCREAMING...... If you watch this please be sure to have some paracetamol at the ready!

SOLUTION: negative

PROBLEM: Leslie Charteris' series of novels of the adventures of the slightly shady Simon Templar ("The Saint") was brought to the screen in the late 1930s with the up and coming George Sanders as Templar. It was a careful choice - Sanders usually would play villains with occasional "nice roles" (ffoliott in FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE, the title hero in THE STRANGE CASE OF UNCLE HARRY, the framed "best friend" of Robert Montgomery in RAGE IN HEAVEN). Here his willingness to bend the rules and break a law briefly fit his "heavy persona", while his good looks and suave behavior made Templar a fit shady hero like Chester Morris' "Boston Blackie", and (to an extent) Peter Lorre's "Mr. Moto". The films are not the best series of movie mystery serials - but they are serviceable. Like Rathbone's Holmes series or Oland's Chan's series the show frequently had actors repeating roles or playing new ones (the anti-heroine in the film here was played by Wendy Barrie, who would show up in a second film in the series). This, and slightly familiar movie sets make the series a comfortable experience for the viewers, who hear the buzz of the dialog (always showing Sanders' braininess in keeping one step ahead of the bad guys), without noting the obvious defects of the plot. All these mysteries have defects due to the fact that even the best writers of the genre can't avoid repeating old ideas again and again and again.Here the moment when that happened was when one of the cast admitted his affection for Barrie, which she was long aware of. Shortly after he tries to protect her from the police. But as the film dealt with the identity of a criminal mastermind, it became obvious that this person was made so slightly noble as to merit being the mysterious mastermind (i.e., the script disguised him as the least likely suspect).Barrie is after the proof that her father (who died in prison) was framed by the real criminals in a robbery gang. She has several people assisting her - mugs like William Gargan - and she gets advice from the mastermind on planning embarrassing burglaries that can't be pinned on her. The D.A. who got her father convicted (Jerome Cowan) is determined to get Barrie and her gang. The only detective who seems to have a chance to solve the case is Jonathan Hale, who is shadowing Sanders but reluctantly working with him. The cast has some nice moments in the script - Hale (currently on a special diet) is tempted to eat a rich lobster dinner made for Sanders by Willie Best. He gets a serious upset stomach as a result, enabling Sanders and Barrie to flee Sanders' apartment. Best has to remind him (when he feels better) to head for a location that Sanders told him to go to at a certain time.There is also an interesting role for Gilbert Emery. Usually playing decent people (like the brow-beaten husband in BETWEEN TWO WORLDS) he plays a socially prominent weakling here - whose demise is reminiscent of that of a character in a Bogart movie.On the whole a well made film for the second half of a movie house billing in 1939. It will entertain you even if it does not remain in your memory.

SOLUTION: positive

PROBLEM: As far as I know, this show was never repeated on UK television after its original run in the late '60s / early '70s, and most episodes are now sadly "missing presumed wiped".Series 6 from 1971 however still exists in its entirety, and I recently got the chance to watch it all, the best part of 4 decades on.After rushing home from school, Freewheelers was essential viewing for me and many of my contemporaries back in those halcyon days of flared trousers, Slade and Chicory Tip. And watching it again brought a nostalgic lump to the throat.Never mind the bad / hammy acting, the unintentionally amusing fight scenes, plot holes wide enough to pilot a large ocean-going yacht through and the "frightfully, frightfully" RADA accents of the lead players.No - forget all that. Because Freewheelers harks back to a bygone (dare I say "golden") age of kids' TV drama, when the shows were simply about rip-roaring fun and didn't take themselves so seriously. Before they became obsessed with all the angst-laden "ishoos" that today's screenwriters have their young protagonists fret over, such as relationships, pregnancy, drugs, STIs etc.No doubt if it were "remade for a modern audience" in these days of all-pervasive political correctness, the boss figure would be a black female, one of the young male heroes would be a Muslim, the other would be a white lad confused about his sexuality and the girl would be an all-action go-getter with an IQ off the scale, who'd be forever getting the lads out of scrapes and making them look foolish - in other words a million miles removed from Wendy Padbury's deferential, ankle-spraining washer-upper.It's a show that's very much "of its time". But is that a bad thing? I for one don't think so.

SOLUTION:
positive