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

Answer: Hellborn starts as a young psychiatric doctor named James Bishop (Matt Stasi) takes up his residency at St. Andrews insane asylum, or 'mental illness facility' as they like to call it there. With nearly 600 patients Bishop meets his boss Dr. McCort (Bruce Payne) & is put to work, he gets ward 'A' where some seriously deranged & dangerous patients are held. If that wasn't bad enough during his first round of visits Bishop finds a dead body & has threatening sounding graffiti messages sprayed over his room. Bishop starts to hear stories from the patients about sinister goings-on at the asylum & soon finds out for himself the stories have more than a hint of truth about them...

Known as Asylum of the Damned in the US this supernatural horror film was directed by Philip J. Jones & I sort of liked it but in the end there were too many unsatisfying elements for me to totally enjoy it. The script by Matt McCombs takes itself pretty seriously & I quite liked the basic idea behind & some of it's ideas but there are a few things which work against it. For a start the film is just too slow, the story is pretty good & doesn't give itself away too early but it takes an absolute age for it to get going & I was rapidly losing interest with each passing minute. I also thought the so-called twist ending was far too predictable & the ending itself far too bland & forgettable. It's a shame because I liked the story, the character's, the setting & some of the ideas but it's simply too slow & frankly dull to keep one entertained over it's 90 minute duration. It's one of those films which I would like to recommend but in all honesty I can't.

Director Jones does a good job, this is actually a well lit & quite atmospheric film. I wouldn't say there's anything scary here. I'm not sure if Hellborn was shot in a real insane asylum but if it wasn't they did a great job on the sets & the film looks pretty good overall. Unfortunately there is a real lack of gore or action, there are two hand-print shaped wounds & a severed tongue & that's it, absolutely nothing else in terms of blood or gore which has to go down as a disappointment. Depending on who you believe & which review you read the special effects are either the worst ever or very good, well as a devoted watcher of low budget horror I was very impressed with the effects especially the demon thing which looks mightily impressive & is a man in a suit type effect rather than a terrible CGI computer graphic although it's an impressive suit. It all depends on your expectations I suppose.

Technically the film is good, it looks nice enough & the lack of CGI computer effects is something I welcome. The acting isn't great though, it certainly could have been better.

Hellborn is a film that disappointed me, there were some good stuff about it but at the same time some terrible stuff which unfortunately outweighs the good. I sort of liked parts of it but as a whole 90 minute viewing experience I'd find it totally impossible to recommend to anyone.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
=++++=
Answer: It was very heart-warming. As an expatriated french, I particularly enjoyed this "TV" movie, which I think deserves a broader distribution. The acting was good, and the bonds between each member of this rural French family seemed so

strong and so natural. No doubt a great movie about the concept of family and inclusion in the face of homosexuality and AIDS. One of the strongest aspect of the movie is this privileged relationship between the eldest son (Leo), who has contracted HIV, and the youngest son (Marcel), to whom the rest of the family try to hide the situation. The two characters

progressively explore each other as time runs out for Leo, who is not willing to spend the rest of his life surviving under drugs...
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Sometimes it takes a film-making master like Kubrick to bring that extra little something, that unique, untractable and elusive ingredient that transforms a great movie or a great script into a masterpiece, one for the ages.

It's not just that Stephen King's story has enough meat and potatoes making it difficult for even the most workmanlike of directors to miss. Heck, even King himself didn't fare so bad. It's how Kubrick perceives King's universe, how he transforms the page into screen time, that renders THE SHINING both a visual feast and a compacted masterclass in directing.

Kubrick's miss-en-scene is, as usually, terrific. The movie progresses with a brisk, sharp, lively pace, even though it's neither fast nor heavily edited and it clocks at no less than 160 minutes. The camera prowls through the lavish corridors of the Overlook Hotel like it is some kind of mystic labyrinth rife for exploration, linear tracking shots exposing the impeccably decorated interiors in all their grandeur. There's a symmetry and geometrical approach in how Kubrick perceives space that reminds me very much of how Japanese directors worked in the sixties. As if what is depicted is inconsequential to how all the different elements are balanced inside the frame.

Certain images definitely stand out. The first shot of Jack's typewriter, accompanied off screen from the thumps of a ball, like drums of doom coming from some other floor or produced by the typewriter itself as though it is an instrument of doom all by itself, later on proving to be nothing short of just that. A red river flowing through the hotel's elevators in slow motion. Jack hitting the door with the axe, the camera moving along with him, tracking the action as it happens instead of remaining static, as though it's the camera piercing through the door and not the axe. The ultra fast zoom in the kid's face thrusting us inside his head before we see the two dead girls from his POV. And of course, the bathroom scene.

Much has been said of Jack Nicholson's obtrusive overacting. His mad is not entirely successful, because, well, he's Jack Nicholson. The guy looks half-mad anyway. Playing mad turns him into an exaggerated caricature of himself. Shelley Duvall on the other hand is one of the most inspired casting choices Kubrick ever had. Coming from a streak of fantastic performances for Robert Altman in the seventies (3 WOMEN, THIEVES LIKE US, NASHVILLE), she brings to her character the right amounts of fragility and emotional distress. A terrific and very underrated actress.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: I can't help but laugh at the people who praise this show as heartwarming and tear-jerking. For one, it's entirely unrealistic that these people will have perfect lives after their new homes.

How can these families afford to maintain these new mega-houses? And what about their poor neighbors? Property taxes must surely increase after this happens. Plus, the noise would annoy me.

Second, how excessive can a reality television show become? It's practically the same repetitive junk week after week. We're introduced to a suffering family, they renovate the home, then surprise the family and everyone breaks out the Kleenex boxes.

Not to mention how boring the renovation part is. The only interesting part of the show is to see what the house looks like, but even that segment is destroyed by the phony confessionals and constant sobbing.

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" is a show pretending to be heartfelt but it falls flat. Skip this one. If you like reality television, "Survivor" is far superior and moving.
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
Time paradoxes are the devil's snare for underemployed minds. They're fun to consider in a 'what if?' sort of way. Film makers and authors have dealt with this time and again in a host of films and television including 'Star Trek: First Contact', the 'Back to the Future' trilogy, 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', 'Groundhog Day' and the Stargate SG1 homage, 'Window of Opportunity'. Heinlein's 'All You Zombies' was written decades ago and yet it will still spin out people reading that short story for the first time.

In the case of Terry Gilliam's excellent film, '12 Monkeys', it's hard to establish what may be continuity problems versus plot elements intended to make us re-think our conception of the film. Repeated viewings will drive us to different conclusions if we retain an open mind.

Some, seeing the film for the first time, will regard Cole, played by Bruce Willis, as a schizophrenic. Most will see Cole as a man disturbed by what Adams describes as 'the continual wrenching of experience' visited upon him by time travel.

Unlike other time travel stories, '12 Monkeys' is unclear as to whether future history can be changed by manipulating events in the past. Cole tells his psychiatrist, Railly (Madeleine Stowe), that time cannot be changed, but a phone call he makes from the airport is intercepted by scientists AFTER he has been sent back to 1996, in his own personal time-line.

Even this could be construed as an event that had to happen in a single time-line universe, in order to ensure that the time-line is not altered...Cole has to die before the eyes of his younger self for fate to be realised. If that's the case, time is like a fluid, it always finds its own level or path, irrespective of the external forces working on it. It boggles the mind to dwell on this sort of thing too much.

If you can change future events that then guide the actions of those with the power to send people back in time, as we see on board the plane at the end of the film, then that means the future CAN be changed by manipulating past events...or does it? The film has probably led to plenty of drunken brawls at bars frequented by physicists and mathematicians.

Bonus material on the DVD makes for very interesting viewing. Gilliam was under more than normal pressure to bring the film in under budget, which is no particular surprise after the 'Munchausen' debacle and in light of his later attempt to film 'Don Quixote'. I would rate the 'making of' documentary as one of the more interesting I've seen. It certainly is no whitewash and accurately observes the difficulties and occasional conflict arising between the creative people involved. Gilliam's description of the film as his "7th" release, on account of the film being written by writers other than himself - and therefore, not really 'his' film' - doesn't do the film itself justice.

Brad Pitt's portrayal of Goines is curiously engaging, although his character is not especially sympathetic. Watch for his slightly wall-eyed look in one of the scenes from the asylum. It's disturbing and distracting.

Probably a coincidence, the Louis Armstrong song 'What a Wonderful World' was used at the end of both '12 Monkeys' and the final episode of the TV series of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Both the film and the TV series also featured British actor Simon Jones.

'12 Monkeys' is a science fiction story that will entertain in the same way that the mental stimulation of a game of chess may entertain. It's not a mindless recreation, that's for sure.