TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: i have no real tangible proof of this , but i swear that there are a lot of producers in hollywood who adamantly believe that if you take a bad script , written by a bad writer and give the project it to an equally bad director , then it is actually possible to make a good movie . using their logic , all that really needs be done to change the bad movie into a good movie is cast a bunch of super - famous actors and provide an almost unlimited production budget .
this is the only way i can fathom how 20th century fox hired jon amiel in order to direct this eighty million dollar waste of my time
( not counting the time it took me to get to and from the theatre ) .
now , before i continue to ferociously attack what 's wrong with this film , i just want to point out that one of the reasons it fails so miserably is because it does have the potential to be an exciting thriller .
catherine zeta - jones plays virginia baker , an insurance investigator tracking down an infamous art thief named robert macdougal ( sean connery ) .
if you 've ever seen any hollywood blockbuster before , i really do n't have to spend too much time on frivolous plot details : the two team up for various jobs , stealing various things for various purposes .
the problem we come to is that we 've all seen this a few billion times before and this film does n't break any new ground in the big - budget / hollywood / action genre .
the result is that the entire production feels contrived
.
i 'm going to be completely honest here : pretty much the only thing keeping me awake throughout the run - time was looking at catherine zeta - jones .
now while this may be a compliment for ms .
zeta - jones , it certainly is n't for either the writers or the director , who are not nearly as clever as they think they are .
just about the most profound thought they can inject into this film is when they have macdougal lecture baker on the semantic difference between " entrapment " and " blackmail " .
with an eighty million dollar budget , you 'd think that entrapment would at least feature edge - of - your seat action scenes or breathtaking special f
/ x . well , you 'd be wrong .
the action that is present in this film takes place in a huge skyscraper and is relatively unspectacular .
unfortunately for all those involved with entrapment , die hard narrowly beat it to the screen by ? 11 years .
the reality is that after 15 minutes of watching this picture , you know exactly what 's going to happen , despite rather pathetic attempts in the screenplay to throw in plot twists .
many scenes seem to exist merely as a reason to outfit zeta - jones in extremely tight - fitting clothing .
one particular scene features baker crawling around trying to avoid laser - beams while she tries to steal an ancient chinese mask .
nothing wrong with that , but she entered the room from the floor and knew exactly where the mask was -
so why did n't she and macdougal tunnel in directly under the mask instead of the other side of the room ?
i 'll tell you why : because it 's a great excuse to photograph zeta - jones ' posterior as it slides underneath those beams ( and it also allows a second scene of the exact same thing - the rehearsal ) .
ving rhames also makes an appearance in this movie , and though he has great screen presence ( although so do connery and zeta - jones ) and the most interesting character in the film , not even he can rescue this film from the depths of the boring film abyss
( a concept i invented just to describe this picture ) .
one last complaint : entrapment is littered of instances where macdougal will just slip into a shadow or behind a building , or he becomes obstructed by a moving vehicle and then in the next shot , he 'll spontaneously disappear in ninja - like fashion .
i can picture amiel patting himself on the back , thinking to himself " it 'll leave the audience wondering for days
: how did he do that ?
"
we know jon , it 's called editing .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: weighed down by tired plot lines and spielberg 's reliance on formulas ,
_ saving private ryan _ is a mediocre film which nods in the direction of realism before descending into an abyss of cliches .
there ought to be a law against steven spielberg making movies about truly serious topics .
spielberg 's greatest strength as a director is the polished , formulaic way in which every aspect of the film falls carefully into place to make a perfect story .
but for a topic of such weight as combat in the second world war ( or the holocaust ) this technique backfires , for it creates coherent , comprehensible and redemptive narratives out of events whose size , complexity and evil are utterly beyond the reach of human ken .
in this way spielberg trivializes the awesome evil of the stories he films .
_ saving private ryan _ tells the story of eight men who have been detailed on a " pr mission " to pull a young man , ryan ( whose three other brothers were just killed in fighting elsewhere ) out of combat on the normandy front just after d - day .
ryan is a paratrooper who dropped behind enemy lines the night before the landings and became separated from his fellow soldiers .
the search for him takes the eight soldiers across the hellish terrain of world war ii combat in france .
there 's no denying spielberg came within shouting distance of making a great war movie .
the equipment , uniforms and weapons are superbly done .
the opening sequence , in which captain miller ( tom hanks ) leads his men onto omaha beach , is quite possibly the closest anyone has come to actually capturing the unendurably savage intensity of modern infantry combat .
another pleasing aspect of the film is spielberg 's brave depiction of scenes largely unknown to american audiences , such as the shooting of prisoners by allied soldiers , the banality of death in combat , the routine foul - ups in the execution of the war , and the cynicism of the troops .
the technical side of the film is peerless , as always .
the camera work is magnificent , the pacing perfect , the sets convincing , the directing without flaw .
hanks will no doubt be nominated for an oscar for his performance , which was utterly convincing , and the supporting cast was excellent , though ted danson seems a mite out of place as a paratroop colonel .
yet the attempt at a realistic depiction of combat falls flat on its face because realism is not something which can be represented by single instances or events .
it has to thoroughly permeate the context at every level of the film , or the story fails to convince .
throughout the movie spielberg repeatedly showed only single examples of the grotesque wounds produced by modern mechanized devices ( exception : men are shown burning to death with relative frequency ) .
for example , we see only one man with guts spilled out on the ground .
here and there men lose limbs ; in one scene miller is pulling a man to safety , there 's an explosion , and miller looks back to see he is only pulling half a man .
but the rest of the corpses are remarkably intact .
there are no shoes with only feet in them , no limbs scattered everywhere , no torsos without limbs , no charred corpses , and most importantly , all corpses have heads ( in fairness there are a smattering of wicked head wounds ) .
the relentless dehumanization of the war , in which even corpses failed to retain any indentity , is soft - pedaled in the film .
ultimately , _ saving private ryan _ bows to both hollywood convention and the unwritten rules of wartime photography in its portrayal of wounds and death in war .
rather than saying _ saving private ryan _ is " realistic , " it would be better to describe it as " having realistic moments .
" another aspect of the " hollywoodization " of the war is the lack of realistic dialogue and in particular , the lack of swearing .
anyone familiar with the literature on the behavior of the men during the war , such as fussell 's superb _ wartime : understanding and behavior in the second world war _ ( which has an extensive discussion on swearing ) , knows that the troops swore fluently and without letup .
" who is this private ryan that we have to die for him ?
" asks one infantrymen in the group of eight . rendered in wartime demotic , that should have been expressed as " who is this little pecker that we have to get our dicks shot off for him ?
"
or some variant thereof .
conversations should have been literally sprinkled with the " f " word , and largely about ( the search for ) food and sex .
this is all the more inexplicable because the movie already had an " r " rating due to violence , so swearing could not possibly have been eliminated to make it a family film . however ,
the most troubling aspect of the film is the spielbergization of the topic .
the most intense hell humans have ever created for themselves is not emotionally wrenching enough for steven spielberg .
he can not just cede control to the material ; he has to be bigger than it .
as if afraid to let the viewer find their own ( perhaps unsettled and not entirely clear ) emotional foothold in the material , spielberg has to package it in hallmark moments to give the war a meaning and coherence it never had : the opening and closing scenes of ryan and his family in the war cemetary ( reminscent of the closing scene from _ schindler 's list ) , the saccharine exchange between ryan and his wife at the close ( every bit as bad as schindler 's monologue about how his car , tiepin or ring could have saved another jew ) , quotes from abraham lincoln and emerson , captain miller 's last words to private ryan , and an unbelievable storyline in which a prisoner whom they free earlier in the movie comes back to kill the captain .
that particular subplot is so hokey , so predictable , it nigh on ruins the film .
nowhere in the film is there a resolute depiction of the meaninglessness , stupidity and waste which characterized the experience of war to the men who actually fought in combat ( imagine if miller had been killed by friendly fire or collateral damage ) .
because of its failure to mine deeply into the terrible realities of world war ii , _ saving private ryan _ can only pan for small truths in the shallows . .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: screen story by kevin yagher and andrew kevin
walker .
screenplay by andrew kevin walker .
inspired by the short story the legend of sleepy hollow by washington irving .
directed by tim burton .
starring johnny depp , christina ricci , and casper van dien .
special appearances by christopher lee and christopher walken .
synopsis : investigator ichabod crane journeys to
1799 sleepy hollow to investigate a series of murders involving decapitation .
townspeople believe the spirit of a dead german mercenary is threatening them .
cute blonde katrina and a listless orphan help crane solve the mystery .
comments : tim burton has directed a number of entertaining and groundbreaking films over the years .
batman , of course , is perhaps his best - known film and led to a string of less successful sequels .
he 's done biographical work ( on the director ed wood ) , children 's movies ( nightmare before christmas ) , and a homage to alien invasion movies ( mars attacks ! ) .
sleepy hollow , his newest feature which fans have been anticipating for a while , shares the similar dark and atmospheric style of his earlier work and counts among his better movies .
sleepy hollow quite obviously draws its inspiration from the old period horror films of the 1950s and 1960s , especially hammer studios ' reworkings of dracula and frankenstein , and american international 's series of movies based on the works of edgar allan poe .
christopher lee , in fact , star of many hammer productions over the years , appears at the beginning of sleepy hollow as a judge who sends ichabod crane out to investigate the murders .
the movie also borrows from the universal monster movies of the 1930s .
one of the climatic scenes involves a windmill and obviously takes its cue from frankenstein .
i mention these allusions for a reason .
seasoned horror film fans , including myself , will smile at their inclusion in this film .
with the recent disappointments in theatrically released horror movies , especially the blair witch project ( the most overblown turkey of the decade ) , we needed a film like this .
not only does it have a sense of history , but burton 's skillful use of setting and mood make this an entertaining exercise in horror .
the film 's eerie landscapes and foggy towns , indeed , overshadow the actors and the plot as the most noteworthy aspect of the movie .
johnny depp , a veteran tim burton actor who has appeared both in ed wood and edward scissorhands , plays ichabod crane , who has apparently changed occupations from irving 's original story and is now an investigator .
depp is adequate in his role .
no more ; no less .
equally adequate is christina ricci , who plays the love interest in the film .
she 's a good witch too .
how cute .
one of the few weak parts of sleepy hollow is the wooden and cliched dialogue between the main characters .
the two actors , however , carry the movie well enough , but the supporting cast is what makes this movie shine .
veteran actors such as jeffrey jones and michael gough ( who played the butler alfred in all four recent batman flicks ) are terrific
as the aging townsfolk involved in the conspiracy which depp uncovers . while i do not wish to reveal crucial plot points , i can say that the storyline becomes quite confusing .
you have to pay attention .
andrew kevin walker wrote the screenplay .
he 's the one who also wrote 8 mm and seven .
walker is quickly becoming one of the premiere suspense writers in hollywood , and sleepy hollow
certainly does n't hurt his growing reputation .
as one might imagine from a gentleman like walker , sleepy hollow is quite graphic .
there 's a lot of blood and a lot of beheadings .
this is definately not a flick to take the young kids to .
a lady in front of us took her two young sons to see it and spent about 25 - 30 minutes covering the youngest 's eyes with her hand .
he was obviously upset by the movie 's intense violence .
if you 're looking for a good scare , however , sleepy hollow is definately recommended .

SOLUTION:
P