An example of a movie review. negative.

A: Four years after making his directorial debut with the art-house snoozer "Welcome To L.A.", Alan Rudolph shows us what he really wanted from Hollywood was to be one of the guys. "Roadie" is a frat-boy fracas complete with barroom brawls, horny harpies, Art Carney in a souped-up wheelchair...and Meat Loaf at the wheel. Meat Loaf (playing Travis W. Redfish!) is actually a rather charming presence on the screen, and perhaps in a smaller role (in a better movie) he might indeed be ingratiating, but Zalman King's script is full of stereotypical redneck humor and helpless Meat Loaf is kept wide-eyed and moronic. Alice Cooper, Roy Orbison, Hank Williams, Jr., and Blondie all make appearances--and all look embarrassed. They certainly should, "Roadie" is one bad trip. NO STARS from ****

An example of a movie review. negative.

A: The second half of Steven Soderbergh's revolutionary bio on Che Guevara deals with his last campaign to export revolution to Bolivia. In order to maintain his saintly visage of Che Soderbergh conveniently leap frogs the mass executions he presided over after the revolution in Cuba and the folly of his Congo adventure ("This is the history of a failure" he writes in the preface of his Congo Journal) to concentrate fully on Che's attempt to rally support to rise up against the government in Bolivia. It would turn out to be a disaster and Guevara's final act.

What plagued the first chapter follows suit here as Soderbergh slows his film to a crawl to study the beatific countenance of the contemplative Guevara once again being played like James Dean in East of Eden by Bernicio Del Toro. The problem is Guevara has little success in gaining converts and he soon finds himself and his starving comrades being swallowed up in the heart of darkness Bolivian Jungle. Unlike Werner Herzog in the magnificent, Aguirre, the Wrath of God Soderbergh fails to utilize the jungle's metaphorical possibilities to heighten the desperation of the guerrillas. He seems more concerned with keeping Che's nimbus above his head than exploring the panic setting in on the dead enders. There is one Herzogian moment where Che sits astride an obstinate horse kicking and screaming to get it moving but overall Soderbergh's mise en scene remains flat, sloppy and uninteresting.

In both of his films Soderbergh shows he is clearly a Che groupie and because of it his focus remains myopic and narrow. He spends too much time building his monument to Che and too little in developing his relationships with key players in his saga, especially Fidel Castro. Making matters worse he does it with a slow and dispassionate approach that never catches fire. One would think he was steeped in enough Eisenstein and Vertov to realize that sweeping change is showcased a lot better with sweeping style.

An example of a movie review. positive.

A:
There's more to offer in the opening of The Odd Couple than in the entirety of most films. Felix Unger (the poor guy's monogram even curses him) checks into a New York hotel. A cleaning lady says "Good night." "Goodbye," he answers back. In his room he empties his pockets, then struggles to take off his wedding ring only to put the objects neatly into an envelope, addressed to his wife and beloved children. When the viewer finally puts it together aha, he's going to off himself we watch him struggle to open the window oh no, he's going to jump The poor guy injures his lower back. This is all you need to know about Felix Unger his wife has left him, he's a compulsive cleaner and he's a hypochondriac. And all in one scene. This is the particular genius of Neil Simon's comedy it's about situation and character. There are few obvious physical jokes no kicks to the groin, no cheap gags just funny characters in uncomfortable situations. And, of course, he is a master of manipulating the audience's expectations. Coming from the Swingers era, imagine what I thought in the date scene when Felix starts lamenting about the breakup of his marriage to the girls his roommate Oscar has worked so hard to get into his apartment. He's blowing it, right? Think again. The girls love his sensitivity, his ability to cry in front of them. They invite him back to their place since his meatloaf has burned because Oscar wasn't paying enough attention to it. He's in like Flynn, right? Uh, yes, but he doesn't want to go with the girls because he's feeling vulnerable. Great stuff. And it's made even greater with a style that minimizes editing and maximizes the wonderful eight-room apartment set. You've got Jack Lemmon and the slouchy, pouchy Walter Matthau for Chrissakes, why mess it up? The visual style reminded me of Breakfast at Tiffany's, in that great effect is made from a large depth of field and the interplay between the various planes of action. Particularly memorable is the scene in which Felix, fleeing from Oscar, closes a partition only to realize the partition doesn't cover the side where Oscar is coming from. You get a real sense of the layout of the apartment, and thus the proximity in which the two divorcees live. The twist here is that these two are really married to each other. So the observations about married life that might be ignored in an ordinary romantic comedy are made all the more poignant since they are two guys.