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

Answer: This is a fantastic series first and foremost. It is very well done and very interesting. As a huge WWII buff, I had learned a lot before seeing this series. One of the best things this has going for it is all the interviews with past individuals back when the war was relatively fresh in their minds, comparatively speaking that is. It is nothing against the men that you see getting interviewed in the programs of today, it is just that most of these men weren't really involved in the upper echelons of what was happening then. One of the best parts is the narrating by Sir Laurence Oliver. I would recommend this to anyone that wants to learn about WWII, but really think only the die-hards (such as myself) will want to buy this or watch it more than once. My only real complaint about this entire series is that some of the facts aren't quite as accurate as we now know. Especially with the information about Soviet Union is exaggerated or just plain inaccurate in places. That information is now different we now know because of the fall of the USSR. Overall a fascinating look at WWII and a must see for any serious WWII historian professional or personal alike.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
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Answer: I haven't seen "Henry Fool", but after watching "Fay Grim" I'm not sure I want to. Maybe Hartley aims to be the "anti-thriller" director---he sure succeeded with this yawner. Based on the official description---woman discovers that her dead husband's manuscript contains material that could pose a threat to national security---I expected a taut geopolitical drama. Instead I got flimsy structure, goofy dialog, flabby characterizations, a convoluted plot, and a "tone" that shifts so often it suggests that Hartley changed the script according to his mood at any given time. I can hang for a long time with a frustrating, hard-to-follow plot (e.g. "Duplicity") because I figure that the loose ends eventually will come together. Even when they don't, or they do but they leave lingering questions (e.g. "Duplicity"), sharp writing and acting can hold one's interest. But half-way through "Fay Grim" I reached a deadly realization---I didn't know what was going on, and I didn't care. Too bad, because I really like Parker Posey, reduced here to working with an absurd part that asked her to morph from indifferent, estranged wife and indifferent, clueless mother to tough, shrewd international "player" capable of psychological mano a mano with terrorists. There's also bad casting. Jeff Goldblum can be very good, but he's not capable of overcoming miscasting as a CIA operative. He looks almost as uncomfortable in the role as I was watching him in it. His CIA sidekick is worse; he looks like a refugee from the quarterfinals of "American Idol" (are there really young CIA agents with big licks of hair rakishly draped over their foreheads?). Then there's the sticky question of the characters' ages. Goldblum was 54 when he made "Fay Grim"; Thomas Jay Ryan, who plays "Henry Fool", was 44. Neither was made to look or seem older than their actual ages. Yet, a key point in the story is that they served as CIA agents in Nicaragua "back in the '70s." Goldblum's character would've been in his 20s then; Henry Fool would've been a teenager. Was Hartley being "quirky" or lazy? The problems are too numerous to list...
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Only a handful of the segments are engaging here. A segment with a garage attendant from Nigeria is heartbreaking. One with Fanny Ardent & Bob Hoskins makes its point, twist by twist until the final shot overplays things.

The problem with this movie is that only a few of the clips invoke Paris. The others are so scatter-shot in theme, tone, volition & production that you may as well be watching "The Years Best Commercials, 2006." It's really all over the place. It doesn't develop over it's running time, and nothing reigns the directors in. No construct successfully joins the pieces... tedium sets in. I'm at the one hour, twenty minute point and Elijah Wood is in some dumb, over-commercial, overproduced vampire shtick. It has about as much to do with Paris as old ladies knitting in the Antartic. Fantasy shows up I think first in the Coen Brothers segment (Uh, thanks J & E for ruining another movie) and then makes way too many appearances. The point of being in Paris is that you don't need make-believe crap to make your days extraordinary. Why divide it by neighborhood if Quartier de la Madeleine is equated with vampires for some loser director? Has there ever been a genre more over-represented than the vampire film. Every three years we get the same lame vampire cliches.

Making things worse is that the switch from segment to segment is pretty artless. The transitions get lost. This doesn't feel intentional, it feels sloppy.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: When Marlene Dietrich was labeled box office poison in 1938 one of a handful of actresses so named by the trades papers, it was films like The Garden Of Allah. How a film could be so breathtakingly beautiful to behold and be so insipidly dull is beyond me. Also how Marlene if she was trying to expand her range and not play a sexpot got stuck with such an old fashioned story is beyond me.

The Garden Of Allah, one of the very first films in modern technicolor was a novel set at the turn of the last century by Robert Hitchens who then collaborated on a play adaption with Mary Anderson that ran for 241 performances in 1911-12. It then got two silent screen adaptions. The story is about a monk who runs away from the monastery out in French Tunisia to see some of what he's missed in the world. He runs into a similarly sheltered woman who was unmarried and spent her prime years caring for a sick parent. She's traveling now in the desert and the two meet on a train.

The woman is of course Marlene and the runaway monk is Charles Boyer. I'm not sure what was in David O. Selznick's mind in filming this story. Someone like Ingrid Bergman might have made it palatable for the audience. But you can bet that the movie-going public of 1936 when they plunked their money down for a ticket they expected to see Marlene as a modern day Salome rather than a saint with that title. The public still remembered Rudolph Valentino and you can bet that it was some desert romance and seduction that they were expecting.

As for the monks you have to remember that they are self supporting in their monasteries and this particular one bottles a special wine of which Boyer happens to be the one with the secret. The monastery will have to rethink it's economics if Boyer leaves. The monks are a sincerely pious group, but from the head man Charles Waldron on down they've a right to be a little concerned with some self interest.

Anyway a whole lot of religious platitudes get said here by a pair of leads that really are not suited for the parts. Most especially Marlene Dietrich. I would watch this film with an eye for the special color desert cinematography and forget the plot.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
1993 was the year. This was long before Phillip Seymour Thomas had won an Oscar. Who knew I would be an extra in a movie with him? I was actually a paid extra in "My Boyfriend's Back," which was shot in a suburb of Austin called Georgetown, TX. The original title was "Johnny Zombie" (thank God the producers had a change of heart!) I was in the theater scene. I rushed out to watch the movie the day it was released in theaters. It is more of a comedy than a horror movie. But... for a good laugh, you might want to check it out. Nothing that is even close to "Dawn of the Dead" or even "Shaun of the Dead" quality, but the cheese factor is good enough. ciao