In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Example: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
Example solution: N
Example explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Problem: if there were a subject just screaming to be made into a film , it was studio 54 , the late steve rubell 's infamous new york discotheque , which came to symbolize the taboo - smashing excesses of the disco era 's heyday : easy drugs and even easier sex between everyone , all set to a thumping dance beat .
so when miramax started production on _ 54 _ last year , the buzz of hype and resulting anticipation began : an edgy film as down - and - dirty as the club itself , written and directed by a promising first - timer ( mark christopher ) and starring some hot young talent ( salma hayek , neve campbell , newcomer ryan phillippe , and
mike myers in his dramatic debut ) .
my , how easily does the worm turn .
hype turned into damage control when word got out about 11th - hour reshoots
( wrapped only a month ago ) , a rash of studio - imposed edits that left virtually the entire cast and crew ( especially christopher )
unhappy , and the very likely possibility that miramax would not screen the finished film for critics .
at the last minute , though , miramax did decide to screen the film ( so hastily scheduled was the screening that myers 's last name was misspelled on the invitation , not to mention the numerous typos in the press notes ) for a media audience that came away noticeably less than impressed
, myself included .
and with good reason -- somehow , some way , the supremely disappointing
_
54 _ has made the historically hip haven of hedonism . . .
boring .
although christopher has distanced himself from the finished film , he still must shoulder some of the blame for _
54 _ 's lifelessness .
_
54 _ focuses , for the most part , on a tight - knit trio of employees at the club : coat check girl / aspiring disco diva anita ( a wasted hayek ) ; her busboy husband , greg ( breckin meyer ) ; and , most prominently , the fresh - from - jersey shane o'shea ( phillippe ) , who enjoys a quick rise from busboy to head bartender .
these characters are about as generic as those descriptions .
in focusing on the hired help , christopher really missed the boat .
with the exception of the flamboyant , always - woozy rubell ( myers , in a well - modulated turn ) , the meaty stories to be told at studio 54 are not the workers ' but those of the people who went there to party ; not necessarily the numerous vip guests , but the wild eccentrics who managed to be picked from the crowd by the club 's famously hard - ass doormen and dance ( among other things ) the night away with the rich , famous , and infamous ( the only taste of the crowd comes by way of ellen dow 's feisty dottie , a disco- and drug - crazed granny , but she 's a peripheral character at best ) . as such , aside from the expected overhead crowd shots , there is precious little actual _ dancing _ in _
54 _ .
what is a disco film -- especially one about the pinnacle of the movement -- without the dancing ?
even whit stillman 's _ the_last_days_of_disco _ , which was n't so much concerned with disco as it was witty dialogue within a group of hip - to - only - themselves club - hopping preppies , featured at least one extended dance scene .
dancing is n't the only thing glazed over in _ 54_--so
is the sex , but that may not be entirely christopher 's fault .
from what i 've heard , his original vision was something considerably more dark and daring , starting with the shane character : he was conceived ( and actually filmed ) as a wild , morally ambiguous bisexual , which would have made an efficient springboard to cover the pansexual pleasure palace aspect of studio 54 's legend .
but somewhere between principal photography and the final cut , shane was defanged and quite literally straightened out ; consequently , so was the film .
aside from a brief glimpse of erotic encounters toward the beginning of the film , shane 's fleeting dalliance with seductive socialite billie ( sela ward ) , and an abbreviated bedhopping montage , the sexual dimension is just about ignored .
shane , in this incarnation , is sanitized to the point of blandness ,
an idealistic do - gooder who pines for a frequent guest at the club , julie black ( campbell ) , a worldly soap star with , yes , a heart of gold .
this tacked - on " romance " would have been slightly less tedious if either campbell or phillippe made some connection with each other or the audience .
they fail on both counts .
ultimately , _ 54
_ 's failure comes down to three letters : f - u - n . as in , there is n't any to be had for the audience .
too much time is spent with the boring shane , and too little is spent on the club floor , where all the action took place .
anyhow , though , whatever time is spent on the 54 floor is not used very effectively .
when anita finally gets her big break and perform onstage at the club , it should be a euphoric height , for her , the crowd , and the audience ; however , the moment does n't get a chance to reach that level , for it is cut short by a moment of forced sentimentality , which also mars the film 's conclusion
( one of the last - minute reshoots ) . strangely upbeat and wistful , the resolution is wholly unconvincing and unsatisfying .
there is an interesting portrait of studio 54 out there -- two of them , in fact --
but _ 54 _ is not one of them .
they 're on cable tv :
a couple of documentaries produced by e ! and vh1 . these two fascinating looks at the club and all the sordid goings - on within it show that there 's still a great disco movie to be made .
the problem is , after the critical and certain box office failure of _ 54 _ , the subject may have run its hollywood course .
Solution: N