TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: ingredients : starving artist lusting after a beautiful woman from his childhood synopsis : great expectations ( 1998 ) is a modernized version of a charles dickens novel .
in the original charles dickens classic
an orphan boy named pip learns about life through his friendship with an escaped convict , his relationship with a bitter old lady named miss havisham , and his hopeless lifetime infatuation with havisham 's snobbish adopted daughter , estella .
the gist of the story is that an anonymous benefactor sends pip to london for pip to become an upper class " gentleman .
"
pip leaves for london with " great expectations " to be groomed into a gentleman so that he can one day be classy enough to marry estella .
but life has a way of complicating things .
pip becomes an arrogant s .
o .
b .
until he learns just who his secret benefactor is .
in this new 1998 version of great expectations a poor florida lad named finn ( ethan hawke ) with a talent for drawing has an early memory of helping an escaped convict ( robert de niro ) .
but soon the focus of finn 's life becomes romance , as he develops a lifelong infatuation with estella ( gwyneth paltrow ) , an upper crust girl with some psychological and emotional issues due to being raised in a dysfunctional environment .
estella was raised in wealth by ms .
dinsmoor ( anne bancroft ) , an eccentric , aged and embittered , man - hating single aunt whose groom left her abandoned at the altar on the day of her marriage .
this causes estella to ' fear the daylight ' of relationships , but finn thinks it 's just a case of snobbery .
when finn becomes a young man , an anonymous benefactor sets finn up in new york with the connections and publicity to be groomed into a famous artist .
finn leaves florida with " great expectations " to be a successful artist so that some day he might become classy enough to marry the snobbish estella .
what will happen to all of finn 's " great expectations ?
" opinion : if you 're looking for a romance with a happy ending ,
look no further
; you 've found one here .
ethan hawke is romantic lead .
( he romanced winona ryder in reality bites .
he romanced julie delpy in before sunrise .
he romanced uma thurman in gattaca .
now in great expectations he gets to chase gwyneth paltrow , a rail - thin blonde . )
hawke plays a lovestruck , earnest and unchanged finn throughout the film .
meanwhile paltrow portrays estella as alternating between infuriating tease and ice princess ; estella 's whole purpose is to get men to fall in love and then hurt them rather than become intimate .
anne bancroft goes a little overboard as the deranged and pessimistic ms .
dinsmoor , while robert de niro carries off the convict part suitably .
the difference between the classic dickens novel and this 1998 adaptation is that the dickens novel is ripe with deep and timeless themes about class struggle and love , whereas great expectations ( 1998 ) is more artsy , less complicated story about a 1990s artist dealing with a lifetime tease .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: "
what 's your favorite new york moment ? "
" this one 's climbing the charts .
" starring john cusack , kate beckinsale , eugene levy , molly shannon .
directed by peter chelsom .
rated pg-13 .
there 's no doubt that 95 % of romantic comedies follow a distinct pattern
: guy sees girl , guy wants girl , guy goes through unreasonable obstacles to get girl , guy gets girl .
in rare cases , the genders are flipped .
predictability is a given .
rarely , though , is a romantic comedy as cheap , as obvious , or as pointless as serendipity , a film that uses its " theme " as an excuse for its plot contrivances .
" lightweight " does n't begin to describe it .
this is like anti - gravity .
it begins in a new york city bloomingdale 's , a product placement that rivals cast away 's fedex for sheer blatancy .
jonathan trager ( john cusack ) and sara thomas ( kate beckinsale ) both go for the same pair of gloves .
after going through the perfunctory motions , jonathan gets to keep the gloves and the two of them go out for ice cream , followed by ice skating .
jonathan falls hard , and sara is charmed . when she writes her name and number down on a piece of paper , a truck rumbles by and blows it out of her hand .
she takes this as a sign from fate that they should n't be together ; jonathan is flabbergasted . to pacify him , she comes up with an idea : jonathan will write his number on a 5 dollar bill , which she will promptly spend .
when she gets home , she will write her name and number inside a book ( " love in the time of cholera " ) and sell it to a used bookstore .
if the bill gets back to her or the book to him , it will mean that they are meant to be together .
three years later .
both sara and jonathan are now engaged to other love interests .
both realize they are n't content .
both go looking for the other .
what happens now is so absurd that i 'm almost tempted to recommend the film for the sake of seeing it .
the two of them run circles around each other in a set of incredible " coincidences " that i would describe as contrivances if it were n't for the film
oh - so - cleverly dismissing that criticism by building its plot around " serendipity .
"
of course , since the movie is about fate , the screenwriter can do anything he damn well pleases .
i 'm not buying it .
there 's no suspense in any of this because we know exactly what 's going to happen , but serendipity insists on drilling its purportedly " adorable " non - story into our heads .
instead of " will they meet ?
"
the question we 're asking is " when will they meet already ? " to make matters worse , every " coincidence " is telegraphed from a mile away ; by the last reel
i was bored enough to actively look for signs that something else " incredible " was going to happen .
cusack is fine and beckinsale , at least , is n't saddled with another lumbering , clunky screenplay ( she 's had bad luck , what with brokedown palace and pearl harbor on her resume ) , just an inanely pointless one .
serendipity also relieves the tedium with the amazing eugene levy , who plays a snarky bloomingdale 's salesman .
what 's the interest in watching a movie that spirals around and around a predestined
( no pun intended ) conclusion ?
serendipity wants to tug at the heartstrings , but it only tests our patience .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: there should be a requirement that a potential viewer be under a certain film iq in order to see " mission to mars .
"
there are probably quite a few people who are going to enjoy it , and most of them will probably be those who have seen very few films of its kind .
but there are those who will not , and those will most likely be people who have already seen one or more of the following movies :
" 2001 : a space odyssey , " " armageddon , " " apollo 13 , " " the abyss , " " close encounters of the third kind , " " e .
t .
the extra - terrestrial , " " alien , " and " aliens .
" why ? because
there is not one original idea in " mission to mars .
"
all of it is cribbed from other films ( and in most cases , better films ) .
if this is the sort of thing you do n't mind , you might like the film .
of course , there are other reasons not to like " mission to mars , " the main one being a script written by people who seem to assume their audience is filled with people who have n't used their brains in some time , and who do n't intend to start during the film 's running time .
" mission to mars " manages to be both stupid and boring at the same time .
the plot , cribbed greatly from " 2001 , " concerns a team sent to mars , the first manned trip ever made to the red planet .
luke graham ( don cheadle ) leads the team , jointly formed of americans and russians .
the team encounters a mysterious monolith that emits a strange pulse ( this being nothing like the pulse - emitting monolith in " 2001 " -- that one was on the * moon * ) , but when they try to study it , a giant sand tornado comes out of the top and swallows them ( all except luke , who survives long enough to send a garbled message back to the rotating space station , which looks strangely like the rotating space station in " 2001 " ) . a rescue mission is planned with husband & wife team woody blake ( tim robbins ) and terri fisher ( connie nielsen ) , obligatory pilot with a troubled past jim mcconnell ( gary sinise ) , and extra crew member phil ohlmyer ( jerry o'connell ) along for the ride .
after some zero - gravity dancing , they run into problems when one of their engines is blown , forcing them to attempt a desperate landing aboard a supply vessel .
now stranded on mars with minimal supplies , the team must decide whether or not it can risk entering the monolith or if they should return home .
after all , that monolith just might contain information about how life originated on earth .
" mission to mars " is one of those films that makes a critic wonder where to start when talking about all the things that are wrong with it , so let 's start with one of the things that does work : director brian de palma manages to create some eerie tension in a few scenes during the middle of the film .
that 's it .
everything else fails .
the failure is n't de palma 's fault ; he 's working from an atrocious script .
only during the sequence aboard the ship ( looking an awful lot like the jupiter vessel in " 2001 " ) where the rescue team 's air begins running out and they must frantically search for the hole and patch it up does " mission to mars " come to life .
a scene where they attempt to save a comrade floating away into space also provides some tension , until you realize that the entire danger / more danger / attempted rescue sequence has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film ; it 's just a contrived way to generate thrilling scenes .
take it out , and the plot is n't affected in any way .
the sequence also suffers from a few plot holes
( as does the rest of the film ) : why is the ship 's computer ( which sounds strangely like hal from , uh , " 2001 " ) able to detect a hole in the main chamber but not one in the engine ?
why did tim robbins ' character have to go outside the ship when the solution easily presented itself from inside ?
should n't the astronauts be better trained to deal with a hull breach ?
why are the characters such idiots ?
because the script makes little attempt to properly develop them .
all the " conflict " is clumsily delivered in excruciatingly obvious exposition in the opening scene ( which rips off orson welles and robert altman by utilizing a long opening tracking shot ) during which the characters repeatedly tell each other about things all of them should already know : " jim , it 's too bad you ca n't go on this mission because you were determined ' psychologically inadequate ' because your wife died right before you were to go on the mission together
" -- does anyone really talk like this ?
ca n't we find out these things in a less grating matter , like maybe in a flashback ?
the whole film is like that .
the filmmakers are not content to merely show us something and assume we know what 's going on ; they must * tell * us exactly what we 're looking at * every * time .
sample dialogue from the film : ( shot of mars ) astronaut
a : " look , there 's mars " astronaut b :
" you sure that 's mars ?
" astronaut a :
" yeah , that 's mars all right .
" astronaut c :
" hey , are you guys looking at mars ?
" that exchange is n't actually in " mission to mars , " but i would n't be surprised if it were .
for all their cribbing from kubrick , spielberg , james cameron , and even ron howard , the makers of this film have n't learned to do something all those directors did very well :
show and do n't tell .
de palma used to know how , but seems to have forgotten .
this is mentally - challenged filmmaking ; they assume the audience wo n't get what 's going on , so they explain everything five times over .
fourth - graders may appreciate this , but more learned viewers will have their intelligence insulted .
the principal actors sleepwalk their way through " mission to mars , " never managing to do away with an apparent " i 'm just here to get a paycheck " attitude .
cheadle stumbles over his awkward lines .
armin mueller - stahl manages to thoroughly embarrass himself in an unbilled cameo .
robbins puts his game face on and phones in his standard " decent guy " performance . and sinise hams it up with " wistful " facial expressions while watching tapes of his dead wife ( played by kim delaney , who only has one scene during which she still manages to deliver some ridiculous dialogue in a heavy - handed monologue about the meaning of life ) , and especially during the stolen - from - no - less - than - three - movies ( a lollipop to whoever names them ) conclusion , which combines endless , obvious explanation and sub - par cgi effects with gagging sentimentality and is sure to alienate any viewers who had been enjoying the show up until then .
and of course , these aliens from mars who facilitated the evolution of life on earth are entirely different from the aliens in " 2001 " who facilitated the evolution of life on earth ; those aliens were from an * unknown * world .
it could be said that fans of brainless action films might enjoy " mission to mars , " but such a comment ignores the fact that the film is also incredibly slow - going .
leisurely pacing might have helped a film with a little more substance to it , but all of the substance of " mission to mars " has been stolen from other films , and those other films dealt with their ideas in a much more thoughtful fashion and generally contained more engaging characters .
supposedly we 're intended to choke up when one character decides not to return home at the end of this one ( totally different from the one - character - decides - not - to - return ending of " armageddon " ) , but i suspect most people will either be laughing or groaning .
me , i alternated between the two .
there is only one good thing about the way " mission to mars
" finally ends : the fact that the movie is over .

SOLUTION:
N