Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
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Answer: Squeamish 11-year-old Luke Benward (as Billy "Worm Boy" Forrester) moves to a new town. At his new school, young Benward is picked on by the other boys. They put worms in his thermos. Getting his gag reflex under control, Benward tosses a worm on freckle-faced bully Adam Hicks (as Joe Guire). Benward bets he can eat 10 worms in one day - without regurgitation!

Tall, teased Hallie Kate Eisenberg (as Erika "Erk" Tansy) uses her archery skills to help Benward. Director and former SCTV writer Bob Dolman promises, "No worms were harmed in the making of this movie." In a related note, SCTV star Andrea Martin has one funny scene. "How to Eat Fried Worms" is loosely based on Thomas Rockwell's popular novel. Pre-teen kids into gross-outs should enjoy the film.

**** How to Eat Fried Worms (8/25/06) Bob Dolman ~ Luke Benward, Adam Hicks, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Alexander Gould
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: This would've been a *great* silent film. The acting really is good, at least in a Look Ma, I'm Doing Really Big Acting! sort of way.

Everything is HUGE. Every line is PROFOUND! Every scene is SHATTERED BY HUMAN TRAGEDY!

Mostly, I felt like gagging. Yet, like any train wreck, I couldn't tear my eyes away. This dialogue might've worked on the stage, although I doubt it. On the screen, it was cluttered, haphazard, hackneyed and pretty much every other stereotypical negative adjective you can come up with to describe a really bad dramatic work.

If you enjoy your melodrama in huge, heaping doses, you *might* enjoy the movie. Be prepared to wait, however. For all that melodrama, this thing sure plods along at its own pace.

This script must've sounded a lot different when the actors involved were reading it to themselves. It simply doesn't work once they get around to delivering it in front of the camera.

IMDB does us a great disservice, at times, when it uses its goofy computer-controlled "weighted score". Curse of the Starving Class deserves less than a 1.

Character-driven fiction is great, but when you develop your characters by simply pushing them through hoops with no plausible explanation for their maturation or evolution, it isn't character development! Your characters must have a motivation. Being drunk for a while and waking up in a field is *not* character development. That's a plot contrivance.

Stay away from this movie. Or at the very least, watch it muted. Perhaps you'll get some amusement from all the arm-waving the characters do.

Oh, and word to the wise -- to prove that this is truly an artsy film, you see James Woods in all his dangly male "look-at-me, I'm-the-figurative-and-literal-representation-of-the-naked-vulnerability-of- man" glory.

Don't say you weren't warned.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: SOME NOT-SO-SPOILY SPOILERS AHEAD

Why do people, when they are disoriented or sick or scared at a club, cut through the middle of the crowded dance floor on their way to the bathroom?

Who in their right mind would hide under a bed when someone breaks into their room?

How often do you knock on a stranger's door and when they don't IMMEDIATELY answer, you open the door, walk in, shout a few hello's and then start going through their stuff?

If you were being pursued by someone you just discovered was a murderer, what would you do? Quietly sneak off and hide under a wooden platform or among metal implements? Run, quietly of course, to a ratty old barn or other decrepit structure?

I could be talking about almost any thriller that's come out in the last few years, but since this is the "The Return" page, obviously I'm talking about "The Return." I saw it free because I work at a movie theater and make a point of screening all the "scary" movies. I thought this one was tolerable... aside from the well-worn cliches. Sarah Michelle Gellar is really drab and looks kind of "Huh?" through most of the film. The details of the plot are slowly given out as the movie progresses and it's almost enough to make it interesting except there wasn't enough explanation as it moved on and so I was almost lost until the last 2/3 of it.

If you're a die-hard thriller fan, it's worth seeing at least once. If there's nothing better at the theater and you really want to watch a movie, eh, I guess it's worth a matinee ticket. If you thought the trailer made it look like an interesting movie and you can't wait... wait.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: A complete waste of time

Halla Bol is a complete waste of time. The script and dialogues are poorly written, the direction is lacklustre and the acting borders on hammy.This movie was clearly aiming for the Rang De Basanti crowd but it falls far short of the mark because it does not have even one of the elements that made RDB connect with its audience_great script, terrific acting, good direction and a powerful social message that was never preached but shown.

Compared to that near-masterpiece, Halla Bol takes a step backwards by resorting to scenes such as the hero taking a leak on the villain's Persian rug and the hero's mentor staring down bullets in a truck no less! All of this might have been acceptable in the 80s when there was a downturn in movie quality and bad movies like DivyaShakti and Phool Aur Kaante became big hits, but movie-making has become_should have become_more subtle and thoughtful of late.

Rajkumar Santoshi is a capable director and I appreciate that he wants to give a social message in every movie he makes but maybe he simply does not know how to do it! He resorts to sermonizing without a care as to the audience's intelligence in understanding what he is trying to say. Maybe he should just concentrate on entertainment and leave the social messages to the Rakeysh Mehras and Aamir Khans.

Even if you don't agree with everything I say, you will agree that throughout the screening you will be thinking that Rang De Basanti was much much better and Mr.Santoshi should have left the industry-bashing to Om Shanti Om. Industry-bashing? That's right!!Santoshi has depicted the industry as a place of back-biting, bitching and the casting couch which the hero happily indulges in with a starlet curiously named Sania. There are some people who will think that these portions show the real face of the industry. Don't believe everything you see!

All in all, raise your voice against movies like this and don't spend your hard-earned money on this bomb.

* out of ****.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
=++++=
Answer:
I love Alec Guinness. And that's saying a lot after this film. Actually, he is not bad in it. He just seems to stand aside, be urbane and his usual delightful self, but invest nada. It is obvious the girl he is matched with is a featherweight, even as an inexperienced young French girl. Sir Alec wouldn't have chosen her when he was young and very obviously isn't too happy about it now.

The interesting character is the brooding brother of the odd "Suzanne", another twit. "Donald" aspires to be a French Heathcliffe and I waited in vain for the source of his mystery. What deep dark secret was he hiding behind that forehead? Was he in love with the father's mistress? Why did he jerk Suzanne's hair when she plotted to bring the disparate parts of this turkey together on the country estate? Or perhaps he had simply had enough of her obnoxious acting.

The film would have been charming with Guiness and the "older woman" reminiscing and seeing Paris together. THAT would have been a great story! Two lovely experienced people in a beautiful city after the destruction of World War II. Why didn't somebody come up with that? I suggest watching Alec Guiness in "The Card", a little known but worthwhile film.