Part 1. Definition
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Part 2. 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 )
Answer: N
Explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").
Part 3. Exercise
a silly film that tries to be a black comedy but plays more like lightweight comedy , with its main asset being a beautiful film location along spain 's mountainous coastline .
howard pigeon ( jeff goldblum ) is a 40-year - old mineral water salesman who is married for 13 years to a wife constantly nagging him , elizabeth ( mimi rogers ) .
after a surprise birthday party for him , where his wife bawls him out for coming late to his surprise party , he confides to his best friend that he ca n't stand it anymore , and then tells him his plan to kill her while vacationing in the same barcelona hotel where they spent their honeymoon .
jeff is going through a severe mid - life crises , worried that he looks older than his age .
he incessantly talks to himself , mostly agonizing over his bitter marriage and chastising himself why he went out with elizabeth for a second time , and then why he married her just because she laughed at his jokes and was attractive .
he stutters and acts like a man who has lost his confidence .
things change on their vacation , as elizabeth makes an effort to be nice while jeff now becomes the grouch .
he nervously rehearses his murder plan in the hotel room .
by accident the gun goes off and into the pillow where he imagined elizabeth would be sitting .
when other hotel guests and staff come to check about the gunshot , he nervously explains that it was the tv .
realizing how unworkable his plan is , he places the gun in the shattered pillow and throws it into the ocean while he waits for elizabeth .
but elizabeth found his behavior odd during the entire trip , and when after a great deal of effort to get a reservation at the hotel 's 5 star restaurant he insists on eating in the room , she decides she had enough of him and checks out without telling him .
as a result , he goes to the police to report her missing .
while with the police , a telegram comes from his wife saying she left him and is going away because she wants to be alone .
his boss and all those he works with are sympathetic to him , and he gets a job promotion .
but soon the pillow with the gun is fished out of the water , giving the police cause to arrest him and search his home .
there they find letters he has written incriminating him to the murder .
the police also find out from the hotel staff about the gunshot heard in his room .
in jail , things look bad for him .
no one believes him , including his friends and lawyer .
his boss fires him and the papers have a field day with the headline story :
pigeon : a jailbird .
out on bail , he realizes that his only hope is to track down his wife .
through a call placed on his credit card , he tracks her down to a mountain resort .
once there he learns that she took a hike up the steep mountain and he gets a priest to be his mountain guide after telling him the true story .
the film is watchable just for the antics of the jeff goldblum comic performance .
he is someone coming apart by the seams , while mimi rogers is his perfect foil .
it was mostly pantomine humor , with the comedy charged in the changing facial expressions of the characters and the absurdity of the situation .
a very minor farce that might appeal to the sitcom crowd .
the film just did n't take its situation seriously and the story had many gaps in it , so it had no chance for black humor to develop .
it instead played its set - up of the henpecked husband acting out his fantasy strictly for entertainment value to see how many chuckles it could draw .
Answer:
N