Problem: OPTIONS:
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- positive negative
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Answer: I've never found Charley Chase very funny, even though his on-screen character sometimes reminds me of John Cleese, whom I find VERY funny. (Charley Chase also reminds me of gowky Hen Broon from Scotland's 'Sunday Post' comics page.) In Chase's best films, I tend to admire his professionalism rather than laughing at him. I'll give Chase credit that his very best films -- such as 'Mighty Like a Moose' and 'His Wooden Wedding' -- have inspired a fandom who are fiercely loyal to him ... but I'm positive that even the most die-hard Chase fan will agree that the very early and very crude 'Married to Order' just isn't funny at all.

Chase -- eager, awkward, gormless, naff -- is a young swain hoping to court the fair Rose. Oliver Hardy gives the best performance in this film as her blowhard father, who disdains Chase as a 'mollycoddle'. Leo White, who did more notable work as a foil for Chaplin at Essanay, is on hand here as a rival.

There's some action involving an Ingersoll watch. I was intrigued that the brand name is mentioned in the dialogue titles: is this an early example of product-placement?

Sadly, a major flaw in 'Married to Order' is the casting of Rosemary Theby as Rose: she's meant to be a standard-issue ingenue, but Theby -- flat-chested, hawk-faced -- is physically wrong for the role. Theby (the wife of Harry Myers) had a successful career as a screen actress, but was never a believable ingenue. Film historian William K Everson dealt with her very dismissively in one of his film books.

I'll rate 'Married to Order' just 3 out of 10, and I'm being charitable ... because I keep suspecting that Charley Chase has got something that everyone else gets but I keep missing.
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Rated E

I never actually owned a Nintendo 64 but I have played one many times.In my opinion along with Conkers Bad Fur Day, Super Mario 64 is one of the best video games for the Nintendo 64 system.I have played this game plenty of times and its good every time.If you have an N64 and don't have this game you should try to find it.The original Super Mario Bros games were side scrolling video games but Super Mario 64 has a 3D Mario in a nice 3D environment.The game is sort of weird but there is plenty of things you can do in the game.You play as Super Mario and once again you must rescue Princess and the 120 power stars from Bowzer.Now you can do it in a 3D environment.Super Mario 64 is a very fun and good N64 game and I recommend it.

10/10
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: As the film opens, two thugs kill another thug. When the body is discovered and about to be autopsied, the doctor realizes that although the man was shot dead, he was also suffering from the Pneumonic plague--a very nasty and more virulent version of the Bubonic plague! So, it's a race against time to find those who came in contact with the dead man and treat them immediately, otherwise a disaster could erupt.

Oddly, I actually know quite a bit about the Pneumonic plague, as I taught a series of lectures on it for my history classes. The film really did not do a good job of getting the facts right about the disease in that it looked little like what the people had in the movie. The biggest problem is that this illness is so incredibly grotesque that in 1950 they really wouldn't have been allowed to show it. Sure, there is high fever and coughing (they got this right) but also lots of bleeding and explosive vomiting of blackened blood--along with the enormously swollen lymph nodes like you'd get with the Bubonic plague--all purply and gross! I can certainly understand why they didn't go this far. Also, I am sure that the federal government would have had a much, much greater involvement in controlling and treating the disease--here in the film it was handled on a very local level and everyone seemed ill-prepared and a bit dumb. No one seemed willing to believe the doctors!! As for the acting, the film had some excellent actors here. Richard Widmark and Paul Douglas are, respectively, the public health doctor and police chief. Good actors but also known actors back in 1950. However, in his first film is the very menacing Jack Palance (still going by his original moniker, 'Walter Jack Palance') as well as the relatively unknown (at the time) Zero Mostel. Palance was great--very scary and very physically adept in his own stunts. Mostel played a heavy typical of his early work--a greasy and cowardly sort of evil.

Overall, despite really not getting the details right and wrapping everything up a little too neatly, the film is very tense and has excellent acting--and is well worth seeing.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: This film's premise is so simple and obvious that only a Texas millionaire high on oil fumes and whiskey would have a problem understanding it if someone shouted it across the proverbial parking lot. In summary: the oil business is in cahoots with The Government (or Gummint if you prefer), the Gummint is in cahoots with Middle Eastern despots, and the CIA is a singular festering pool of double dealing sons-of-(insert word) willing to toe any line that comes their way. The only people that get done over are the good ones, like Mr Clooney ("Bob"). Oh, and terrorism is a result of the poverty which globalization creates when wicked multinationals stalk the world looking for a tasty takeover or three . That really fits to the profiles of the well-heeled 9/11 perpetrators.

In Syriana this facile tissue of political half-truths and Hollywood holograms is stirred up in a repugnant vermicelli of story strands that twist, turn and whirl through the gloopy circumlocutions of their own insignificance until the poor viewer is left alone with the conclusion that:

1. the "director" (good joke) should never be let near a camera again

2. people like Clooney and Hurt might know how to act, but they sure don't know how to pick a script

3. if you want to see a film that deals with corruption in big business and the state, go and see Claude Chabrol's "L'ivresse du pouvoir", which is insightful, funny and brilliantly acted.

Empty, doom-laden sententious piffle spun out to evening-ruining length.
Problem: OPTIONS:
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- positive positive
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Answer:
Part of the enjoyment that I took from this film stemmed from the fact that I knew nothing more about it than that it starred John Turturro and Emily Watson (2 reasons enough to watch), was a period piece and involved chess. Everything that evolved before me was completely unexpected. I shan't, therefore, give away much more. Suffice to say that Turturro is magnificent as an eccentric, obsessive and deeply vulnerable chess genius and Em matches him step for step as the strong-minded woman who is drawn to him. It's about love and obsession, rather than the venerated board game and after drawing me in gradually over the first half hour, became totally compelling. And I defy anyone to second-guess the ending.