instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
much ballyhoo has been made over this new version of " lolita , " made in a time when one would think that a faithful adaptation of the infamous novel could be made , over its use of pedophilia , and as such , it 's important to address it straight - forwardly , before any other ideals such as goodness and themes can be discussed , as this film has been in film limbo for a number of years , lying around in vaults san a distributor , and having critics waiting to either hail it
a masterpiece or call it anticlimactic horseshit .
when seeing this film , after all the hoopla , keeping in mind that there are people , namely me , who are fans of the novel , who have been eagerly awaiting this flick since its creation . . .
well , you just have to wonder why no one really picked it up for distribution .
what 's even worse is that seeing this " lolita , " especially the first time and if you 're familiar with anything " lolita , " is admittingly very anticlimactic .
this is a real pity because when you really sit down to watch this film , ignoring all the crap that has preceeded it , it 's really quite a film , perhaps the best film by director adrian lyne ( although , really , look at its competition : " flashdance , " " fatal attraction , " and " indecent proposal " ) , at least besides " jacob 's ladder .
"
i 've seen this " lolita " twice : the first time , i was n't so blown away .
it seemed overly dramatic and surprisingly unaffecting .
the second time , not really thinking about how i 've waited for what seems like forever to see it and how i 'm seeing it on a tv set on a premium cable channel and not a giant movie theatre ,
it really affected me emotionally .
the story itself is a surprisingly heartbreaking one , which is why it 's such a good novel , and why this is such a good film .
the story of a pedophile obsessed with a young 14-year old girl named dolores a .
k .
a . lolita is great because it 's not trash for the perverted
but because it 's about human obsession with things that are out of one 's reach .
its protagonist , the comically - named humbert humbert , is not your average pedophile , but a seriously wounded human being who embodies how we are all destroyed by our sick obsessions and idosyncrasies .
the character of lolita is almost a symbol of the forbidden apple in christian mythology , something that will destroy us but that we ca n't live without .
these ideas are all worked into this film nicely , but done in a way that is not heavy - handed at all , but instead lyrical and emotionally devastating .
the focus of this film , and the reason for making it , it seems , was to really penetrate the emotional depths of the novel and bring them to life on the screen in beautifully dramatic images , and scenes which are blatantly over - stylized .
the tone of the book is a comical one , but it 's also a tragic one , and humbert , telling the story from his perspective , blows every single thing out of perspective .
humbert exists in a fantsy world of his obsessions and desires , and this reflects the way the entire film has been designed .
we get a sense that perhaps it 's by doing this that humbert has really trapped himself into a fate that will ultimately leave him haggard and destroyed .
he weeps uncontrollably and never lets himself get over his original 14-year - old love , and allows himself to embody her as lolita .
he lets his feelings for her navigate all his decisions , and by the end , he has nothing but overly - dramatic feelings for her .
the story recognizes the extreme of this , almost out of a test , seeing if the readers will really sympathize with someone who is socially deemed a pervert , and one almost wonders while reading the book if the author , vladimir nabokov , wrote the book as a means to bring into focus his own sick obsessions , and perhaps bring them to peace .
the weirdest thing about this film is that by the end , when humbert has reached the finale of his obsessional journey , we can easily sympathize and even identify with him .
the opening and final images of the film are the same , and who has n't done a similar action , that is wandering about without any sense of reality or anything else but a deep sadness in us ?
this is the second time the novel has been adapted for the screen , the first time being filmed in - shock - 1962 , by stanley kubrick , who could n't possibly have brought the novel to the screen with as much faithfulness as lyne has been able to do , but did the next best thing : he economized for everything and came up with a droll black comedy about obsession in general .
in that film , he used the traps of society as benefits .
the studio demanded the final scene , that of a heinous murder , come first in the film so to portray humbert first as a murderer and second as a pedophile . . .
and when you see it , it gives the film depth of a man trapped by obsession .
the censors would n't allow anymore than a couple glances and subtle dialogue to show the , um , relationship between humbert and lolita , so kubrick decided to play it as comedy , but still allow the tragedy to seep through . looking at these two versions , especially after reading the novel ( and we all know that when we 've read a novel and see a film adaptation , we are bound to be angered by any size differences ) , it 's really impossible to compare them .
they both go for different things , and one has a lot more room to be as sexually frank as the novel was .
and although it 's true that several scenes are similar , and are thus up for comparison , overall it 's unfair to say which one is better and which one is worse .
i have never been one for saying the level of greatness of a film adaptation of a novel is deemed by how faithful it is , and i wo n't say that here . however ,
this film is pretty amazing , mostly because hey , i loved the book , and this film nearly reminded me of it .
it does n't have nearly as much wit ( a couple comical scenes , and even a lot of good chuckles , but just not totally witty ) , but it does have the same emotional toll that the novel had .
some of that is in the casting of the two leads .
jeremy irons , with his deep , soft british voice and gentle look , is an amazing humbert .
he 's droll in a very unique way , and , well , no one can look distraught the way he does .
he brings a wonderful sympathy to the role that goes beyond pathos and really comes up as being easy to identify with the audience .
and when he looks at lolita with love , and she looks at him with lust , you know that he 's her prisoner for as long as he lives .
and dominique swain , who plays the title character , is rather incredible .
she pulls off the tough role even better than sue lyon did in the original , wonderfully balancing the qualities of seduction , bratiness , and self - centeredness that marks the character .
it 's easy to see why she surrenders to humbert : she loves the attention , and knows that she can have her way with him at any time .
when he denies her something , she blackmails him effortlessly ( a scene involving a rocking chair and a little foot action is damn near classic ) , and when he stands up to her , she weeps and runs away , leaving humbert to follow her .
there are two other minor characters in the film , one who 's a road block in the beginning , and the other who 's a reappearing threat to the relationship .
the former is charlotte , lolita 's mother , played by melanie griffith .
in the book , charlotte is a monster of a woman : overbearing , constantly scolding her child , overly - religious , and ultimately selfish .
and she 's the one obstacle humbert
has to overcome to obtain his goal , at least in the beginning .
as played by shelly winters in the original , she represented all these qualities ; as played by griffith here , she 's about half of them .
it 's annoying to watch a film and play a game where you try to see who could have done the role way better than the one on screen without mentioning the actor who played them first .
and even though griffith is not really bad , persay , she 's nothing more .
the other is clare quilty , the writer who is also trying to seduce lolita , and succeeds , but at a price .
langella takes a totally different direction than the one peter sellars took in the original .
quilty was a comic character in the original :
a threat in the form of many forms , popping in states of rambling , german , proning , and eventually drunk .
langella takes the other route , allowing all of the creepiness to be unearthed , and the result is a character who exists in shadows and low shots , and who meets a wonderfully ironic ending , the exact opposite of what we thought of him .
as you can see , most of these are not improvements or mistakes done on the part of lyne and his screenwriter , stephen schiff , but just parts of a whole new look at the novel , at least cinema - wise .
this version is beautiful , and perpetually saddening .
the camera movements are stylized , and each shot is breathtakingly rich .
the acting is for the most part wonderful , and when we watch it , we really get a sense that for humbert , who is telling the story , the only two people on earth most of the time were humbert and lolita .
more importantly , it takes us right up the brink of emotion , then jumps right over it .
by the end , with humbert sadly driving recklessly in his car , following what he says is the only part of his life he does n't regret , we feel that we all lose to something we can never have .
answer:
P

question:
post - chasing amy , a slew of love - triangle movies :
this month we have kissing a fool , co - starring amy 's own lee , and april brings us the object of my affection , which may as well be titled chasing allan , for it is the story of a woman who falls in love with her gay roommate .
( to be absolutely six degrees of kevin bacon about it , that film stars schwimmer 's friend jennifer aniston . ) if only kevin smith could write them all .
..
schwimmer stars as womanizing chicago sportscaster max , who falls in love with his best friend jay ( lee ) 's book editor samantha ( avital ) a mere twenty - four hours after meeting her .
they are soon engaged , and max , because of his own raging libido , grows suspicious of samantha 's fidelity .
he convinces jay to flirt with samantha during the development of his book , to " test her " .
the trouble is , jay might be secretly in love with her . to stretch this flat , sitcom premise to feature length , the plot is framed by a climactic wedding , at which bonnie hunt recounts the triangular tale -- the events leading up to the nuptials -- to an annoying fat man and his silly girlfriend .
hunt has the best comic timing of anyone in the film ; schwimmer can spin bad dialogue into mildly humorous dialogue ; and lee , poor lee , is miscast .
so hysterically funny in chasing amy , here he is forced to repress his comic instincts : to swear , to yell , to talk about oral sex .
.. the script 's idea of a character trait is to stress that jay is a " sensitive man
" , and then show him drinking pepto bismol when he 's stewing over his girl trouble .
as for avital , an israeli actress , she is warm and sweet ,
but we do n't know anything about her character
other than that it takes her an incredibly long time to realize the most obvious things .
she also too closely resembles the stunningly beautiful kari wuhrer , who plays schwimmer 's assistant and personal temptress , turning that particular subplot into an unintentional riff on vertigo .
there are a handful , a smattering , of good scenes in kissing a fool .
i enjoyed a moment in a comedy club , during which jay gets up and asks " has anyone here ever hated their girlfriend so much you wanted to kill her ?
" over and over until he 's booted off stage .
there are also a few obviously improvised lines that are fresher than anything that 's on the page .
kissing a fool is never as clever as the thursday night joke - machine friends that spawned schwimmer 's movie career , so save yourself eight dollars and watch three episodes of that series back to back .
answer:
N

question:
one of the first films of 1999 is this mtv pictures release which marks the first leading feature role for james van der beek , the star of the wb 's runaway hit dawson 's creek .
following in the foot steps of mtv 's two other live action films , joe 's apartment ( 1996 ) and dead man on campus ( 1998 ) , varsity blues is a bad film and is unlikely to cause much of a sensation in the marketplace .
set in west cannan , texas , the film examines the small town obsession with high school football through the eyes of second string quarterback john " mox " moxon ( van der beek ) .
we know he 's smart because he reads kurt vonnegut instead of the playbook .
coach bud kilmer ( jon voight ) has been around so long there is actually a bronze statue commemorating him .
the star quarterback , lance harbor ( paul walker ) , is a handsome , blonde , hero who has his own billboard in his front yard and dates the sexy head cheerleader , darcy ( ali larter ) .
also on the team are an enormous guy ( ron lester ) with some health problems and the token african - american team member ( eliel swinton ) whose only real dialogue scene deals directly with the color of his skin .
when lance is seriously injured , mox gets his chance to shine and he runs with it , undermining kilmer with his unusual playing strategies .
his relationship with his dutiful girlfriend , jules ( amy smart ) , is threatened and there 's a big game at the end .
guess who wins ?
nothing about varsity blues is inspired and the whole film simply moves through the sort of conventional motions that coach kilmer would love .
there 's a chance for some smart satire on small town obsessions but the humor here is decidedly lowbrow
.
van der beek does a decent job of carrying his first film although a silly accent trips him up sometimes .
also , the role is n't very much of a stretch from his dawson leary character .
he 's still a pseudo - intellectual , whiny , nice guy , except here he also happens to be a jock .
voight is a terror as he chews up every single piece of scenery and spits it out .
the other adults are all notably awful while the younger performers do n't fare much better
.
on the positive side , walker is a charismatic actor who is due for a breakout role following this and his supporting turn in pleasantville ( 1998 ) .
scott ( son of james ) caan has some lively moments as tweeder , the team 's wild man .
larter , as a gorgeous seductress looking for a one way ticket out of texas , gets to show off the film 's most interesting costumes , including a very eye - opening " whipped cream bikini .
"
it 's interesting to note that the film definitely earns its r - rating with a lot of harsh language , alcohol abuse and an unusually high amount of nudity ( including a gratuitous trip to a strip bar that reveals a not very surprising surprise ) .
all this is likely to come as a shock to the young female fan base of dawson 's creek , presumably the target audience for the picture .
director brian robbins previously helmed the kids feature good burger ( from nickelodeon films , a sister company of mtv ) and changes directions here a bit but still fails to make much of an impression .
the look of the movie is as bland
as the town and characters who populate it .
the football scenes are generally unexciting and the entire film looks a bit washed out .
there 's an ok soundtrack featuring music from collective soul , foo fighters , green day and aaliyah
but it 's not as impressive as one would expect from a mtv film .
answer:
N