In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

[Q]: synopsis : the president of a company wants to test his self - appointed successor , who 's psychotic , and thinks it 's a great idea to spend a week with him and their wives in an isolated cabin a hundred miles from civilization with no dependable transportation or means of communication after a heavy snowfall .
comments : tracks of a killer had a couple of strikes against it before i even began watching it .
strike one was the fact that someone had scrawled the word garbage on the videotape 's sticker in black marker
( not typically a good sign when you rent a film ) .
strike two came while the previews played .
did you ever get a sinking premonition about a movie 's quality ( or lack thereof ) while watching the trailers that come before it ?
well , the cheesy films being advertised before tracks of a killer were films that no one has ever heard of starring people no one knows , and they all looked bad ( definately not a good sign ) .
tracks of a killer itself completed the strikeout .
about the only positive thing this film had going for it was the fact that it sports some nice scenery .
to be fair , the first half - hour or so promises at least a watchable thriller .
wolf larson , who bears more than a passing resemblance to hugh grant , adequately plays the underling obviously set up as the killer of the film 's title .
james brolin and kelly lebrock seem equally adequate as the loving couple larson will later threaten .
brolin 's character , for some inexplicable reason , thinks its a great idea to spend some time in a cabin , practically isolated , with lebrock and larson , whom he 's decided to test for the week before giving him full control of his company .
by the time the characters arrive at the cabin , this film begins to become tedious .
apparently , brolin 's successor 's test involves chopping wood for the fireplace and skiing , which do n't seem like attributes necessary to run a business in the city .
but , then again , what do i know about business ?
i do think , though , that they should have invested in some better furniture for the cabin ; its beds and closets have a habit of just breaking at the slightest touch .
larson 's character accidently kills his own wife rather than the couple he wants to kill .
this leaves the movie with an hour to go and only three characters , which really is n't enough to sustain it .
the film 's writer must have taken a cue from stephen king , as scenes from tracks of a killer seem lifted out of misery and gerald 's game .
larson and lebrock fight and torture each other ( the tables get turned a couple of times ) while brolin tramps around in the snow looking for help .
some old guy 's around too
, just so the killer can add to his body count without killing the couple , who everyone knows will be alive at the end of the film .
the old guy , however , miraculously survives his first death and appears later to be killed again by the killer in a scene
so ludicrous it 's worthy of a chuckle or two
.
outside of that chuckle , unfortunately , tracks of a killer will just bore you as the obvious plot is drawn out ad infinitum and the actors , for some reason , become increasing obnoxious . if you 're in a video store and thinking about renting this turkey , do n't . make tracks to a far superior suspense film , like misery .
[A]: N

[Q]: i must admit that i was a tad skeptical of " good will hunting " , based both on the previews and the first fifteen minutes of the film , in which the main character will hunting ( matt damon ) , an mit janitor in his early twenties , is discovered to be an einstein - level closet genius when he solves two extraordinarily difficult math problems overnight .
the only problem is that will is a tough street kid who 's had his share of run - ins with the law , and before long he 's being hauled in for assault after a parking lot fight .
professor lambeau ( stellan skarsgard ) , who had brought up the math problems in his lectures , tracks him down and strikes a deal with the police : will is to be released , provided he works with lambeau on his math research regularly and attends therapy sessions .
this sounds like the formula for mildly charming fluff , but " good will hunting " rises above its fairly mundane premise to deliver a poignant and clever drama .
a conflict gradually emerges between lambeau and will 's therapist sean mcguire ( robin williams ) - lambeau wants to get will to use his brain , while sean wants him to listen to his heart , both of which he has been largely neglecting .
will finds that the former is much easier than the latter , so much so , in fact , that he gets bored with it and grows increasingly resistant to lambeau 's attempts to recruit him into the academic lifestyle .
he also has his share of problems with his girlfriend skylar ( minnie driver ) , an mit student who is moving to california at the end of the school year and would like a reluctant will to come with her .
what makes " good will hunting " work so well , aside from the strong performances ( especially from damon and williams ) , is the depth of characterization and the representation of the conflicts in will 's life .
the script 's sympathies seem to lie more with sean mcguire than with lambeau , but neither of them is presented as completely right or wrong .
lambeau , while he may seem a little cold at times , is still written well enough that we like him as a character even when we 're not sure if we like what he has to say .
and sean , for all his warm - heartedness , has , as lambeau and later will point out , not lived up to his full intellectual potential either ; the therapy sessions turn out to be just as revelatory for sean as they do for will .
will 's reaction to this situation , and the way in which he slowly becomes more receptive to skylar and to sean , is presented in a believable fashion and in a way that forces the audience to consider all the characters ' opinions , rather than setting up an obvious " right " and " wrong " side and beating them over the head with it .
for a film with such an extraordinary character , " good will hunting " presents itself as remarkably ordinary ; it achieves the difficult task of making the next albert einstein into an everyman , a character to whom the audience can easily relate and who must make choices similar to those that almost everyone faces at one time or another .
this film gives us real drama when it so easily could have given us merely melodrama , by having the government kidnap will to use him in covert spy missions or introducing some other equally far - fetched situation .
"
good will hunting
" also has its share of fun humor , such as when will , in an early therapy session , pretends to be hypnotized and smoothly parodies the alien abduction scenarios that have become so well known in popular culture .
and in the one scene in which government agents do in fact appear , will blows them off with a hilariously scathing accusation of human rights violations in africa .
will 's relationship with his friends , most notably chucky ( ben affleck ) , is usually rather amusing , if somewhat crude ( the film has 100 +
uses of the ' f ' word , which was most likely the reason for its r - rating ) , and lends itself well to the development of will 's character .
add all this to the fact that " good will hunting " even manages to pull off an uplifting happy ending without getting excessively sentimental , and you might be wondering why i have n't given this film four stars .
well , for one thing , no matter how well damon and affleck , who wrote the screenplay , and director gus van sant pull it off , the story is still rather contrived and not particularly original .
there are also a few scenes that did feel a bit formulaic , including one that was supposed to be emotional but really just seemed like the obligatory crying scene for any movie involving therapy sessions .
still , " good will hunting " takes its premise a lot farther than i thought it would , and is definitely one of the better personal dramas
i have seen in the last few years , and as of right now it stands as one of the top five on my list of ' 97 films .
[A]: P

[Q]: the calendar year has not even reached its midway point , but that has n't prevented columbia pictures from trotting out a lavish period drama more befitting of the winter oscar - bait season .
bille august 's high - profile adaptation of victor hugo 's classic les miserables delivers everything one would expect from a classy hollywood epic -- handsome production values , strong performances by a top - notch cast , a literate screenplay -- with one critically missing element : emotional sweep .
for those not familiar with hugo 's original novel or the hit stage musical it inspired , the hook of les miserables essentially boils down to something like a 19th - century french - set version of the fugitive .
after serving 19 years in a prison work camp for stealing a loaf of bread , the brutish jean valjean ( liam neeson ) is paroled . immediately upon release , he steals valuable silverware from a kindly bishop who takes him in for a night ; he is caught by authorities , only to be forgiven by the bishop , who lets valjean keep the silver to start a new life on the straight and narrow .
that he does , and in doing so breaks his parole , which sets the obsessively determined inspector javert ( geoffrey rush ) , who was one of the guards in valjean 's prison camp , on his trail .
thematically , however , les miserables is a story about redemption , which valjean finds through his dealings with two women , the hard - luck factory - worker - turned - prostitute fantine ( uma thurman ) , and her illegitimate daughter , cosette .
years after breaking parole , valjean becomes mayor of the town of vigau , where he forms a warm friendship with fantine after saving her from an unjust arrest by javert .
valjean promises the gravely ill fantine he will rescue the young cosette ( mimi newman ) from her cruel caretakers , the thenardiers , and raise the child as his own .
the " father " and " daughter " eventually land in paris , where the teenage cosette ( claire danes ) falls for dashing student revolutionary marius ( hans matheson ) .
the decades - spanning story is the stuff that cinematic epics are made of , and the danish august turns in his most accomplished english - language work , following the underrated 1994 superstar soap the house of the spirits and last year 's stylish but highly preposterous mystery smilla 's sense of snow .
he and screenwriter rafael yglesias bring the sprawling tale into clear focus and keep the events moving at a brisk pace .
production designer anna asp , costume designer gabriella pescucci , and cinematographer jorgen persson give les miserables a sumptuous period look whose accomplishment is mostly matched by the efforts of the cast .
neeson is commanding yet endearingly vulnerable ; rush 's finely modulated menace is far more rewarding than his overrated , oscar - winning theatrics in shine ; and thurman disappears nicely into her highly unglamorous role .
the younger members of the cast fare less well .
danes is convincing as cosette , but her overdone lip quivering during her crying scenes becomes a distraction ; and matheson , while competent , is a less interesting robert sean leonard .
as technically adept and cerebrally engaging the film is , by the time les miserables was over
, my emotions had only been superficially involved .
while i was touched by valjean 's relationships with fantine and cosette , i was not moved .
not even reaching the " touching " level is the cosette - marius pairing .
my only previous experience with les miserables is with the musical ( as i am sure many others ' is ) , and i was dismayed to see eponine , a friend of marius 's who selflessly dies in the name of her unspoken love for him , almost completely jettisoned from this adaptation ( the daughter of the thenardiers , here she is only briefly seen as a child ) .
her presence would have added
some much - needed conflict and emotional heft to the youthful romance , but i suppose august and yglesias felt one tragic heroine ( fantine ) was enough .
even so , as 1998 creeps into summer blockbuster season , les miserables is a thoughtful , well - made , entertaining film , one that will sate moviegoers hungry for a dose of drama before popcorn no - brainers invade the multiplex .
[A]:
P