An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: The last film in Lucas' saga is a lavish, spectacular-looking production. It is often considered the ugly duckling of the original trilogy, but I think it is a notch above episode IV (and just a notch below episodes III and V). In fact, I think it is the third best film in the 6-part saga. As far as I'm concerned, it is still a grandiosely entertaining film. It is not a movie with a beginning, climax and ending; the film's mechanism operates with only one goal in its mind: bring closure to Lucas' universe. There is an air of finality attached to the whole thing, which makes the film a little too sentimental, but emotionally rewarding. Also, it is a lot of fun. New characters are introduced and old ones face new, unexpected challenges. C3PO and R2D2 provide (as usual) great comic relief. Leia and Solo are a wonderful romantic duo, and Luke is still a great character to identify with. Again, it is Luke's (and Vader's) inner conflict what gives the saga its backbone. Lucas' aggressive imagination is still very much apparent, and the film's themes of loyalty, hope, and redemption resonate strongly. I'm glad Lucas eventually dropped the idea of making episode VII, VIII and IX, because this film is a great bookend to a long, fascinating and captivating saga. Not a perfect movie, but fun in the best matinee style.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: I'd love to give this movie a 10/10, but in its existing state I can only go to 8/10 tops. The post-Code editing (read: destroying) of this film warrants a 2-point demerit.

From my very limited knowledge of film history, Baby Face was apparently one of two movies that finally broke the camel's back and brought the full wrath and enforcement of the Production Code into play in 1934. (I don't know what the other movie was.) As a result, the movie in its original incarnation was never allowed to be re-released after 1934. It was chopped and edited to bits, and no original version is known to exist today. The best that we can see today is the version that TCM (Turner Classic Movies) shows, but that is blatantly edited in several scenes, and has a really disappointing "happy ending" slapped onto the end.

All the above being said, the movie is still pretty darned great and lots of fun to watch. Barbara Stanwyck is, as always, absolutely amazing and wonderful. She is so beautiful and powerful; she just owns the whole movie! She plays a woman who's been used by men her entire life, starting with her father who pimps her out to the local Erie, PA steel workers as well as to local politicians in a quid pro quo of 'if you don't shut down my speakeasy I'll let you sleep with my daughter'. When the father dies in a fiery explosion near the beginning of the flick, the smile on Stanwyck's face is priceless.

After the fire, Stanwyck leaves Erie with her maid and heads to New York City. She sets her sights on a skyscraper and starts literally working her way to the top. Starting out with the personnel clerk in the HR department, she sleeps with him to get an entry level position at the bank. From there, she sleeps with man after man after man (including a very young John Wayne) using each new man to help her land a higher paying job on a higher floor of the skyscraper, with increasingly powerful male bosses cum sugar daddies. Stanwyck stops at nothing in her rise to the top. It is great fun to see her and her maid in increasingly fancier clothes and apartments as Stanwyck works her way up the corporate ladder. Stanwyck is the ultimate femme fatale, manipulating, she-vixen in this flick! If you watch this movie, I recommend stopping when you see the George Brent character (Courtland Trenholm) die in Stanwyck's arms. Skip the remaining 3 minutes or so! The "happy ending" slapped on to the end of the movie for post-Code audiences is insulting to the audience's intelligence and lame beyond belief: the bank board members are sitting around a table expositing about Mr. and Mrs. Trenholm's million dollar donation to the bank and how they are living happily but poor in Erie, with former VP Trenholm now working in the steel mills - cut to the exact same footage of a steel plant that we saw in the beginning of the movie - "The End". PUH-LEEZE - HOW LAME! The movie originally ended with George Brent succeeding in his suicide attempt. I think that ending fits the overall mood of the movie much better than the slapped on post-Code ending.

I certainly hope that a print of the original pre-Code version of this flick is discovered during my lifetime (update: the original HAS been found and should be out on DVD and/or TCM in 2006!). Until then, I'll enjoy the TCM version and switch it off before the lame-o post-Code ending.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: :::SPOILER ALERT:::

Soooo, Arnie's really a good guy, but after an incident with some fighting in a helicopter and some disobeying of orders, he's sent to jail (or rather some sort of work camp). He escapes, but after a short while he's caught once again. This time ends up in a freakish reality show in which he's supposed to run for a while from a bunch of tough guys with different themes, and eventually die. But we all know Arnie, and we all know that he's tougher than even the toughest of tough guys.

I really wanted to like this movie, being an Arnie-fan and all. However, "The Running Man" contains too many flaws that really annoy the crap out of me. E.g. The reconstruction of Arnie's fight inside the helicopter, where the shocked audience is showed a short summary of the incident, complete with 5-10 different camera angles. This means that the military helicopter in which Arnie flew was equipped with almost 10 cameras filming the crew members, one of which _inside_ the eye of one of the crew members Arnie beats.

There are other flaws also, and the plot, which in theory seems to be very interesting and innovative, works for a while, then it sort of creates a pool of stupidness and unrealism in which it drowns.

The acting can't really be said to be anything better than sub par, with Arnie in the leading role, doing an average Arnie performance. The rest of the cast get by without being especially good or bad.

The special effects are OK, without being impressive.

RATING: 3/10
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
=++++=
Answer: I agree with all the accolades, I went through a box of tissues watching this film. It had a gritty authenticity and rang true in every way.

The question I'm about to raise represents a current sensibility regarding the treatment of animals. I had a very difficult time with the beginning slaughter of sheep and goats, and the dying deer with its pulsing neck and pooling blood as its life drained away was hideous.

This is the age of "no animals were hurt in the production of this move." Iphigenia was made in the late 70's before the advent of computer simulation. Was it possible to fake these animal deaths? Or were these animals slaughtered for art?
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A:
This is a movie about making a movie. Such movies may be entertaining, but they need some substance, to do so. It did not happen here, I am afraid. Mr Coppola did not inherit his father's skills, unfortunately (neither did his sister, who can however make movies which one might watch).

I do wonder how this movie came to get such rave reviews.

Let's see: the lead male actor, supposedly a director, is as expressive as a frozen squid and his voice has the same pitch whatever he says, the lead female actress has an expression on her face that never changes, the plot is totally segmented in bits with perhaps one single connecting element, the movie within the movie idea must be more stale than paleolithic rocks... Would that be enough?

I regretted every single moment I watched this movie. A walk with the dog is far superior entertainment to this unbelievably lame movie. It's as if a Francois Truffaut plot were directed by Dick Cheney...

Brazil, some other classic SF movies? You must be really joking...