input: Why is it that any film about Cleopatra, the last phaoroh brings out the worst in movie making? Whatever attraction the woman had for the greatest Roman of them all, Julius Ceasar, and his successor, Mark Anthony, never seems to come across on the screen as other than the antics of over sexed high school seniors. Despite lavish sets and costumes, this movie is as bad as any Italian "sandals and toga" extravaganza of the 50's. Admittedly, this kind of spectacular belongs on the big screen, which is why "Gladiator" went over well, but "Gladiator" did not have all the romance novel sex.

Miss Varela has as little acting talent as Elizabeth Taylor, but Timothy Dalton has talent to spare. Pity some of it didn't wash off on the others.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: negative

input: This is not the typical Mel Brooks film. It was much less slapstick than most of his movies and actually had a plot that was followable. Leslie Ann Warren made the movie, she is such a fantastic, under-rated actress. There were some moments that could have been fleshed out a bit more, and some scenes that could probably have been cut to make the room to do so, but all in all, this is worth the price to rent and see it. The acting was good overall, Brooks himself did a good job without his characteristic speaking to directly to the audience. Again, Warren was the best actor in the movie, but "Fume" and "Sailor" both played their parts well.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: positive

input: Story says that on that on December 28, 1895, a small group of thirty-three people was gathered at Paris's Salon Indien Du Grand Cafe to witness the Cinematographe, a supposedly new invention that resulted from the work done by a couple of photographers named August and Louis Lumiere. The small audience reunited that day (some by invitation, most due to curiosity) didn't really know what to expect from the show, and when a stationary photograph appeared projected on a screen, most thought that the Cinematographe was just another fancy devise to present slide-show projections. Until the photograph started to move. What those thirty-three people experienced in awe that cold day of December was the very first public screening of a moving picture being projected on a screen; history was being written and cinema as we know it was born that day.

Of the 10 short movies that were shown during that historic day, "La Sortie Des Usines Lumiere" (literally "Exiting the Lumiere Factory") was the very first to be screened. The film shows the many workers of the Lumiere factory as they walk through the gates of the factory, leaving the building at the end of a hard day of work. While a very basic "actuality film" (movie depicting a real event), the movie took everyone in the audience by surprise, as their concept of moving pictures was limited to Edison's "Peep Show" machines (the Kinetoscope), the brothers' invention was like nothing they had seen before and so the audience stood in awe, as the people and the horses moved across the screen. The idea wasn't entirely new (Le Prince shot the first movie as early as 1888), but the way of showing the movie was simply revolutionary.

"La Sortie Des Usines Lumiere" would become the first in the long series of "actuality films" that the Lumiere would produce over the years. This primitive form of documentary was the brothers' favorite kind of film because they were more interested in the technological aspects of their invention than in the uses the Cinematographe could have. Despite the initial lack of enthusiasm, after the first showing the Cinematographe became a great success and "La Sortie Des Usines Lumiere" quickly became an iconic image of that first screening. It definitely wasn't the first movie the brothers shot that year, and it probably wasn't the best of the 10 movies shown that day (personally I think that "L' Arroseur Arrose" was the best of the 10); however, it is really meaningful that the very first movie was the opening of a pair of gates, as literally, this movie opened the gates to cinema as we know it. 8/10

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: positive

input: This version of Bleak House is the best adaptation of a classic novel known to me. The representation of the court of Chancery as a 'character' in the drama is magnificent. The acting is marvellous, from the sinister Tulkinghorn, to the Dedlocks, Smallweed, Crooke, Miss Flyte, and the two young lovers. But it is the spider's web of chancery that holds the whole thing together, and the cinematography is superb. What mistake did the BBC make about copyright that meant that this version could not be seen in the UK on either video or DVD for many years? I tried to find out from them, but faced a stone wall. In the end I got a DVD copy from Canada.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans:
positive