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

wow !
what a movie .
it 's everything a movie can be : funny , dramatic , interesting , weird , funny , weird and strikingly original .
yep that pretty much describes this movie .
it starts out like a regular movie and ends up being one of the weirdest , funniest most original movies i have ever seen .
it boggles the mind and some have to wonder why we can not get movies like this more often .
besides being one of the best films of the year , being john malkovich may as well be one of the best movies ever .
period .
then again there are so many good movies , that one can not pick an all time favorite .
john cusack plays
a puppeteer craig schwartz a man out of a job , in search of a job .
his wife lotte schwartz who is played by a completely un - noticeable cameron diaz who looks like something off the streets is an animal lover and has about every kind of animal you could think of .
craig finds a job as a file at the 7 ? floor of a business building .
.. you have to pry open the elevator doors open before it reaches floor eight , the 7 ? floor is just a floor between 7 and 8 .
he is hired by his 105 year old boss ( orsen bean ) to be a filer .
in his office , he discovers a little door , to which was boarded up and hidden .
to his curiosity he opens it and starts to crawl toward it , he then gets sucked to the end and ends up in john malkovich 's mind .
fifteen minutes later he is shot out onto the side of the new jersey turnpike .
he returns to tell his co - worker maxine ( catherine keener ) that he has found a portal that will lead him into john malkovich 's mind , she does n't believe him but after she sees it it changes her mind .
lotte also finds out about the portal and discovers that being someone else is good after all .
john malkovich of course has no idea what is going on , and by the end of this bizarre film there are so many twists and turns , that we do n't know what really happened .
john cusack is outstanding and utterly believeable in a role only he himself could play .
he fits the role perfectly and to me was brilliantly cast .
cameron diaz is outstanding and utterly one of the world 's most prettiest women , is made up here unnoticeable and very unattractive .
she however gives a very comic performance and this could easily be her best role to date .
catherine keener is very funny and sexy as maxine and of course the best thing of the movie is the magic himself john malkovich who is very brilliant and this movie plays big time homage
?
to the master himself .
the whole group combined gives us a wonderfully funny movie that is also smart and clever .
spike jonze ( three kings ) makes his fabulous directing debut , and did a fantastic job of directing this new classic film .
he lets the viewer go on the trip as well as let the viewer know they are watching a movie .
by the time the ending rolled around my head was spinning from disbelief of how good this film was .
the screenplay written by charlie kaufman was hilarious and often thought - provoking .
the film also had a soft side to it and even though the ending is very surprising it is also a little sad and heart - warming .
the whole movie was fantastic and had me rolling in the isles . from cameron diaz 's appearence to john malkovich 's explorations i laughed very hard , and it may as well be as funny as as good as it gets ( the funniest ! ) .
there is n't a slow point in the movie , or an overused idea .
there are no cliches except for the fact that this is the most original , inventie , witty , and smart movie i 've seen in a long time .
i found myself amazed by everything : the direction , acting , writing and the whole idea of the movie .
by the end i had to wonder why hollywood does n't want to make movies like this anymore .
or why they do n't .
all filmmakers watch this movie and get some ideas of movies to come out .
this was a surprise hit as was american beauty . ' being john malkovich '
is in the top 5 movies of the year , and in the top 10 best films ever made .
it has something that no other movies playing now has .
in fact it may as well be the best movie out right now .
i highly recommend ' being john malkovich ' and have no doubts you will be disappointed .
P

dora ( fernanda montenegro ) sits behind a make - shift desk at rio+s major train station .
she , in her colorful demeanor , offers a service that is unheard of in the states .
she writes letters for the illiterate , who pass through , to try to find lost relatives , find love , or search after lost debts .
she+s
quirky , she+s elderly , she+s caring .
totally trustworthy , right ? not a chance .
once home , she never sends these letters , saving money on postage , and relishing in the drama contained therein with her neighbor irene ( mar ?
lia
p ? ra ) .
one of the letters is sent by a young mother with her nine - year old son , looking for their father .
shortly thereafter , she gets hit by a bus , and the son is orphaned .
days go by , and the boy , named josu ?
, roams around the station , hungry , desperate , and somewhat clueless to his predictament .
through a series of circumstances too precious to elaborate upon , dora somehow takes a responsibility in trying to find josu ?
+ s father .
this means leaving the security of rio , traveling to the outskirts of brazil , where unpaved roads , religious devotees and the poverty - stricken become commonplace .
films like this remind me as to what i enjoy about some foreign films .
it is an opportunity for me to get a fresh breath in another part of the world , so distant from my own .
it does so entertainingly , and so heart - wrenchingly
.
and yet , it+s backdrop is merely that .
the focus is on the minute transformation of dora , of how she learns to love this little kid , without being cloying or sentimental .
the most interesting backdrop is the amount of religious dedication is in the film .
dora being an amoral scam - artist , could care less about the amount of bickering between the candle - lighting of the catholics versus the bumper - sticker mentality of the evangelicals .
but neither side is trivialized .
she even begins to develop an affection for a non - drinking evangelical , who sees the problems with dora , if not initially .
fernanda montenegro surprisingly got an oscar nomination for this very delicate performance , but the true marvel is that of vinicius de oliveira , who plays josu ? .
he , like the discoveries of j ?
r ?
mie renier
( _ la promesse _ ) and giorgio cantarini
( _ life is beautiful _ ) , prove that the true acting discoveries may be outside of the united states .
he is a natural , and never once grating .
send a memo to jonathan taylor thomas .
P

seen may 31 , 1999 on home video ( rented ) .
one of the best things about the movies is that they can make you really start to wonder and analyze things in your own , everyday life that you might not have thought much of otherwise .
with some films it might be just a secondary issue , but with ' dark city ' what we get is nearly an entire film committed to philosophizing and theorizing about human memory and how it defines who we are , which is a poignant theme made through an absolutely beautifully - constructed film with the kind of story and setting that could only happen in a movie .
there 's an old role - playing computer game called ' d ?
ja v ? '
wherein the player takes on the role of a man who ca n't remember who he is , where he is and how he got there .
the goal is to gather as many clues as possible to figure that out and along the way overcome a conflict .
the premise to this film is not unlike that game , only this time we do n't have control over the protagonist .
we begin by meeting a seemingly ordinary man living in an extremely dark and dirty city ( actually , it 's more than just the city
, it 's the whole reality ) that is n't just that neo - gothic look ( a la ' batman , ' ' blade runner , ' ) , but is so fully developed
it 's almost a different genre completely .
later he will learn that his name is john murdoch ( sewell ) , but for now he has no idea what 's going on other than the fact something is not right .
the fact there 's a dead body in the corner goes to enhance the feeling of paranoia and a mysterious , hurried call telling him to leave immediately is also very chilling .
this opening scene alone goes a long way to define the setting of the film and its bizarre , horrific tone .
the man does n't know who he is nor where he 's going
and it 's interesting to follow him since we the viewers have no idea either we can sympathize and identify with him .
in fact , this is the way all stories begin since it 's impossible to know the history of a character , their feelings , values , morals , etc .
until after we 've observed them for a while .
but in this case , the total feeling of amnesia is an excellent tool towards characterization , developing the mood and outlining the story .
eventually , some semblance of a plot begins to unfold as it appears that john is a serial killer wanted by the police .
we met inspector frank bumstead ( hurt ) , a quiet , unemotional , soft - spoken deadpan man who appears to have been on the trail of the killer for some time .
two other important characters are also introduced : dr .
daniel p .
schreber ( sutherland ) , a neurotic psychiatrist who claims to be john 's doctor ; and emma murdoch ( connelly ) , a jazz singer dolled up to look like a caraciture right out of the old dick tracy serials or any given leading lady of the old film - noir movies .
it was schreber who contacted john for reasons that are continually revealed throughout the course of the film .
he also contacts emma , which further helps the film reveal what is seemingly a complex , mysterious back story .
but absolutely nothing is as it appears to be in ' dark city , '
which is what makes it so fascinating throughout its continual scenes of confusion and vertigo .
everything the filmmakers want us to see has some significance - considering how intricate the detail is to every single shot , its lighting , art direction and overall production design , they do n't seem to be able to afford any gratuities .
however , that might also be what 's keeping it from reaching its maximum potential .
by continuing to follow john as he wanders around this strange place , so much unlike the real world we know , we come to realize that it 's all a hoax .
everyone in the city is the subject of an experiment being conducted by a race of aliens to understand what makes humans tick in their efforts to somehow save themselves from extinction .
but , as the film 's tagline says , ' last night , one of us went off . '
for reasons that are never clearly explained , it appears that john possesses telekinetic powers to can do pretty much whatever his mind can conceive ( a process known as ' tuning ' ) .
the aliens , which look like very old bald human men with pasty skin , also possess the power en masse and use it to change the city every night at midnight .
at the same time all the humans fall asleep and after the changes are made , they awake and either continue where they left off or begin a new life they have no idea they did not have until then .
this premise certainly is interesting and director and co - screenwriter alex proyas is able to keep the film consistently mysterious in this regard .
he does provide some explanations such as that
dr .
schreber is an assistant to ' the strangers ' because he somehow could synthesize memory into chemical form .
the aliens mix and match the memories of the city 's population to see who will change and who will not .
in the process this creates for a good deal of deep , thought - provoking philosophies that could be applied to the real world .
however , where the film errs is by not playing up the idea of memory versus the human heart as to what makes a person who he or she is .
the main characters are all closely intertwined within the seemingly complex murder mystery which never actually happened , yet when they start to go through some of the expected emotions it comes off as distant , static and cold ( mediocre performances by hurt and connelly do n't help either ) .
for example , john realizes emma is not and probably never was his wife so he does not feel an emotional bond to her , yet in some scenes crucial to the film 's plot , we are expected to believe they do have a genuine love for each other , which is also part of the film 's climax and ending .
and that 's what proyas seems to be inferring with the film , but never quite manages to convey in its fullest sense .
ironically , this is what made his first film ' the crow ' work so well , which had a similar theme of struggling to find hope and the human spirit within a nearly identical , dark twisted world . with ' dark city ' the messenger seems to be mistaken for the message .
still , the film is by no means bad and is consistently entertaining and enjoyable .
there 's a lot to like here , most notably the sheer visual look and style of it all which accounts for at least half the reasons the film is able to tell the story it does .
the story as a whole is one of the most original to come out of hollywood in years .
' dark city ' is what the movies are all about - the escape from the real world .
P