Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: The spoiler warning is for those people who want to see for themselves what animals and landscapes pass before their eyes, although I don't mention it in great detail.

"Earth" is an approx. 90 minute cinema version based on "Planet earth" which I watched all on BBC TV.The TV version was narrated by David Attenborough, a captivating commentator, who I had wished had also done it for "Earth" but it is Patrick Stewart, Star Trek's Captain Picard. There are regularly shots of the Earth from space so that's may be appropriate. In any case he has a nice enough and calm voice for it. There are 12 chapters in which we follow animal life on earth from North Pole to Antarctica. 3 animal families, polar bear, elephant and whale, appear in more than one of these parts. Each "chapter" starts with an indication how far from north pole or equator it is. We see something of each kind of animal, but only mammals and birds, and some fish, and some beautiful shots of vegetation, mountains, waterfalls, deserts and jungle, a near perfect presentation of the variety of life and landscapes and climates on earth. You get the impression that our planet is only inhabited by animals: people or villages or cities aren't in the film, so it's a typical nature documentary, but breathtakingly shot and accompanied by delightful music. When the film opened I already knew it would end far too soon for me. It is a family film, so no brutal killings of any animals. When one is caught by his hunter the shot ends and in other cases where we see the prey being caught it's shot in slow-motion which makes it less violent and watchable for young children (age limit 6 in The Netherlands). No blood is shed. Some scenes (newly born animals) are really cute and will be adored by kids. It looks like an ordinary nature film but when you know how many shooting days it took (4000) and how much money it has cost it becomes an even more astonishing piece of beauty. It had it's Dutch premiere yesterday, a month before the actual release, in a cinema of 500 seats, of which 15 were taken. True beauty is rarely interesting for cinema goers, it seems. As I knew the TV-series I was of course very curious if my favourite scenes would make it into this movie. Some didn't, but the most impressive shots (big waterfalls) did, luckily. It was the first time I ever cried in a nature film.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
=++++=
Answer: Director F.W. Murnau wisely stuck with the silent film medium he knew so well to cover this story of native islander life in the South Seas. The documentary style works very well for the first half of the movie. The landscapes are beautiful, and the daily life activities of the islanders are interesting to watch. The film loses momentum, though, when it begins to concentrate more on the narrative story of two doomed lovers. The storyline just never gets that interesting, despite being handled well by Murnau. Won an Academy Award for best cinematography, although the award probably should have been for best scenery. You can't really credit the DP for getting to shoot in such a beautiful location.
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Snow White, which just came out in Locarno, where I had the chance to see it, of course refers to the world famous fairy tale. And it also refers to coke. In the end, real snow of the Swiss Alps plays its part as well.

Thus all three aspects of the title are addressed in this film. There is a lot of dope on scene, and there is also a pale, dark haired girl - with a prince who has to go through all kind of trouble to come to her rescue.

But: It's not a fairy tale. It's supposed to be a realistic drama located in Zurich, Switzerland (according to the Tagline).

Technically the movie is close to perfect. Unfortunately a weak plot, foreseeable dialogs, a mostly unreal scenery and the mixed acting don't add up to create authenticity. Thus as a spectator I remained untouched.

And then there were the cliches, which drove me crazy one by one: Snow White is a rich and spoiled upper class daughter - of course her parents are divorced and she never got enough love from them, because they were so busy all the time. Her best girlfriend, on the other hand, has loving and caring parents. They (a steelworker and a housewife) live in a tiny flat, poor and happy - and ignorant of the desperate situation their daughter is in. The good guy (= prince) is a musician (!) from the French speaking part of Switzerland (which is considered to be the economically less successful but emotionally fitter fraction of the country). He has problems with his parents. They are migrants from Spain, who don't seem to accept his wild way of living - until the father becomes seriously ill and confesses his great admiration for his son from a hospital bed.

And so it goes on: Naturally, the drug dealer is brutal, the bankers are heartless, the club owner is a playboy and the photographer, although a woman (!), has only her career in mind when she exposes Snow White in artsy pornographic pictures at a show.

This review doesn't need a spoiler in order to let you add these pieces to an obvious plot. As I like other films by Samir, e.g. "Forget Baghdad", I was quite disappointed. Let's hope for the next one.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: Well this film has certainly had a fair amount of hype; From the buzz at the Toronto Film Festival to gushing reviews on CBC Radio. A refreshing, wacky, hilarious indie movie apparently. I'd been looking forward to it for months.

How can I put it this simply? It sucked in a very big way. An exercise in cinematic lameness that makes Adam Sandler look like a comic genius.

At best it was mildly amusing and at worst coma inducing. An amerterish script badly directed and shoddily edited into a ramshackle mess.

And what was with the music being 500db louder than the rest of the sound track? That was about the only truly odd thing about it.

If you want to see a genuinely funny, bizarre movie involving aliens then try Repoman. There is no comparison!
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: This is one of Joan Crawford's best Talkies. It was the first Gable-Crawford pairing, and made it evident to MGM and to audiences that they were a sizzling team, leading the studio to make seven more films with them as co-stars.

The film convincingly depicts the downward slide of a brother and sister who, after their father loses everything in the stock market crash, must fend for themselves and work for a living. Life is hard in the Depression, and soon even their attempts at finding legitimate work prove futile, and they resort to underworld activity.

Joan Crawford is excellent as the socialite-turned-moll. She's smart, complex, and believable. She even tempers the theatrical stiffness of the other actors' early Talkie acting style. Clark Gable is a diamond-in-the rough, masculine and gruff as the no-nonsense gangster who becomes involved with Crawford's character. The same year he would play a similar and even more successful role opposite Norma Shearer in "A Free Soul", securing his position as top male sex symbol at MGM.

If you like Crawford in this type of role, don't miss "Paid", which she did a year earlier, which is also among her best early Talkie performances.

Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
Apparently Shakespeare equals high brow which equals in turn a bunch of folks not seeing something for what it really is. At one point in this film, someone (I believe Pacino's producer) warns him that film is getting off track, that it was once about how the masses think about Shakespeare through the vehicle of RICHARD III. Instead he decides to shoot a chopped up play with random comments sprinkled throughout. Some scenes seemed to be included as home movies for Al (was there really ANY reason for the quick visit to Shakespeare's birthplace, other than for a laugh about something unexpected which happens there?), and, before the film has really even begun, we are treated to seeing Al prance around and act cute and funny for the camera. I thought his silly act with Kay near the end of GODFATHER III with the knife to his throat was AN ACT - but apparently it's how Al really behaves in person.

Enough rambling. Here's a shotgun smattering of why I didn't even make it 3/4 of the way through this: 1) pretentious - Al always knows when the camera is on him, whether he's acting as Richard or in a 'real' conversation with someone - you can see it in the corner of his eyes, also, some of the actors around the rehearsal table become untethered and wax hammy to the extreme. If anyone reading this has ever spent any time with an group of actors and has witnessed this kind of thing from the outside, it's unbearable. "Look at me, chewing all the scenery!" 2) Winona Ryder. When she appears as Lady Anne, this film comes to a screeching halt, which it never recovers from. She has nothing to add in the discussion scenes but the camera lingers on her to bring in the kiddoes. Her performance is dreadful, to boot. 3) the only things you really learn from this are told to you by the very scholars the filmmakers are trying to keep out of the picture. Of course, you also learn that Pacino shouldn't be directing films (or doing Richard in the first place). I'd rather watch BOBBY DEERFIELD than this.

Lastly, read the play and learn it for yourself. Go out and see it performed. In 1997 I saw the play performed at the University of Washington Ethnic Cultural Theater, and it made what we see in this film seem like high school drama (except for the gratuitous throat slashing of Clarence! My God! Was that necessary?!)

It's all just a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nada.