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

Answer: Admittedly, I know nothing about baseball, I'm not even a fan of the sport, but that didn't stop me enjoying the Farrelly brothers' latest film, Fever Pitch, a charmingly irreverent romantic comedy. The film is not really about baseball; rather, it's really about relationships, and the emotional disconnectedness that can often take place.

Jimmy Fallen giving his best performance to date stars as Ben, a dorky, lightly nerdy schoolteacher. Ben is a kind of man-boy, who unfortunately has never really grown up, and he fosters an almost fanatical addiction to the Red Sox baseball team. Ben has devoted his life to the Sox, and does everything from making the pilgrimage to Florida for spring training to decorating every square inch of his apartment in team paraphernalia.

One day, while taking his honors geometry class to on a field trip to her office, Ben meets the go-getting Lindsey (a wonderful Drew Barrymore). Lindsey is a corporate, career orientated kind of girl, but she has a kind of cuteness that Ben finds totally endearing. He's initially hesitant to ask her out, thinking that she's way out of his "class," and, Lindsey doesn't immediately see a potential partner in Ben.

Their first date gets off to a disastrous start when Lindsey is stricken with a severe case of food poisoning and her resonant retching provides the first clue that we are, in fact, watching a Farrelly brothers movie. Rather than accept Lindsey's - rather urgent - request to reschedule, Ben sticks around to play nurse, orderly, and janitor. So Ben scrubs the toilet and the dog's teeth, while his love interest is passed out with a bucket next to her bed.

When Lindsey wakes up in the morning and finds him asleep on her couch, she begins the long, fitful process of dismantling the web of status anxiety and ambition she has come to think of as her standards. Soon they are falling in love, with Lindsey blithely accepting Ben's fanatical devotion to his sport.

Having inherited choice season tickets from his beloved uncle, Ben has organized his life around the season he's never missed a game. But their relationship, which has progressed without a hitch throughout the winter, hits a snag at the start of the season.

Lindsey wants Ben to do other things, like holiday with her parents and party with her friends, but Ben begins to have trouble modulating his interest to meet Lindsey halfway. Can Lindsey consent to his irrational devotion to the boys of summer in order to make their relationship work? Can she really accommodate Ben's infatuation with sports? Can a die-hard and nerdy Red Sox fan find true love after all? Of course, Lindsey and Ben come with a colorful assortment of opinion-wielding friends. Lindsey's strictest buddy, the skinny, rich and blond Robin (KaDee Strickland), insists that there must be something wrong with the guy if he's still single at 30. However, plump, curly-haired Sarah (Marissa Jaret Winokur) and Molly (Ione Skye) supply a more optimistic and positive view of Ben.

Ben's eccentricity could be applied to virtually any obsessive sports fan, while Lindsay's frustrations could be representative of any upwardly mobile career driven woman. Fallon is terrific as Ben, exhibiting real big screen potential, overcoming the not-insignificant challenge of keeping Ben from being unsympathetic. Barrymore, meanwhile, is equally charming as the workaholic Lindsey, particularly as she struggles to accept Ben for who he is without losing sight of her own needs.

Fever Pitch really works, and even though there are lots of inspired comedic moments, the movie is also addressing the serious problem of sports addiction and how difficult it can be for couples to negotiate this fragile territory.

Much of the movie was filmed at Boston's Fenway Park, which adds a fine sense of authenticity to the proceedings, as well as the ambiance of the games, though fully appreciating what transpired with the team will probably be limited to baseball aficionados. Even so, Fever Pitch is blessed with such a finely wrought and intelligently funny script that even novice baseball fans will find much with which to connect. Mike Leonard September 05.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
=++++=
Answer: I am writing this review having watched it several months ago....the trailer looked promising enough for me to buy this lame excuse for a movie. It is a complete joke....and literally a spit in the face of real classics of the early generation of horror like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) which they even had the gall to compare itself to on the back of the cover art. The producer who played Brandon should go flip burgers and serve up greasy hamburgers....hell he might not even be good at that either! The lighting was bad bad bad and a big annoyance through out the film you couldn't even see the actor's faces sometimes. I don't even remember the rest of the cast members which is sad really, bad they never do anything to impress you to make them memorable. That's all the time I will waste on this review PLEASE stay as far away as you can from this pile of junk even if you get it for 25 cents don't do it buy s piece of gum at least IT would keep you entertained!

If you want good quality low budget fun, far better than this... then check out a Jeff Hayes film....because it takes talent to make it in horror and the kid has it!

I gave this 1 star just for the cover art....thats the only thing worth liking abut this so called "film"

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

A: Having watched this film strictly on the strength of reviewers' ratings I was most pleasantly surprised. Although clearly low-budget, it bears the signs of clever ingenuity. For example, when Julia wakes in the strange house and looks out the window I found myself thinking that her sense of isolation would be enhanced with an exterior shot focused on her face and then moving backwards to include the house and its isolated location. And lo and behold! the next scene was exactly that last shot of the house standing lonely on the cliff at the water's edge. There are other examples of how a clever director can elevate his film to the level of a very enjoyable thriller. Savvy viewers will surely spot them but should rest assured they will not be disappointed.

As to the performances, George Macready is his usual creepy self, barely maintaining his composure while suggesting a capacity for unadulterated violence. Nina Foch was surprisingly good as the no-nonsense working girl who's not about to submit without a fight. But Dame May Witty, oh boy, she even had me doubting my own eyes and believing she could get away with her evil schemes.

This a real diamond in the rough and not to be missed.
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
Main theme in this Dirty Harry is that revenge is a dish best served cold. Sandra Locke is as cold in this film as she is beautiful. Locke is an "8" normally, but, with a deadly pistol in her purse, "cocked" for the bad guys, she climbs all the way up the scale to a "10". Having been gang-raped, along with her younger sister, some years ago, Locke, as Jennifer Spencer, has tried to block out the attack from her life, as best she can. Her sister, tho, is almost comatose as a result of the trauma, so the memory is never far from her mind. One day, Jennifer sees one of her attackers on the street in S.F.; she buys a pistol, follows him to a bar, lets him pick her up, then when they're alone in his Cadillac, beginning to make love, she shoots him....once in the genitals, once in the brain - - this in the opening scene!! Ya gotta love this spunky lady. She's got her priorities straight. Plus, Jennifer is a professional artist, putting all her anger on canvas UNTIL NOW. After executing her first perp, Jennifer curiously watches Det. Insp. Harry Callahan process the fresh crime scene after the body is found in the Caddy. Then, she insults some creepy teenage bucks who are hassling women on the street, visits her sister in a nursing home, then goes a'hunting in San Paolo, CA "up the coast" where the rape event took place years ago. With more bullets in her suitcase and more resolve in her mind, our heroine relives the rape inside her head with vivid recall, as she comes closer to executing each subsequent rapist. Not uncommon to us right- wingers, when it comes to sentencing or executing a violent criminal, don't be sorrowful for his own wretched humanity, we REMEMBER the CRIME and the SUFFERING he inflicted. Such recalled events steels Jennifer to pull the trigger on each of her attackers - once in the genitals, once in the brain. Throughout the movie, scenes of Jennifer's revenge are interspersed with good, IL' Dirty Harry blowing away some gangstas in a coffee shop, remember "Go ahead. MAKE my day."? Later on, he threatens to step on a punk kid (who'd just insulted Callahan) in a courthouse elevator like he'd step on dog- s**t....leaving a young female govt employee staring after Clint as if to say "I want to have your baby." My favorite scene is only about 30 minutes into the action, when Harry threatens and frightens a murderous Mafia boss named Threlkis into a fatal coronary during his granddaughter's wedding reception at the Mark Hopkins hotel. Michael Grazzo (Pantangeli in Godfather II) does a wonderful job as the sinful Mafia Don, even if he's only in one scene, dying in a most-convincing manner. However, Harry's troubles aren't over with yet! The elevator punk's gang AND Threlkis' henchmen each attempt to assassinate Harry in two close-ordered scenes, and most of them bad guys end up dying horribly. Yup, some of the gun-play comes off as uninspired screen violence....looking like Clint the Director may have been tired that day of shooting this movie. But, there's only so many ways you can dispatch a man with bullets. The punk kids die much more creatively, though, as they both burn to death and drown in S.F. Bay. Warms my heart. With so much violent intent directed at Insp. Callahan, his bosses send him to San Paolo to try to get some background on the "22 caliber vasectomy killing" as Jennifer Spencer's crime is now known, but not before Harry delivers one of his famous sermons-to-the- chowder-headed-liberals. Love that Harry. While our hero' up annoying the local cops and citizens in San Paolo, two more murders happen, same M.O., on a sleazy, lazy fisherman and on an equally-creepy hardware entrepreneur. Then Harry meets Jennifer! They find they both agree on subjects such as Law and Order, Making the Guilty Pay, etc. Could a hot, love scene be in the offing soon? We're led to believe just that. Characters abound in this Real-Man meets Real-Woman crime drama, and we get to meet a brassy bull-dyke named Raye Parkins who's both irritating and entertaining. Raye set up Jennifer's rape for her "boyfriend" years before, and she'll get hers eventually. The San Paolo Police Chief, played by reliable Eastwood co-star Pat Hingle (the Hanging Judge in 'Hang Em High'), is strangely at odds with Callahan's detective work related to the 22-cal vasectomies, until we find out that his own adolescent son was one of the gang of rapists. Much like Jennifer's sister, Chief Janning's son is now a comatose adult, but driven mad by guilt. It can't end here, though. The dyke's rapist boyfriend, Mick, now a kinky-sex jerk of a criminal, drives in from Vegas becuz Raye's dropped a dime on Jennifer, summoning him up to San Paolo to prevent more executions. Mick sleeps at Raye's house, but his timing is all wrong, and he's arrested before he can spend more time with Raye, mostly due to the fact that she's since been sent to the Island of the Eternal Lesboes by a shot from Jennifer's revolver. Psycho Mick makes bail at long last, with Jennifer gunning for him. A desperate chase ensues, as Harry tries to keep these two from killing each other. It all turns out well in the end, with the good gal and the good guy walking off into the sunset together to a beautiful Roberta Flack blues song.