Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: Richard Widmark is a tainted character in this movie. He is a professional pickpocket. He's been in prison three times, yet at the beginning of the film, he tries to make it four. Thelma Ritter is a busy body selling information to almost everybody. Jean Peters is amazing as the girl flamed by Widmark.

This is a period piece during the McCarthy era where the Red Scare ruled the politics and is worked into this plot quite nicely. What is unusual about this film is that Peters & Ritter are both victims of violent beatings in an era where women were seldom more than sex objects in films. This is what makes this film noir as women often got different roles in this type of film.

The film is only 87 minutes long and was obviously made by Fox as the under card for double features in the theater. The sets show it is a limited budget film. The script made J Edgar Hoover mad because patriotism is given short shrift. Hoover wanted it changed.

Instead, it became a B under card picture that was a sleeper hit in 1953. The script & acting in it are better than other big features were that year.
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: I have just watched the whole 6 episodes on DVD. The acting throughout is excellent - no question. There was not quite enough action for me I must say. No real suspense as such, just plenty of first class character development. Nothing like Tinker Tailor in terms of "whodunnit". If you like a good story slowly and carefully told then this is for you. Peter Egan as the lead Magnus Pym is excellent.

The film portrayed the life of a traitor. A man who should have been a loyal member of the British Intelligence Service but who was so damaged psychologically by his unhappy childhood that deception became his way of life in all things. As a child he adored his father but his father was exposed time & time again as a crook and a con man. Pym betrayed not for ideology or money but because he needed to deceive those closest to him (wife, son, mentor). Pym is fatally damaged by his father's influence - it has eaten his moral fibre away. He has no real love or loyalty in him.

Heavy psychological stuff and not many light moments in the 6 hour series. Very well done though.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
=++++=
Answer: First of all, I'd like to say that I love the "Ladies' Man" sketch on SNL. I always laugh out loud at Tim Meadows' portrayal of Leon Phelps. However, there is a difference between an 8-minute sketch and a feature-length movie. Watching Leon doing his show and making obscene comments to his listeners and coming up with all sorts of segments for his show, like "The Ladies Man Presents..." which is reminiscent of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents..." is absolutely hilarious. There's a great episode where Cameron Diaz role-plays Monica Lewinski, and Leon plays Bill and they call it "The Oral Office." See, that's funny!!!

In the movie, we don't see Leon on the show too often. In fact, he gets kicked out of almost every radio station in the country. And the plot revolves around his quest for true love, involving a mystery letter that got dropped off at his houseboat, signed by "Sweet Thing." Karyn Parsons, who is famous for playing Hillary on "Fresh Prince of Bel Air," works with him on the show and has a secret crush on Leon. The movie just piles on one boring subplot after another. And the gags are boring as well. The first time we see Leon mention the word "wang" it's pretty funny. When he uses it over and over again, supposedly trying to get a laugh, the joke has run dry. Most of the jokes he uses in the film are jokes we heard before, and done better, on the SNL sketch and played out tediously for a whole hour and twenty-five minutes. They even try to insert a musical number by Will Ferrell and his gang of Ladies' Man haters, who all want to destroy him because their wives had an affair with him, to bring some life into this witless comedy. Ferrell has some funny moments, and tries to make the best out of an otherwise unfunny role. Ferrell just has that unique comic talent, and he's funny at almost anything he does. Even Julianne Moore gets a cameo. Watching her, you can't but wonder "What the hell is an Oscar-winning actress doing in this movie??!!!!" Her name wasn't mentioned in the opening credits--probably by her consent. And of course a movie of this theme has to include the Master of Love himself, Billy Dee Williams. Billy Dee is charismatic as always, but even he can't breathe enough life into this film. I also have to add that the soundtrack is full of soft R & B hits, which impairs the film even more, giving it a horribly downbeat tone--as if the script isn't boring enough. I mean, this is "supposed" to be a comedy. The soundtrack would've been appropriate for something like "Love Jones."

"The Ladies Man" only has sporadic laughs. There are exceptions in which SNL can produce a great movie out of a short sketch. Watch both of the "Wayne's World" movies, and you'll see how it's done. But this movie, just like adapting Mary Catherine Gallagher's character to screen in "Superstar," shows the flip side. Some sketches are meant to be remembered on SNL, and not on the silver screen.

My score: 3 (out of 10)
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: An older man touches a flower in his wife's greenhouse that seems to be wilting. He gets pricked by it, or bitten by something on it. He quickly becomes ill, and at the hospital spits out a large writhing white larva of some kind. A later attempt to resuscitate him with paddles results in a splatter of blood.

A cop is at the hospital because his partner got badly hurt in a shoot-out. Somehow the cop gets paired up with one of the female doctors, as well as an entomologist who is brought in. There are several young kids wandering around the hospital, who I suppose we're supposed to find adorable, but who are extremely annoying little brats. They happen to wander into the room where the specimen is being kept, and happen to dump a growth hormone on it. Horror movie logic would say they deserve to die for this, but they're never even in any danger.

The critter grows and starts breeding. People run away from it, and sometimes towards it for some reason. The hospital gets surrounded by military who are prepared to destroy everything if need be.

There are no really compelling characters in the movie, and most of the time it seems like people are searching around for the monster. It was fairly boring. Clearly it owes something to the Alien movies, with the monster being born inside a human and having several stages of its growth. There's also a character named Bishop, and the lead actress has Sigourney Weaver's hair.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here:
This is the Columbo that got directed by Steven Spielberg at an early point in his career. It's nothing sensational but some small hint of great things to come for Spielberg can be seen in this movie. The movie is basically in the same style as most of Spierlberg's '70's movies and TV works. So that means that some characters tend to show some quirkiness's and no I'm not just talking about the Columbo character alone. The kind of character quirkiness which perhaps can be best seen in the 1975 Spielberg movie "Jaws". But other than some small hints of typical early Spielberg elements, you can't call this movie the work of- and fine example of a rising director star. Not that its bad, of course it isn't but as I said earlier, it also isn't anything too sensational.

This movie began really well and very promising but after it's fine opening, in which as always the murder occurred, the movie became sort of more slow and also dull to watch. Dull because it's mostly a Columbo movie by the book that doesn't have real memorable moments in it, not dull because it's a boring movie to watch.

The murder itself was quite ingenious and the concept of having a crime story writer murdering his writing partner showed some great and interesting potential. The story however didn't really explored all of its possibilities. At least that's the feeling this movie left me with.

The movie was still a good one to watch nevertheless thanks to the character of Jack Cassidy, who thinks he's smarter then Columbo, due to his mystery/crime writing experience and tries to give him all kinds of possible hints, leading away from himself. But of course Columbo knows better and he is his number one suspect from the first moment on but he as usual plays the game along.

The movie does have a good overall style and uses some fine camera position and editing. Funny to see that also most of this was all mostly consistent with Spielberg's later work, especially some of the camera-angles.

A fine and perfectly watchable Columbo movie but don't let the name of Spielberg attached to it rise your expectations for it too highly.

7/10