input: Richard Brooks excellent 1967 film of Truman Capote's novel IN COLD BLOOD is a perfect companion piece to Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar winning performance in the 2005 CAPOTE. They really play well together (try them on separate nights). It is unusual to find films made 38 years apart that mesh so well. These two truly enhance each other. Even though different actors play the roles of killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, the two pieces blend well. Only the part of the writer (played by Paul Stewart) in the Brooks films is weaker, as they give him a different name then Capote. I'd suggest watching CAPOTE first, followed by IN COLD BLOOD. It makes for a powerful experience!

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: I saw this movie last year in Media class and I have to say I really hated it. I was in year 10 (and aged 15) so that may have has something to do with it. But for English this year, year 11, we had to read Animal Farm, also by George Orwell. Aside from the fact that the book is based on the Revolution, my opinion is that it is a terrible book, and I also hated it.

But 1984, I think it was the most disturbing movie I have ever seen, and I think that George Orwell is one of the most deranged people ever to live on this planet. I'm sorry to everyone who loved his work, but I unfortunately did not. The themes in the movie were well portrayed, but the way the whole movie was set and the events that took place within it were not to my standards. This is only my opinion, and I'm sure many many other people thoroughly enjoyed this film.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: For real film people, this film is a must, since it works as a perfect little allegory for the movies themselves. Janos Rukh/Boris Karloff's science has to do with capturing and projecting light from cosmic phenomena. This light can do harm, or it can be harnessed to do good. On the one hand it blinds his mother, on the other it is used to cure blindness ("I can see!" shouts a young girl on whose eyes this light is projected). When Rukh/Karloff is himself poisoned by the uncanny power of this light, we see him actually emitting a ghostly glow on his hands and face like a badly developed negative, drawing attention to the fact that the man we are watching is a projection, an entity viewed on film (only visible, as in a movie theater, when the lights are out).

There is a wonderful passage near the beginning where Karloff/Rukh explains his research as being informed by the fact that everything that happens is captured in light which rolls through space for millions of years, as the light from Andromeda was emitted from that Galaxy at a time when the earth was still molten rock.

There are passages in the film when this new science is juxtaposed to older cultural vehicles: that of the writer, in the persona of Beulah Bondi/Arabella Stevens; and religion, emblemized in the sculptural figures on the local cathedral Karloff blasts with his projector/ray gun.

One has to wonder here if this film was meant to glance at what was going on in Germany at the time, and particularly at Riefenstall's use of film the year before to promote a regime that certainly would go on to do a lot of harm:Triumph of the Will.

Happily in the end, Mother (Violet Kemble Cooper) intervenes, reminding Janos Rukh of the first rule of science.

If only more movies made you want to stand up in the theater and shout: "I can see!"

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pos/neg ans: positive

input: This movie is bad. If you are thinking about watching it, there is only one decent scene in the movie, and it lasts about 5 seconds (Amanda Carraway's topless scene). The rest of the movie is horrible. I think high school plays probably have better acting. The plot makes no sense at all. The set was pretty lame, and it wasn't even good to make fun of. It was just dull and very very bad! I watched this on Starz so I thought it had to be at least decent. The mini description sounded like it'd be alright. The girlfriend kills herself for apparently no reason at the beginning of the movie, after you have to watch some horrible music video. The transitions between scenes are VERY abrupt and its like someone just put a ton of clips into a movie without even thinking about how to transition them. Just cuts from one scene to another, no smoothness. Kind of like my random switching from talking about how bad the movie is, to explaining why the plot sucks. The audio gets low at some points, where you can barely hear it, then gets loud with gay 'horror screams' thrown in at random points in the movie. It is the same sound every time. This is now officially the worst movie I have ever seen

Acting: 0/10 Effects: 1/10 Storyline: 0/10 Music: 3/10

Lame-meter : 1,000,000 / 10

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pos/neg ans:
negative