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

note : ordinarily , moviereviews .
org will not give away any critical plot points of a film that could be interpreted as " spoilers . " however , being that music of the heart is based on a true story and that moviereviews .
org feels the film can not be properly credited without such revelations , plot giveaways will appear in the following review .
if this bothers you , please note the 3 star rating of the film and stop reading now .
"
what does it take to play carnegie hall ?
practice .
"
it takes two hours for music of the heart to " play carnegie hall , " both figuratively and literally .
like the children it portrays , the movie starts from the dark realms of awful cinema and works its way up to a show - stopping performance at the legendary concert hall .
roberta guaspari ( academy award winner meryl streep ) has two kids , a husband who left her and 50 violins she bought from a small shop in the mediterranean .
her life desperately needs a jump start and gets one when she meets a man who introduces her to a job as a music teacher at an east harlem elementary school .
she soon finds her job is on the rocks as the men in her life continue to rotate through revolving doors .
that is the pattern - like plot of this production .
ultimately , the film chooses a zero - sum answer to these problems and finds her music career at an all - time high when the men in her life finally vanish .
the first hour of music of the heart is rather painful .
roberta 's character lacks development and consequently seems to be flat .
also lacking depth is the film 's " bad guy , " a narrow - minded music teacher ( josh pais ) who rejects roberta out of principle ( the movie never explains exactly which principle that is ) and conveniently comes and goes from the plot according to when it might be dramatic to have a villain around .
the next 15 minutes of the film are mediocre .
they are highlighted by one child 's return to roberta 's class ( coming after the great old hollywood scene where he explains be ca n't be around anymore because " my mom said . . . " ) and a glowing concert .
not knowing the running time , you may expect the credits to role at this point .
but they do n't .
instead the film uses the next 45 minutes to finish its journey from bad to mediocre to excellent .
director wes craven , known for his works of horror , uses some old sentimental tricks to get the audience tearing .
one romantic break up scene is highlighted by the classic
" but . . .
last night . . .
" and roberta 's two children also have textbook conflicts with their single mother regarding their father 's absence .
the city of harlem plays a strong role in the movie .
roberta 's mother is initially reluctant to see her daughter move to that part of town and the film does nothing to combat that stereotype .
the noise tracks for these scenes are dominated by sirens ; predictably one of roberta 's students is gunned down and killed off screen .
one thing the film does lack is subtlety .
the fact that a little boy was playing " we shall overcome " on his violin after the aforementioned shooting was a cute and discreet reference .
the fact that the entire orchestra begins to play it over and over soon after is an overdone reference that shows how little credit he gives the audience .
( of course , in horror films the foreshadowing and between - the - line moments are meant to be overdone , so perhaps he too is just learning to play the game . )
even with all its flaws , music of the heart is a beautiful film .
that is not an excuse for the movie 's poor beginning .
but as i watched the scenes in carnegie hall , i thought of some of the great acts that have taken that stage .
in december of 1979 a comedian named andy kaufman put on a show that will forever be remembered as one of the most original in theatre history .
the performance included a dead - on elvis impression , robin williams in disguise and a moment at the end when kaufman announced he would take the whole audience out for milk and cookies .
so , how did this comic genius choose to open the show of his life ?
he had a character named tony clifton take the stage for the sole purpose of irritating and angering the audience .
perhaps it is okay for music of the heart to start off rusty because just as kaufman had santa 's favorite food ,
this movie has an amazing finale .
P

" virus " is a monster movie without a monster .
any movie with a hurdle that large to overcome had better be pretty damn good
otherwise .
sadly , " virus " does not deliver , on any level .
the movie opens with the russian space station mir about to transmit something ( we never find out what ) to a big boat with lots of satellites on it .
sudddenly , a wave of colorful lightning comes flying through space , and winds up destroying mir and using it to transmit itself to the aforementioned big boat .
cut to seven days later , we meet donald sutherland and his band of seafaring vultures .
see , they spend all their time sailing around looking for dead - in - the - water ships to rescue , and then collect the reward money .
at least , i * think
* that 's what they do .
along with many other things in the film , their reason for being out in the middle of the ocean is n't really explained .
so , they stumble upon this big boat with lots of satellites on it , and decide to haul it back to russian waters .
the only problem is , the crew starts disappearing one - by - one and turning into borg .
yes , borg .
complete with the red laser beam in place of an eye .
apparently , this alien lifeform can only survive if inside something electrical .
so , it creates make - shift machines and uses humans for " spare parts " .
blah , blah , blah .
i could go on forever describing the ludicrous so - called plot , but i wo n't .
suffice it to say the most original thing about this movie is having donald sutherland play an irish man ( !
) . everything else in this movie has been taken from other ( better ) movies .
for example , many of the machines resemble those found in the little - seen japanese movie , " tetsuo - the iron man " .
and the plot is right out of " aliens " .
the funny thing is , i was actually expecting to enjoy this movie .
i have a soft spot for cheesy monster movies , like last years under - appreciated " deep rising " .
but " virus " , as i mentioned earlier , does n't even have a monster .
it just has a big pile of circuits and wires and expects the audience to fear this ridiculous looking contraption .
" virus " is the type of movie that really makes you wonder what the screenwriter was thinking about when he wrote it .
besides the lame " monster " , it 's chock full of dialogue that no real person would ever say , and situations that no real person would ever allow themselves to get into .
for example , there is a scene late in the movie in which one of the characters actually attempts to * negotiate * with the alien !
now , i do n't know about you , but if i came upon a lifeform that viewed mankind as a virus to be eliminated , i doubt that i would attempt to reason with it .
that makes about as much sense as a baby squirrel calmly asking a fierce predator to spare his life .
finally , " virus " is n't scary .
the least the filmmakers could have done was to make the movie just a little scary .
as it is , it 's about as frightening as a box of cookies .
skip " virus " .
if it 's a cool monster movie you want , rent the far superior ( and the granddaddy of this genre ) " aliens " .
N

capsule : earthy , experimental , difficult , shockingly frank ( even for 1997 ! ) , and ultimately refreshing story of a black man on the run from the cops .
the first few minutes of sweet sweetback 's baad asssss song ( yes , i checked --
that 's the correct number of ss )
are without dialogue , just eerie montages of sounds .
a young boy , obviously malnourished , is taken in and fed up by several loving mother - surrogate figures .
then one of them takes the boy to bed for a sexual initation ( underneath the title credits ) that 's far more confrontatory and shocking than any ten basic instincts -- probably because it has the directness and clumsiness of real life , something we 're not used to seeing on screen .
this is one tough movie to swallow , no matter who you are , but that probably reflects more on how pallid and unchallenging movies have gotten lately .
( i suspect the sex scenes in movies like el topo and salo would probably melt the synapses of most modern audiences . )
the plot is simple but not simpleminded .
sweetback , hassled by two white cops who are apparently just looking for an excuse to beat up on a black man , breaks his bonds and runs like hell .
along the way he moves through a good many of the kinds of environments that we are only just now being seen in a more serious light in the movies -- or at all , for that matter : the slums , the missions , the ghetto .
in other , lesser , movies , sweetback would be machine - gunning everything in sight and the end credits would roll over a pile of bodies ; in this one , we get taken on a kind of a tour of the depressing and anarchic world that sweetback takes for granted .
ssbas first appeared in 1971 and was promptly rated x ( " by an all - white jury " , as director melvin van peebles crowed in his legendary ad campaigns ) , and it 's hardly surprising why .
there 's a good deal of sex in the movie , but it 's handled in a way that 's unsettlingly frank -- a frankness that spills over into the rest of the movie .
in one scene , sweetback visits a friend 's house in the hope of getting sanctuary there , and the other man chats him up while on the toilet .
we 're not used to coming this close to people in real life , let alone in the movies -- especially not people who are not made out to be glamorous .
the movie is also full of experimental stylistics that are relatively unused today , but probably because of that seem curiously fresh and new in van peebles ' hands .
one scene , in which a man is interrogated by the cops , is loaded full of menacing energy as they fire off a gun inches from his ears , and suggest his deafness through a cleverly edited soundtrack .
another note : ssbas is not so much anti - white ( that would be too easy ) as anti - authority , and as the movie goes on to demonstrate , authority exists in many forms -- governments , churches , and even the paranoid inside of one 's own mind .
ssbas is ultimately about thirsting for freedom -- and it looks like we could use a little more of that in our movie diet , god knows .
P