Problem: OPTIONS:
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- positive positive
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Answer: I am decidedly not in the target audience for this film. I am a man nearly 50 who has only recently stumbled across the world of independent film. This happened quite by accident, with the discovery of a movie called Clerks late one night on television. The first two things I noticed about that film were that it was 1) technically amateurish and 2) brilliantly written. When I read an interview with the director in the local paper and he said that one of his influences was Clerks, I started to get interesting. When he said his main influence was The Station Agent, a movie I'd seen on DVD a week prior, I decided I had to go and check it out. The result could be described along the same lines as Clerks, although the two films are nothing alike content wise. Both films suffer from technical gaffes that are overcome through amazing writing. Whereas Clerks is a day in the life of a man who has nothing in his life at all and is afraid to ask tough questions about himself and his situation, Less Like Me is about a man who seemingly forces himself to be constantly busy, he's always running one way or another, filling his life with little things so that he will never have to deal with the big ones. The themes and ideas of this film are strong and poignant. I can tell from watching it that not much has changed since I was growing up, young men still have the same problems they always have. The writer dresses up these problems and themes in the modern vernacular, crafts wonderfully honest characters, and has them do completely believable things. As far as indie cinema goes, this may not be perfect from a technical standpoint, but from an artistic one, it is very close.
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
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- positive).

A: THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA (2007) ****

If Loving Cinema Makes Me A Pervert, So Be It!

If you are a true 'moviefreak' like me then I'm sure you can't get enough of films about film-making and I don't mean necessarily the dry documentary know and then. I mean a total discourse on the film viewing experience. Well if that's the case have I got a lulu of a film experiment for you.

In Sophie Fiennes (sister of Ralph & Joseph if you were wondering) has noted philosopher cum cinephile Slavoj Zizek give his analysis on cinema with some impressive (and often outrageous) takes on everything from the silent era of Chaplin thru the modern age of the Wachowski Brothers analyzing, probing, and pontificating about the psychosexual underpinnings, socioeconomic, political and of course indefinable magic of the film going experience with his unflagging, determined and near-frenetic dissertations. To go from explaining how The Bates' house in PSYCHO is actually the mirrored psyche of the conflicted Norman Bates with each level as his Ego, Superego & Id is one thing but then to suggest the same thing about each Marx Brother in barely a beat is a remarkable test of faith that wins over the skeptic layman.

Although I had no idea who Zizek was he resembles a hybrid of filmmaker Brian DePalma, European actor Rade Serbedzija and the hyperkinetic energy of filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese with his sibilant tongue and passion, the host comes across as a mad prophet.

Fiennes cleverly inserts Zizek into several of the film clips' backgrounds peppered throughout making for a humorous tone but still lets the ranting and raving continue full throttle giving pause for argument in three acts covering the gamut of films by the likes of Kubrick, Lynch, Hitchcock and films as diverse as THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE RED SHOES, and FIGHT CLUB.

There's something for everyone and if one man can provoke an argument or at least a reason to discuss a film's themes even if they are Freudian/Jungian to a fault then I say this collection of film theory is worth the watch. Seek it out now if you can before it comes to home video; it's the only way to appreciate it.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: I was sooooo excited to see this movie after finally reading the book this week. My 13 year old son was looking forward to it too. I rented it and snuggled down to enjoy a classic holiday story brought to life on screen.

Boy, was I disappointed. This movie veered off from the book more times than is forgivable. George C. Scott is an excellent actor but in this, it seemed that he was fully into character only about 20% of the time. The rest of the time he was quite flat.

I realize that this was made in '84, pre-CG effects, for the most part. But it looked to be very B-movie quality, especially the encounter with Jacob Marley.

The biggest disappointment was the fact that they left out one of the most moving parts of the story: When the Spirit of Christmas Present takes Scrooge on the whirlwind tour of the world, observing people in the bleakest of circumstances still having the light and love of Christmastime.

I will admit that Mr. Scott did a good job with the "reformed" Scrooge at the end. That was a refreshing portrayal.

I wish that Bob Cratchit had been portrayed as a little more ragged and down-trodden. And Tiny Tim... oh don't even get me started on bad child actors...
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: What is "Cry Freedom" like? It is simply great and unique experience about making of South Africa and how black people in that country were repressed by white people. Main character of the story is Donald Woods (Kevin Kline), chief editor of the newspaper Daily Dispatch in South Africa. Woods writes several articles, where he speaks critically about views of Steve Biko (Denzel Washington). Soon Woods meets Biko and he changes his views about him and he also begins to understand what authorities are doing to black people in South Africa (right from the top, even from the chief of police). When Biko dies in police custody, Woods decides that he have to write book about him and that no matter what he has to publish it. But Woods must escape from his country to get that book published and he must also put his family on second place, so world can find out the truth.

Attenborough managed to make a good movie about people, with main message that black and white are the same, cause we are all people. Story leads us to South Africa and this (movie) is great way for the whole world to learn what happened in that land and I'm disappointed that only 3200 people rated this movie. This is movie from which we all can learn something. Although it is a bit long, this story couldn't be presented in any shorter way because director wanted to show us how hard was for Woods to get that book published after death of Biko.

Also relationship between Woods and Biko was shown great, just like families of those two people and all the problems they are going through. But sometimes sacrifices must be made (Biko's death) so the truth could be reveled (Woods book).
Problem: OPTIONS:
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- positive negative
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Answer:
Proof why Hollywood conventions are in place. Stale dialogue, underdeveloped and flat characters and a disjointed storyline are only part of the problems with this gangster classic wannabe. An attempt to be daring and different but this appears to be a slap-together attempt at recreating the magic of Arthur Penn 's Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and George Roy Hill 's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)- truly innovative filmmakers and films - but falling well below the bar. Problems with storylines being self-explanatory result in the need for a voiceover to explain problem sections. The editing appears again to be an attempt to duplicate the previous classics but is occasionally disjointed and cause more problems for me technically. Unnecessary shots are thrown in to justify the filming of them but would have better served the viewer by sitting on the cutting room floor. Stills, black & white montages and period music are thrown in from time to time in attempts to either be different or to cover up for scenes that can't transition well or to replace scenes that just didn't work at all and again are reminiscent of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969).

Overly dramatic pauses between sentences, random shots of surrounding scenery that wasn't needed for storytelling plus over-the-top acting of bit players and supporting actors was reminiscent of the backyard camcorder directors of the late 1980's - I was left wondering who was in charge of this film during production and during post-production. The playing of music in most two shots and close-ups and then suddenly stopping in wide shots overly emphasized a weak musical score. No sound editing was drastically apparent as the bulk of the film was gunshots, doors, footsteps and dialogue (a style used in the late 60's through the mid-70's by new directors) but lacking background noise causing it to seem artificial - particularly the tire squeaks on dirt roads. In my honest opinion the biggest problem of all is there are no 'likeable' characters for the audience to route for nor were we lead to see as the protagonists of the story. Neither the gangsters nor the lawmen were characters I wanted to see win and neither were focused on as the 'hero'- a necessity for any story to work for me. We know from Penn's and Hill's movies who the 'heroes' are. Even though they are criminals, we like them and want to see them get away. I could care less who was on the screen in this film. I got the impression that John Milius was trying to give off a non-historically accurate reenactment documentary of the events surrounding John Dillenger's life from June 1933 to July 1934 (his death).

To be fair, there are some moments of good solid storytelling, which are moments that shine forth brightly from the dark and dismal canister in which this film sits. John Milius gets better thankfully in future films where he doesn't seem to try to 'copy' other filmmakers. Dillinger (1973) isn't a total waste as many stars and famous faces who were at the cusp of breaking out are involved with this directorial 'big budget' debut, but wait for it on a classic movie channel rather than spending money to rent or buy.