In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
One example is below.
Q: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
A: N
Rationale: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").
Q: in december of 1996 , a little movie called " scream , " was released , became a box - office smash , and resurrected films targeted at teens .
first , it was teen slasher movies that were the big fad ( both " scream " movies , " i know what you did last summer , " " urban legend , " etc . ) , but just recently , the popularity has switched over to the teen comedy genre ( a ' la ' 80s john hughes ) , starting with last june 's " ca n't hardly wait .
"
it may be the first week of april in 1999 , but so far this year we have been given a movie aimed at the 25-and - under market almost every single week : " varsity blues , " " jawbreaker , " " cruel intentions , " " simply irresistible , " " the rage : carrie 2 , " and " the mod squad .
" coming april 9 are two more of this type : " never been kissed " and " go , " and on april 23 , we 've got the teen satire " election " and the teen horror - comedy " idle hands .
" jeesh ! out of all of these moves , however , the one that is most similar to the latest incarnation , " 10 things i hate about you , " is this past january 's mediocre , ho - hum
" she 's all that .
"
although similar in plotting ( ok , darn near identical ) , " 10 things i hate about you , " a modern - day version of shakespeare 's " the taming of the shrew " ( " she 's all that " got its inspiration from " pygmalion " ) , is an infinitely superior film in every department , from the smart direction by first - time feature director gil junger to the charming and well - written screenplay by karen mccullah lutz and kirsten smith to the striking ensemble cast , who give the best group of performances in a teen comedy since 1985 's " the breakfast club .
"
and to top it all off , in the inevitable climax set at the prom , at least we did n't have to once again suffer through a goofy , inappropriate dance sequence ( who could forget , or want to remember , for that matter , this ludicrous development in " she 's all that ? " ) .
the day wide - eyed , shy new student cameron james ( joseph gordon - levitt ) starts school at seattle - based padua high , he is swept away at the sight of the beautiful and popular sophomore , bianca stratford ( larisa oleynik ) .
although he does n't know french , he purposefully learns some of it just so he can tutor her , but finds that her paranoid gynecologist father ( larry miller ) wo n't allow her to date until her bitter , unconventional older sister , kat ( julia stiles ) , a senior , decides to .
kat , of course , has sworn off the likes of boys , but cameron sets out to find someone that will be the perfect match for her , which is exactly what he finds in the form of the rebellious patrick verona ( heath ledger ) .
complicating matters , cameron 's dorky friend , michael ( david krumholtz ) , decides to use a wealthy jock , joey ( andrew keegan ) , who also has his sights set on bianca , as a pawn so that he will pay patrick to get kat to go out with him , and then cameron hopes to steal bianca away from joey .
as you can see , " 10 things i hate about you " includes a huge number of characters , some of which i have n't even mentioned , such as kat 's shakespeare - obsessed friend , mandella ( susan may pratt ) and bianca 's materialistic comrade , chastity ( gabrielle union ) .
at a short , but well - used running time of 98 minutes , all of the characters are perfectly handled , satisfyingly developed , and , for the most part , are not treated as caricatures ( another flaw of " she 's all that , " where the bad guys ( and gals ) ran around constantly saying , " you 're vapor " ) . since i could sympathize with the realistic depictions of the central characters , and since many of the comedic and dramatic scenes were surprisingly effective , i got completely caught up in all of the relationships and was thoroughly entertained . aside from a good screenplay , it 's the performances that can make or break a movie , and director junger has really hit the jackpot .
aside from joseph gordon - levitt
( " 3rd rock from the sun " ) , who gives his strongest performance to date here , none of the actors are that well - known , but it is this aspect that brings a particular freshness to the proceedings .
as the main character of kat , julia stiles ( last seen in the miniseries " the ' 60s " ) is marvelous and always believable , and certainly has a bright future ahead of her .
even though it is her role that is initially the most difficult and hard - edged , it was easy to identify with kat 's way of thinking ( she is against the silly tradition of the prom and loves reading sylvia plath ) , and i completely admired her individuality .
no one , i think , could have portrayed her as perfectly as stiles does .
heath ledger , as the infamous bad - boy of the town , injects much life into patrick , and has a lot of chemistry with stiles .
one other actor of note is larisa oleynik who , with the help of screenwriters lutz and smith , is able to turn bianca into a person with multi - dimensions , even though she is accurately self - centered at the on - set .
in one truthful scene , cameron angrily asks her if she has always been so selfish , and bianca grudgingly realizes that yes , she has .
one off - beat element of the film , and a source of some hearty laughs , is the way that the school 's staff act , which is strikingly unformal .
allison janney , as the guidance counselor ms .
perky , who is writing a trashy harlequin romance novel , is comic dynamite , as is daryl " chill " mitchell as the english teacher , who reads shakespeare to the class in rap and , at one point , sends kat to the office because , for once , she actually thinks one of his assignments is really good .
although there are a few cheap laughs that are thrown into the film near the beginning , most of it actually works , especially in the humorous and witty dialogue exchanges and quirks between the characters .
in one very funny scene , chastity asks , " i know people can be overwhelmed , and they can be underwhelmed , but can people just be . . .
whelmed ?
" at another point , bianca and kat 's father ( a stand - out larry miller ) , who is constantly terrified that his daughters are going to get pregnant , only allows bianca to go to the prom on one occasion : before she leaves , she has to put on the heavy fat suit he has
so she will get an idea of what it 's like to be pregnant .
"
10 things i hate about you " once and for all proves that there is still life in the teen comedy genre , and this movie is probably more reminiscent of the great john hughes than any other film of the ' 90s .
it also helps that the movie has a perfectly - assembled soundtrack , mixing indie - rock with new wave ' 80s songs ( and with , thank goodness , no rap ) .
by the film 's end , it actually had me rooting for certain characters to get together , and i was also quite pleased with how everything was wrapped up , especially in the final scenes involving kat and bianca , kat and her father , and a flawlessly - acted and moving sequence in which kat gets up to read the poem she has written for her english class ( this is where the title comes from ) .
luckily , i doubt i would be able to find ten things i hate about " 10 things i hate about you , " but the positive aspects of the film far out - number ten .
A:
P