TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: of all the films i 've come to see this year ( 1997 ) , i think only chasing amy had as many " laugh - out - loud " moments
.
i 'm not saying that i was hysterically rolling on the floor while watching waiting for guffman , but my mouth burst open with at least a delighted guffaw at least every couple of minutes .
and i think i 'm the kind of person that laughs least at movies , even when i find them funny .
usually all you can get out of me is a warm smile , so to get me laughing out loud , and so frequently , is a really good sign .
waiting for guffman is the story of blaine , missouri , a town celebrating
it 's 150th anniversary , and the musical that is being put on for the big event .
the play is being directed by corky st .
clair ( christopher guest , who also wrote and directed this " mockumentary " as well as co - writing several original musical numbers ) , the effeminate broadway hopeful determined to make this production a smashing success .
teaming up with st .
clair are a handful of blaine residents : allan pearl ( eugene levy ) , a jewish dentist who spent his youth not as the class clown , but sitting right next to him and studying him , ron and sheila albertson ( fred willard and catherine o'hara respectively ) , a married couple setting their sights on hollywood , libby mae brown ( parker posey ) , the dense but fun queen of the dairy queen , and a few others .
everybody in this movie is brilliant , absolutely so , but levy particularly stands out .
these characters are portrayed with such saddening realism that you ca n't help but love them , as pathetic as they really are .
although levy stands out , guest , willard , o'hara , and posey are all wonderful and definitely should be commended for their performances ! if there was an oscar for an ensemble performance , this is the group that should sweep it .
some humor was a tad uneven from the rest of the film and , even after starting very humorously , they nearly lost me with the tad - too - long intros . as delightful as it was , it began to get monotonous .
thankfully , just as your about to say " ok , maybe i should run to the bathroom " , they finally get past the intros and onto the rehearsal scenes .
like a play , this film gives a very three - act feel , the intros ( funny , but almost too long ) , the rehearsals ( even funnier ) , and finally , the actual performance of the play ( excellent ! ) .
like i said , each character really shines , even when done with a subtle approach .
you ca n't really watch these people and not think they 're real people !
even they way they talk , with awkward pauses and stumbles that do n't feel staged at all , you feel like you 're watching a real , albeit funny , documentary .
and even with silly lyrics , the original songs when the play is finally put on , are absolutely wonderful !
as a word of note , despite it 's " r " rating , waiting for guffman is really quite clean .
this rating came from a brief , very brief use of the grand - daddy of all swear words .
even if that really bothers you , let me say that it 's not presented in a vulgar , cheap - laugh way .
it 's actually quite humorous and tastefully done !
it might be hard knowing what to expect with waiting for guffman .
it 's silly humor , but it 's also so dry , subtle , and intelligently done that you 're not insulted by it .
it 's always really nice to see a comedy that is n't all slapstick and vulgarity , and this film is one of the better ones of the better ones !
i 'd recommend seeing it !

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: steve soderbergh 's " sex , lies , and videotape , " which won the grand prize at the cannes film festival in 1989 , arguably began the resurgence of independent films .
made on a shoestring budget of $ 1 . 2 million , with then relatively unknown actors , it is a provocative , thoroughly original drama .
the film mostly focuses on the four central characters , all in their late 20's - early 30 's .
ann ( andie macdowell ) , an unfulfilled housewife , is married to john ( peter gallagher ) , an insensitive lawyer , who , unbeknownst to her , is having an affair with her younger sister , cynthia ( laura san giacomo ) .
complicating matters even worse is graham ( james spader , who won best actor at cannes ) , john 's old college buddy , who comes to stay at their house .
ann is absolutely won over by him , even though she clearly has stated that she has very little interest in sex .
that is the set - up for the last hour of the picture , and since the film is entitled , " sex , lies , and videotape , " it is best to keep the rest of the story developments at bay so that they will come as a genuine surprise .
director steven soderbergh has proven to be a wildly offbeat filmmaker , ranging from the independent , to the mainstream ( 1998 's " out of sight " ) , to the downright kafkaesque ( 1997 's " schizopolis " ) .
he is the type of director who obviously takes a lot of chances , and believes in the work that he does , and , " sex , lies , and videotape , " is probably his most confident , and maybe even best , to date .
the performances are superb from all four leads , but macdowell stands out in what is probably the main character .
she is always a very winning actress , but this is probably her most three - dimensional role that she has had ( with a close second being altman 's 1993 mosaic , " short cuts " ) .
the other parts are perfectly cast as well , from spader 's ominous graham , to gallagher 's self - involved john , to giacomo 's outspoken cynthia .
the final act of the film , especially , comes right out of left field , and turns out to be both shocking and oddly touching , and it would be criminal to give away the film 's secrets .
suffice to say that , through one powerful sequence , ann is able to somewhat come out of her shell , and john learns a valuable lesson about honesty , as well as deception .
the film has one fault , however .
the characters are almost all emotionally cold and isolated from one another , and often unlikable .
if there had been a few extra scenes with gallagher , it probably would have helped , since his relationship with macdowell is n't quite as explored as i would have liked .
"
sex , lies , and videotape , " although minorly flawed , is still easily a brave and adult motion picture that is far more mature and honest about its subject matter than the usual film .
soderbergh clearly knew what he was doing while he was making it , and the final product certainly proves this .

SOLUTION: P

PROBLEM: " love is the devil " is a challenging film , munundating its audience with wild imagery and a plot structure that disallows a plot , perhaps in an attempt to get us to know the artist 's psyche rather than the artist 's lifeline . watching it ,
i was enthralled with the look of the film , the way the director shot everything like it was looking through a bizarre , personalized filter .
everything looks like it is not how life looks like but how painter francis bacon , the film 's subject , looked at it personally .
but while
i was engrossed
, i stumbled upon my thoughts halfway through the film , awakened from my trance by some inner distraction , and began to try and follow what 's going on .
exactly what was i looking at ?
watching this film , i was n't sure if it was the most insightful film i had ever seen or the most vacuous .
directed ( and written ) by john maybury , " love is the devil " is stylish masterpiece for the senses .
everything looks originally bizarre and perplexing .
the camera angles are ferociously askew , and the close - ups are uncomfortably too close .
the editing is deft , occasionally cutting away to something bizarre every couple seconds , but other times holding on a shot for so long that you wonder if the audience is not supposed to be voyeurs , or rather , intruders to bacon 's world and psyche .
as such , there is no real story .
i 've not heard much about francis bacon that i did n't read prior to the film , but what i learned was this : he was a painter in england who reached his peak during the 60s and 70s , drawing hideously bizarre drawings of carnage and the like .
he was one of the first to really come out of the closet , and in interviews , he was notoriously drunk yet incredibly witty .
as played by great shakesperean actor derek jacobi , he 's like a foppish and self - absorbed cross between oscar wilde and nero .
he lives life the way he wants to live it , to the disatisfaction of those who have the privelege of being really close to him .
it 's as if he were taking delight in the destruction of others and maybe himself ( " champagne for my real friends , and pain for my sham friends , " he says one night at the bar he frequents ) .
"
love is the devil " chronicles the latter part of his life .
bacon , well - known in his mid - life , awakens one night when he hears a man tumble through his ceiling window and land on the floor .
he walks in , unafraid of what he finds , and discovers a thief , george dyer ( daniel craig ) .
bacon gives him an offer : if he spends the night with him , he can take anything he wants in the morning .
george agrees to this , and off to bed he goes , but ends up staying with him , for whatever reason .
the film shows their lives together , at least in reference to one another .
while creating bacon 's world of friends ( like " high art , " this film minors in showing a certain group of people who radiate a connection that is not shown but is understood ) , the film shows the relationship of bacon and george as it remains rather stagnant .
bacon is haughty and bizarre ; george is simple and does n't understand bacon in the least , especially not his paintings .
while watching this , that 's basically all i thought was there .
the film has a hypnotic feel , free of any restraints of form , and is shot so uniquely
that i felt my attention was almost entirely on the way this film was made rather than what it is about .
once the film is over , it 's easier to piece it together .
i kept on thinking about this film , wondering what the point to all of it was .
someone does n't merely make a film of all style and no substance at all , and if they do , they do it by accident , but still allow some substance to creep in .
thinking about it , i remembered how the two fed off of eachother .
i thought about how bacon was a masochist , in love with cruelty ( in one scene , he watches a boxing match with a orgiastic delight , and lets out a squeal of pleasure when blood from the one boxer 's head splashes across his face ; in another scene , he masturbates to the odessa steps sequence of eisenstein 's " battleship potemkin " ) , and perhaps he drove george too far in his delight for pain .
he drove him over the edge , and for him that was love , even if it was n't for george .
i guess that explains the title .
a bit .
that 's great and all , but i almost wish the film was devoid of any meaning .
i wish it had n't reduced itself to making some point about humanity , about how love is the most selfish thing in the world ( and it is , if you look at it a certain way ) .
or maybe if it had avoided any meaning about humanity and merely drove itself into being the one film that was truly inside one man 's twisted pysche .
it 's almost always best to obtain insights from looking at one man 's uniqueness than it is forcing universality down an audience 's throat .
that way you do n't reduce your film to something it 's just not .
i ca n't say i totally enjoyed " love is the devil , " though .
despite all of the things i respect about this movie , it 's still rather uncomfortable to sit through .
even at a normally trite length of ninety minutes , the film still seems like an arduous task to sit through , especially after an exhausting first hour . though hypnotic
, it still almost seems gimmicky and even redundant at times , as if it were taking advantage of one man 's truly bizarre nature but not doing anything deeper with it . as such , i respect the way the film looks .
it 's beautiful and painstakingly crafted
so that , along with " what dreams may come " and " dark city , " it 's the year 's most visually stunning film .
in fact , if a better script had been forged , i 'd almost compare it in visual power to a peter greenaway film , complete with similar haunting images that stick in the mind forever .
and with a dymanite performance by derek jacobi , it has the comic and distanced tone that it needs .
i just wish it had been more than mostly style and just a hair bit of substance .
then i would have had something to hold me over even now .

SOLUTION:
P