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

i must admit that i was a tad skeptical of " good will hunting " , based both on the previews and the first fifteen minutes of the film , in which the main character will hunting ( matt damon ) , an mit janitor in his early twenties , is discovered to be an einstein - level closet genius when he solves two extraordinarily difficult math problems overnight .
the only problem is that will is a tough street kid who 's had his share of run - ins with the law , and before long he 's being hauled in for assault after a parking lot fight .
professor lambeau ( stellan skarsgard ) , who had brought up the math problems in his lectures , tracks him down and strikes a deal with the police : will is to be released , provided he works with lambeau on his math research regularly and attends therapy sessions .
this sounds like the formula for mildly charming fluff , but " good will hunting " rises above its fairly mundane premise to deliver a poignant and clever drama .
a conflict gradually emerges between lambeau and will 's therapist sean mcguire ( robin williams ) - lambeau wants to get will to use his brain , while sean wants him to listen to his heart , both of which he has been largely neglecting .
will finds that the former is much easier than the latter , so much so , in fact , that he gets bored with it and grows increasingly resistant to lambeau 's attempts to recruit him into the academic lifestyle .
he also has his share of problems with his girlfriend skylar ( minnie driver ) , an mit student who is moving to california at the end of the school year and would like a reluctant will to come with her .
what makes " good will hunting " work so well , aside from the strong performances ( especially from damon and williams ) , is the depth of characterization and the representation of the conflicts in will 's life .
the script 's sympathies seem to lie more with sean mcguire than with lambeau , but neither of them is presented as completely right or wrong .
lambeau , while he may seem a little cold at times , is still written well enough that we like him as a character even when we 're not sure if we like what he has to say .
and sean , for all his warm - heartedness , has , as lambeau and later will point out , not lived up to his full intellectual potential either ; the therapy sessions turn out to be just as revelatory for sean as they do for will .
will 's reaction to this situation , and the way in which he slowly becomes more receptive to skylar and to sean , is presented in a believable fashion and in a way that forces the audience to consider all the characters ' opinions , rather than setting up an obvious " right " and " wrong " side and beating them over the head with it .
for a film with such an extraordinary character , " good will hunting " presents itself as remarkably ordinary ; it achieves the difficult task of making the next albert einstein into an everyman , a character to whom the audience can easily relate and who must make choices similar to those that almost everyone faces at one time or another .
this film gives us real drama when it so easily could have given us merely melodrama , by having the government kidnap will to use him in covert spy missions or introducing some other equally far - fetched situation .
"
good will hunting
" also has its share of fun humor , such as when will , in an early therapy session , pretends to be hypnotized and smoothly parodies the alien abduction scenarios that have become so well known in popular culture .
and in the one scene in which government agents do in fact appear , will blows them off with a hilariously scathing accusation of human rights violations in africa .
will 's relationship with his friends , most notably chucky ( ben affleck ) , is usually rather amusing , if somewhat crude ( the film has 100 +
uses of the ' f ' word , which was most likely the reason for its r - rating ) , and lends itself well to the development of will 's character .
add all this to the fact that " good will hunting " even manages to pull off an uplifting happy ending without getting excessively sentimental , and you might be wondering why i have n't given this film four stars .
well , for one thing , no matter how well damon and affleck , who wrote the screenplay , and director gus van sant pull it off , the story is still rather contrived and not particularly original .
there are also a few scenes that did feel a bit formulaic , including one that was supposed to be emotional but really just seemed like the obligatory crying scene for any movie involving therapy sessions .
still , " good will hunting " takes its premise a lot farther than i thought it would , and is definitely one of the better personal dramas
i have seen in the last few years , and as of right now it stands as one of the top five on my list of ' 97 films .
P

the most interesting part of
"
ca n't hardly wait " just happens to be not only the most human , but
for many of us , the one part that many of us can easily relate to .
that is the character of denise ( lauren ambrose ) , the film 's sole sarcastic member who mocks everything that goes on in the film , and at one point sits down on a couch and looks totally bored .
the film wisely holds over this moment , nicely showing her alienation in the midst of a large high school party .
.. almost too nicely .
for some members of the audience ( read : me ) , this is basically a mirror of what 's going on with them watching this film .
we sit there wondering why we 've even bothered to see a film about a long high school party we probably never felt the desire to go to in the first place .
i would actually highly recommend this film if it satirized all of this .
after all , this film is filled with a bunch of pathetic stereotypes much of which i went to high school with .
everyone 's here :
the jock , the homecoming queen , the nerd ( and his dominions of trekkies and x - philes ) , the alienated wannabe writer , the school spirit girl , the pothead ( s ) , the wigger , etc , etc , etc , and weirdly enough this film shows them as superficial , lame , and basically as a bunch of losers . except for denise , who rolls her eyes at everything , and easily becomes the most likable character even before she speaks ( her yearbook entry , something which is done for each main character , quotes oscar wilde - definite pointers there ) .
unfortunately , the writers and directors take several major misteps on the way to making this into an admirable and even likable film .
the film , as i said , portrays most of its characters as superficial and just totally ignorant to everything .
however , instead of sticking with this , perhaps even going a bit further with it , they let this lie , and actually make these characters into our heroes .
we follow several of them , all a bunch of moronic stereotypes with only a shread of humanity and realism , and tries to tell boring and overly melodramatic tales about them as if we actually cared and/or identified with them .
and if we did , we certainly do n't want to revisit that state of being .
here 's a quick low - down : it 's graduation , and we follow a bunch of seniors on the last night , otherwise known as the " american grafitti " or , to a lesser extent , the " dazed and confused " cliche .
the formal just followed them as they drove aimlessly ; the latter did a little bit of that and featured a big outdoor keg party .
"
ca n't hardly wait " just opts for a big indoor keg party , and a little bit of aimless driving , albeit of the i'm - whining - because - i - can't - get - a - girl - i - want brand .
we follow many people around , but mostly we trail preston ( ethan embry , of " that thing you do ! " ) , the alienated writer , who 's been pining over the homcoming queen , amanda ( the totally overrated jennifer love hewitt ) , for the entirety of high school because he thinks they shared a moment their freshman year over a freaking pop tart .
now that she 's broken up with her football player boyfriend , mike ( peter facinelli ) , he decides to go to the party with a note he 's written declaring his " love " for her in the hopes he 'll build up the guts to give it to her .
.. even though he 's leaving for a multi - week intensive writing program hosted by none other than kurt vonnegut
( okay :
the ingenius vonnegut or some icky noxema spokesperson ? ) .
since that plot is incredibly lame and a track record of what goes on with it would n't be able to carry a commercial let alone a feature film , and because it 's a party , there are some more main characters , such as : william ( charlie korsmo , finally surfacing after " dick tracy " ) , the nerd ( and his dominions ) who has come up with a ridiculous plan to publically sabotage mike , who 's humiliated him for years , but gets too caught up in drinking to do it ; kenny ( seth green ) , the wigger , who has decided that this party will be where he will finally get laid ( uh huh ) ; and denise , the only exceptional character , who unfortunately gets stuck in a bathroom ( do n't ask ) with kenny where the two characters let down their characters and are allowed to follow the laws of plot cliches from point a to point b with nary a bit of characterization involved after awhile . ugh .
the main comparison this film is getting to another film is actually not " american grafitti " or " dazed and confused , " two films that embraced and ultimately made humans out of many of its high schoolers ( not to mention were extremely entertaining ) , but to john hughes films of the 80s , most notably " sixteen candles .
"
the big difference in the two is that that film managed to not only embrace but even satirize its main characters , and did so equally and in an entertaining fashion .
this film forgets to satirize its characters , and ultimately tells a story about a bunch of uninteresting stereotypes .
..
and then says that it 's all okay .
we ca n't take this film seriously , nor can we take this as fun , so really what good is it ?
but i will tell you some things i did
like
: i liked the direction , except for a couple too - over - the - top features , like way - too - glossy jump cuts
( it 's like an oxymoron ) and other obscurities .
generally , though , elfont and kaplan do have graceful camera movement , and even manage to capture
an altman - esque feel to their film from time to time ( a thing with a note , though , is too hokey to really be admirable ) .
i actually did like seth green , for once in about a decade ( when he played a very young woody allen in " radio days " ) - his desintegration of his wigger character was almost believable .
.. almost .
and , of course , lauren ambrose is wonderful as denise , the one character we could have used some more of , even though it would have changed the entirety of the film .
however , the character of denise really does n't work with the film , when really thought about .
she 's far too witty and realized ( at least for the first half ) to belong in this film , and whenever she appears , she automatically gives everything a delightfully satirical tone .
she 's not just the cynic or the intellectual ; she 's just a very interesting character who provides entertainment even if it further damages other already damaged characters .
she may ruin the film more , but at least when she 's on screen we can sit up and think to ourselves " well , at least we 'll be entertained .
"
a couple other things that just do n't work : mike 's character , who suffers an epiphany throughout the film but in the end acts as though he has forgotten everything : too much the sacrificial lamb for the film in general ;
the aimless , bitchy driving by preston to try and get over his inability to shack up with amanda - give me a break ; and
perhaps the one thing that just does n't work at all : jenna eflman 's uncredited cameo as an angel - just did n't work , but nice try .
basically the worst thing about this film , the real reason i 'm giving this such a low rating , is because it refuses to give us any fully realized characters and then insists we follow around complete stereotypes from other movies doing things that are inane and unlike anything we 'd do .
we do n't feel for these characters because for most of us , we are n't stereotypes going through the motions to worn subplots .
the acid test for high school movies is : does it at all capture the feel of what it 's portraying ?
the answer for this film is no .
nice try , though .
N

steve martin shines but sgt .
bilko fails to impress based on the popular 50 's sitcom , sgt .
bilko follows the string of old - sitcoms - to - movie conversion fever .
remember the brady bunch movie or the beverly hillbillies released sometime back ?
( brady bunch was a moderate hit in in the us while hillbillies flopped ) .
i do not really know whether the hollywood minds are running out of good ideas or just being plain lazy , but the tv - conversion - movies are hitting our screens like wildfire , sad to say , with mixed success .
such movies are mostly targeted at us viewers since they are usually followings of such series over there and the larger the following , the more likely the sitcom will be made into a movie .
sgt .
bilko ( frankly , i have not seen any its original tv version ) , even with the charm and wild antics of funnymen steve martin and dan akroyd ; failed to entertain .
sgt .
ernest bilko is the man behind the motor pool ( place of vehicle storage and repair ) of fort baxter .
though totally unskilled in the field of work that he is supposed to be in charge of , he has an almost superhuman ability and zeal to sniff out money - making opportunities ; from running a gambling den in the military garage to 4-d pools .
though materialistic in mind , bilko 's methods has thoughtfully ' enriched ' the lives of the men of fort baxter , providing them with some form of real recreation within the camp and the people love him for that .
colonel hall runs the entire fort and thanks to his inborn ' blissfully - confused ' state , bilko has managed to hide his operation , though nearly every living person in the fort knows about it .
bilko 's state of ascent is suddenly under - fire when the pentagon sends major thorn , a tough cookie on army regulations , to check on the progress on the $ 70 million hovertank project , a new weapon under development within the fort 's grounds .
to add to his problems , thorn is determined to bring bilko down in retalliation of a major ' sabo ' done on him by bilko during their younger army days .
director jonathan lynn , who directed my cousin vinny ( in which marisa tomei won an oscar for best - supporting actress ) managed to pull sgt .
bilko through with suitable pacing and some exceptional moments of laughter , but that is about it .
there are really not enough laughter - packed - moments in sgt .
bilko to fully entertain the average movie - goer .
still , steve martin 's sgt .
bilko is played with finesse and full - force by the renowned comedian . without him , sgt .
bilko would have just fell flat on its face .
sgt .
bilko did moderately well in the us box office early this year
but i doubt it will earn much elsewhere around the world .
the current trend in mixed successes in such tv - conversions may be a blessing in disguise , really ; at least it will force hollywood to re - think any of its initial intentions to turn another tv - idea into a movie or at the very least approach those ideas with more creativity . unless you are a fan of the tv - series or love to watch steve martin in action , you can skip this one when deciding which movie to catch in the local theatres .
i 'm sure
there are better ones around .
N