Teacher: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? If you are still confused, see the following example:
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 )
Solution: N
Reason: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Now, solve this instance: go 's is a gloriously slick hip machine .
director liman ( who also photographed go ) and screenwriter august celebrate the drug / rave scene in l .
a .
, preferring to take ( comedic ) snapshots of troubled youth rather than critique them .
after more than ninety minutes of pill - popping , tantric sex , car chases , and attempted murder , go even has a happy ending .
this is the sort of film that gives members of the dove foundation splitting headaches ; as go wound down , i anticipated an anti - pill - popping - casual - tantric - sex - car - chase - attempted - murder sermon that ( blessedly ) did n't arrive .
a la tarantino 's pulp fiction , go is comprised of three separate but related stories .
the basics are as follows :
ronna ( polley ) is a bitter grocery store clerk facing eviction who turns to drug dealing for extra dough .
her co - worker , simon ( the improbably named askew ) , is a clubber from britain ecstatic about his first trip to vegas .
zack ( mohr ) and adam ( wolf ) are soap opera stars escaping a career - threatening conviction by assisting a peculiar cop ( fichtner ) in a drug bust .
perhaps because the innovative structure of tarantino 's non - linear masterwork is by now old hat , the id - fueled go delighted me but rarely surprised me ( with the exception of that mind - reading cat ! ) ; pulp fiction zigzagged down roads unforeseen , but we see go 's wheels turning from its first flash frame to the last .
torontonian polley ( of the sweet hereafter ) refused to do publicity for this picture on the basis that she was " not pleased with " her turn as the ill - fated cashier .
in go , she delivers , hands - down , her best performance to date .
here 's an ( overrated ) actress who agreed to appear on the poster , but not support her team at the junket or in interviews ; this sort of arrogance is commonplace for ms .
polley , as anyone who has read of her political agenda in the canadian press will tell you .
if she does n't want to be the ingenue of the moment , she should have said " no , " not go .
but i digress .
go is a fun film , so chipperly depraved one ca n't help but turn off his moral judgment for its duration and enjoy the ride .
in that sense , it 's a departure from liman 's last film , swingers , which at least lectured against self - absorption in the form of vince vaughan 's trent and his subtle comeuppance in the story 's clever epilogue ( which has been aped by mcdonald 's for their latest commercial ) .
i wish i cared more about go 's characters : like the techno music they listen to , the bands of anarchists on display here are at once absorbing and vacuous .
when the lights came up and stung my eyes , it was difficult to recall what about it entertained me . yet
entertain me it did
.
go is light and frothy , featuring compelling if not endearing work by polley , timothy olyphant ( scream 2 ) , and especially fichtner , whose homoerotic behavior is milked for effective laughs .
fichtner is a character actor best known for playing backstabbers ( in heat , armageddon , and others ) ; his previously untapped comic abilities shine in go .
unlike much of the film , fichtner is unpredictable .
Student:
P