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

pollock starring ed harris , marcia gay harden , tom bower , jennifer connelly screenplay by barbara turner and susan j .
emshwiller , based on the book " jackson pollock : an american saga " by steven naifeh and gregory white smith directed by ed harris
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" how do you know when you 're finished making love ?
"
-jackson pollock to a life magazine reporter on recognizing when you 've completed a painting jackson pollock 's " making love
" quote is famous , but in practically the same breath , he said a more constructive thing , " it 's like looking at a bed of flowers -- tear your hair out over what it means .
"
it took him sixteen words to do as whole dissertations have tried and failed : equate god and abstract art and offer a kind of backhanded comfort to those confused to the point of resentment by the concept .
the biopic _ pollock _ , actor ed harris ' directorial debut
, reflects the second soundbite in how it accepts pollock 's creations as part of the order of things , and should similarly disarm haters of fine art .
arguably more than any other living actor , harris , who also plays _ pollock _ , embodies the archetypal working stiff , and his blue - collar demystification of pollock 's labour - intensive art , both as performer and director , makes for unpretentious cinema .
( from what i know of harris , he , like pollock , was not born gifted or lucky ; instead , a strong work ethic is the seed of his success . )
granted , it 's possible that _ pollock _ will alienate those same viewers perplexed by the imponderable " purpose " of pollock 's splatter series : the common thread between them is a lack of editorializing .
the movie _ pollock
_ is all purposeful gazes and silent exchanges dotted by tantrums , but the motivations are left to our own perceptions .
and it is a sympathetic yet not altogether forgiving film , as illustrated by a disheartening conclusion .
_ pollock
_ encapsulates the period in which he fought a losing battle against personal demons ( alcoholism , depression , and the general attendant miseries of an artist ) while finding a place of subconscious expression .
a brief introduction to pollock 's raging drunk side segues into his getting accosted by a fellow new york artist , lee krasner ( marcia gay harden ,
awarded a best supporting actress oscar for this brilliant portrayal ) , who works from the outside - in , pre - intellectualizing every stroke of her brush .
in a scene after they have moved in together and established adjoining studios , she asks what he hopes to achieve on his latest canvas , grilling him about the interplay of cubism and surrealism until he says , " you paint the fucking thing , " and leaves in a huff .
by the time they we d , she has become his de facto manager ; it is form marrying function and chaos marrying discipline , a most harmonious collision .
( krasner denies him a baby , indicating that it would upset the balance . )
such a union is destined to implode , and i hope i 'm not ruining the _ pollock _ experience by saying that it does .
while it is never depicted as a very romantic matrimony to start -- pollock and wife channel their passions elsewhere -- their symbiosis leaves each other picked dry after several years , and it comes down to krasner suffering one of pollock 's conniptions too many : " you are killing me !
you are killing me !
you are killing me ! "
( aside : harris ' own wife , amy madigan , is unrecognizable and exceptional as gallery diva peggy guggenheim . )
pollock himself moves on to dalliances with younger women like ruth klingman ( the scorching jennifer connelly ) , hoping , one supposes , to catch the revitalizing whiff of youth .
i love jackson pollock 's stuff and
i am enamoured of harris ' _ pollock _ as well .
it 's scrappy and observant ; no coincidence that its minor failings are the occasional invasive flourish , such as jeff beal 's hummable but no less lamentable score -- i ca n't imagine that pollock , or anyone , would paint to this music , which puts filling soundtrack voids ahead of complementing the images .
one of my favourite sequences is an eerily quiet re - enactment of hans namuth shooting that famous pollock footage in east hampton , long island ; the mounting tension is almost comic , as namuth keeps interrupting pollock 's process to reload his camera or take a dinner break .
a more seasoned director might 've been too arrogant to admit that not all artists or mediums are created equal .
P

it seemed like the perfect concept .
what better for the farrelly brothers , famous for writing and directing comedies with offensive subject matter , than to make a movie about a guy with a split personality ?
it 's exactly the sort of thing the brothers relish : poking fun at something serious ( in this case mental illness ) , throwing all care to the wind to get a laugh .
jim carrey 's signed on too ?
even better .
the national alliance for the mentally ill even helped out by levying complaints against the brothers ' new film before its opening , claiming it was misrepresenting the condition of split personality , labeling it incorrectly as " schizophrenia , " and so forth .
such a protest seemed like just the sort of thing that would , of course , only add more fuel to the farrelly brothers ' fire , proving that some people just could n't take a joke , and that the farrellys would be helping the more enlightened viewers to yet another dose of their brilliantly subversive comedy .
yes , it all seemed perfect , but one thing went wrong : their movie is n't funny .
it 's not for lack of trying .
the farrellys utilize in " me , myself & irene " their most high - concept premise ever : carrey plays charlie baileygaites , a man who after being dumped by his wife for a midget limo driver , decides to bury all his aggressive feelings deep down inside and never release them .
this , of course , means all his neighbors exploit his entirely too - forgiving nature , making his job as a rhode island state trooper increasingly difficult .
soon enough , charlie 's repressed aggression manifests itself into a second , independent personality named hank , a deep - voiced , boorish ogre unafraid of taking the assertive actions his predecessor had been unable to muster .
this guy is n't above crashing a car through the wall of the barber shop in which he 's been insulted , or holding a little girl 's head underwater because she refused to stop jump - roping in the street .
then things start getting lost in the most complicated plot the farrellys have ever attempted , and the film runs off its tracks .
some have suggested that this is n't a problem , because the farrelly brothers ' brand of humor does n't require plot to work .
they 're wrong , of course : plot was greatly instrumental in building up the kind of rollicking comic energy that infused the farrellys ' last effort , 1996 's " there 's something about mary .
"
( 1999 's " outside providence " was technically an earlier project . )
the brothers ' earlier film was n't funny merely because it contained outrageous gags ( despite what some newsmagazine articles would have you believe ) , but rather because its most outrageous gags were entirely unexpected .
in " mary , " the farrellys managed several times to pull off a neat sleight - of - hand trick : they 'd have you thinking the story was going one way , then reveal its real direction in delightfully surprising fashion .
" me , myself & irene , " by contrast , seems to have been made by folks who looked at " mary " and saw only the surface grossness , missing all of the subtle machinations that really made it work . having been produced by the same guys who made " mary , " " irene " seems like an even bigger disappointment .
the brothers pile on the offensive humor , taking shots at race , midgets , albinos , mental illness , and all manner of bathroom jokes .
but they have n't come up with a way to make any of it fresh most of " me , myself & irene " comes off as rote , by - the - numbers , adolescent comedy .
the plot , with carrey forced to drive alleged fugitive irene p . waters ( renee zellweger ) , who 's in more trouble than anyone knows , back to new york , has an ending that 's entirely predictable from the get - go .
( think charlie and irene will fall in love ?
yeah , me too . )
the farrellys then introduce scores of different characters , and none of them ever manage to do anything you have n't already expected them to do , no matter how outrageous their actions might be .
compared to the curveballs the farrellys are used to throwing , this stuff is almost entirely soft - tossed , presenting an obvious problem : when gross - out humor loses its shock value ,
it 's no longer funny , merely gross .
the jokes that do work are milked over and over until their effectiveness runs dry .
take , for example , the subplot involving charlie 's three black sons ( anthony anderson , mongo brownlee , jerod mixon ) .
the incongruity of it all is funny for a while , with three burly black men discussing higher math in ghetto language and white - bread carrey mouthing said language with an entirely too - pleasant smile on his face .
but by the end of the film , they 're still doing the same schitck it has n't been elevated to another , funnier level , and it has n't been dropped either .
that 's too bad , because it ceases to be amusing about halfway through .
" me , myself & irene " reeks of wasted opportunities .
there ought to be more focus on how other people react to charlie 's new personality , and on how charlie deals with the consequences of hank 's actions .
this does n't really happen nearly every supporting character learns about charlie 's condition early on , so they do n't have any opportunity to be surprised by it .
the film throws what looks like a patented farrelly curve in a scene towards the midway point ( involving an albino companion charlie and irene pick up called , appropriately , " whitey " ) , but the script does n't go anywhere with it , instead leaving the thread twisting in the wind before awkwardly tying it up during the climax .
jim carrey is a gifted comedian , both physically and vocally , but
he 's left with nothing much to do here
except contort himself in a manner similar to steve martin in " all of me .
"
it 's a great showcase of flexibility and split - second role - shifting , but none of it is terribly funny .
carrey does n't pull any stunts we do n't expect him to pull , and the farrellys ' script does n't give him anything else to pull : the situations in which he must perform the role - shifting are n't set up in any meaningful way .
perhaps carrey can take solace in the fact that his supporting actors fare no better .
zellweger 's irene is not a strong female lead mary in " mary " may have been part adolescent fantasy , but she was also intelligent and strong - willed .
irene is nothing in particular , as the film never makes clear whether she 's ditzy , clever , or neither . as such ,
she gives us nothing to latch onto as the only " sane " person in the film .
chris cooper is stuck playing exactly one note as a corrupt fbi agent , and his character is entirely too straight - laced for a movie like this .
he , like the others , does absolutely nothing unexpected .
after viewing the shapeless mess that " me , myself & irene " eventually dissolved into , i was stuck wondering whether or not the farrellys had outsmarted themselves .
maybe their kind of comedy can only work for so long until audiences get wise to it and stop being shocked .
but i do n't believe it -- good filmmakers find ways of surprising their audiences even after people have grown attuned to their style .
if the farrellys are indeed good , smart filmmakers ( and i still think they are ) , they 'll rebound just fine .
even after that happens , though , i 'll still consider " me , myself & irene " to be a high - caliber misfire .
N

virtual reality is a topic that has almost defined its own genre .
since ' dark city ' ( 1998 ) , films about alternative universes and parallel worlds have been coming one after another .
the most popular and original of them all has been the matrix .
all the films released after it , have been less successful .
david cronenberg 's existenz , released only a couple of months after the matrix , was accepted and even appreciated ( by some ) , but the hype was gone .
and when ' the thirteenth floor ' aired this fall , it was completely overseen and ignored .
i admit that this issue has become something between tiring and annoying , feeling like eating the same meal over and over again .
it was therefore i was less than excited , when i went out to see to ' the thirteenth floor ' . however ,
i was positively surprised by josef rusnak 's latest picture .
matrix was an entertaining thrill ride through dreams and reality , combining the best of hollywood 's action and effects with an intelligent story .
existenz was a violent , gory and unsettling journey through reality and virtual reality , ending in blood and madness . ' the thirteenth floor ' is somewhere in between .
instead of going after the crowds - the action audience ( like the matrix ) , or aiming at the horror fans ( like existenz ) , ' the thirteenth floor ' presents a more intelligent plot , witch will provide a less entertaining and more serious experience , that the true science fiction lovers will find rewarding . in a near future . .
.
on the thirteenth floor of a classified building , a genius scientist , hannon fuller , has created a simulated world , his personal dreamworld , where every inhabitant is a complex , selflearning program that only believes it is real .
right after the first testing of this world , fuller ( ) is found murdered .
douglas hall ( ) , his closest friend and business partner , immediately becomes the prime suspect and must enter through the thirteenth floor in search of the truth .
a beautiful woman ( gretchen mol ) who suddenly appears on the scene may hold the key to the mystery , which might unravel the horrifying truth about his own existence .
the first " download into simulation " is impressive .
it is the creator 's first visit to his world , his creation .
in order to enter this virtual universe , you have to take over someone 's identity , become another person .
this is called conciseness transfer , and this is part of the tragedy in the film :
people " wake up " in unknown places and strange things start happen .
they start to doubt in their own sanity .
these innocent people pay for the mistakes of their " users " and creators with their sanity and their lives .
it is a frightening reality ;
the fact that all the people in the simulation ( the program links ) are living out their lives , oblivious , not knowing that they are puppets in someone 's fantasy .
with an appealing ( " blade runner " - type ) of detective story , this film presents the beauty and possibilities of virtual reality and the lurking danger that is always present .
our modern world is metal and glass -- cold , unfriendly , impersonal .
the thirties are different -- colorful , beautiful , elegant , virile .
this contrast demonstrates a wish for change .
virtual reality is here portrayed as a magical , enchanting power that seduces you into its endless possibilities .
to some it is just a journey to their personal paradise , to some a personal playground -- a life without any consequences .
for others - a way to start over and " correct " their mistakes , by living in an illusion of their past .
virtual reality is a wizard that transforms your hopes , dreams and fantasies to life .
at least that 's how it is all beginning .
but when you 're waking up from your dream , the real world seems worthless and unreal and all you can think off is returning to your personal paradise .
this , almost narcotic effect , soon turns into confusion and ultimately madness .
some important and interesting philosophical questions are raised -- what is real ?
what is thought ? who are we ? if these were answered , this film would be the greatest science fiction ever made .
they are off course not answered , but posed in an intelligent manner .
the visual aspect of the film is one of the key elements , since it portrays the contrast between these computer - simulated universes .
kirk m . petrucelli has done a marvelous job with the recreation of the thirties with its glamour , grace and color ; and setting this world in opposition to our own -- an almost caricatured recreation of the nineties .
there are some honest and decent performances by an almost unknown cast and harald klose 's moody musical score that is at in right place at the right time .
a rather unusual thing about'the thirteenth floor ' is the almost complete lack of special effects .
there are no cgi animated creatures , no bullets in slow motion .
this is a more philosophical approach , reminding about the european way of filmmaking .
this is off course a major disappointment to the audience that is used to endless gunfights and mutated amphibians , but the more serious science fiction buffs and ' dark city'-fans will be pleased
.
this film is interesting and inspiring .
it has everything existenz does n't , but it lacks the immediacy and intensity of the matrix .
and then there is a happy end which , like in ' dark city ' , completely alienates it from the rest of the story and context .
the plot itself is not as original as the filmmakers want us to think , since they have virtually sucked out all information from the best science fiction classics , including blade runner and ' dark city ' .
with this in mind , ' the thirteenth floor ' does n't make an oscar candidate or a film that will be remembered a year from now , yet
this is a beautiful , elegant and intelligent take on virtual reality .
P