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: with the opening scene of a young couple in a van pulling up , loading their guns , kissing each other and uttering what sounds like " rock and roll !
"
( actually , it 's " lock and load " ) , you ca n't help thinking tarantino .
and of course with its storyline of a crazy girl and boy in love who turn to violent bank robbery , the film unapologetically takes its place alongside all those other films from bonnie & clyde to natural born killers .
but if most of those movies have their roots in pulp fiction , exploring a modern myth of the doomed rebels on the run , normal life takes a much more psychologically realistic look at the phenomenon .
" inspired by true events " -- we 've heard that one before , and yet in no other tale of violent couples has it seemed so solidly demonstrated . . .
or so strangely poignant .
for this is a story of real people whose lives take on a steadily unreal quality , who in their search for a normal life find themselves increasingly unhinged .
beginning with their final arrest , the film goes back to trace the relationship between chris ( luke perry ) , a policeman , and pam ( ashley judd ) , a factory worker .
they fall in love and marry , but pam 's increasingly erratic behaviour ( going on spending sprees , slashing herself with a knife after an argument ) begin to trouble the solid and stable chris .
when chris gets sacked , they find themselves heavily in debt and near breaking up .
then , chris begins to rob banks . . .
luke perry accomplishes the not - inconsiderable feat of making us nearly forget that he was ever in beverly hills 90210 or buffy the vampire slayer .
moustached , with a tough paternal look and yet a voice and eyes that suggest sadness verging on exasperation , he is perfectly cast as the long - suffering husband .
( it 's another of john mcnaughton 's coups of casting - against - type , after transforming robert de niro into nerd and bill murray into gangster in mad dog and glory ) .
but it is the character of pam who commands centrestage , and ashley judd rises to the challenge with great alternating currents of ferocity and tenderness , making pam into a fascinating yet often infuriating person .
if the performance falls short of greatness , however , it is perhaps because the role of the mad woman has been done so often before it is virtually a staple of cinema , whether it 's in betty blue , tom & viv or georgia .
as in those movies , there 's the danger that the performance seems mannered , a collection of screwy tics and tantrums designed for the oscar presentation piece .
judd does n't entirely avoid this pitfall , but pam 's ' craziness ' is best and most movingly presented in counterpoint to the more ' normal ' chris .
when pam reacts to her father - in - law 's death by showing up at the funeral in rollerblades and blaring headphones , chris ' face is the picture of pained restraint .
of course , it 's the question of what is ' normal ' that is asked in normal life .
mcnaughton constantly offers up the ironies of the aspirations for the average domestic life and its kinship with insanity .
it is the rational chris that loves guns ( " shooting is about precision , control " ) and the ' crazy ' pam that loves astronomy and yearns for a dog ( who is then called chaos -- " chaos and you and me . . .
we 're a real family " , she notes wryly ) .
it is chris ' methodical mind and his knowledge of police procedure that allows him to be such a successful bank robber ( his well - planned disguise as a bearded , roaring man of terror is another piece of method in madness ) .
in the carpark where he sets out for his first robbery , a huge sign on a shopping mall stands out in the background : " buy - more " -- the perfectly respectable consumption - crazy american dream that has driven pam to her extravagant purchases , and both of them into desperate situations .
it 's not a perfect film .
some of the dialogue is a touch too banal ( perhaps intentionally ? ) .
the use of the punk hardcore soundtrack in pam 's crazed scenes comes rather too close to making emotional disturbance seem glamourous and sexy an image which only detracts from the rest of the film .
indeed , as in mcnaughton 's seminal film henry : portrait of a serial killer , it is the avoidance of glamour or sensationalism , the denial of some of the standard thrills of the outlaw film genre
, that gives this determinedly unflashy , moving film its great strengths .
mcnaughton has filmed this story with a quiet , coolly ' realistic ' method that works far better than any nbk theatrics at unsettling the viewer .
the suburbs , with their miles of white - fenced houses and identikit malls , take on a sense of claustrophobic blankness .
in its very different way , this makes for as haunting a backdrop as the wide open spaces in terence malick 's badlands .
while pam shares the yearnings of malick 's heroes to escape from ordinary life , chris takes up crime precisely so that they can lead a ' normal life ' - their little house on the suburbs is financed by his violent robberies .
but these are dreams defined by , constrained by , and even doomed by , the limitations of the ' normal ' , conventional world .
pam 's final scene takes place at the edge of the suburbs , where wild bushes grow -- symbolically the frontier , the outer limits of her society , but also quite literally the end of the road , where there is nowhere left to go but to the final tragic denouement .
the flying inkpot 's rating system :
* wait for the video .
*
* a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha !
*
* * pretty good , bring a friend .
*
*
* * amazing , potent stuff .
*
*
*
* * perfection . see it twice .
A:
P