Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: I sat down to watch "Midnight Cowboy" thinking it would be another overrated '60s/'70s movie. Some of my favorite films come from the '70s, in the same vein as "Midnight Cowboy" ("Taxi Driver," "Mean Streets," "Panic in Needle Park," etc.) but there are many, many overrated ones as well that have gained strong reputations amongst critics for being groundbreaking - unfortunately a vast majority of them don't hold up as well today. I sort of feel this way about "Easy Rider." (Although it, too, is one of my favorites.)

So, I didn't expect much from "Midnight Cowboy" but got a lot back. It's a touching story, well-made and well-told with some of the best performances of all time. Dustin Hoffman, as Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, gives one of his best - it's a bit funny at times (he sounds like a cartoon character when he speaks - maybe because of the Lenny/"Simpsons" connection), but Hoffman is entirely convincing. Half of the film's budget went towards his paycheck as he was just becoming a major star in Hollywood. Opposite him is the second-billed Jon Voight as Joe Buck, the "cowboy" who travels North to the Big Apple in the hopes of becoming a male prostitute. Soon his naive ways land him in trouble and he pairs up with a crippled scam artist named "Ratso" - who offers to become Joe's "manager" for a certain percentage of profits.

The movie is quite long at two hours but never really seems very long. Some films can tend to drag, especially some of the films that were made in the '70s because (as it's been said in "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls") the directors were the stars of the movies in the 1970s and occasionally they got a bit too infatuated with their material, going on too long examining characters/scenes/etc. that aren't important. Just about the only scene I felt was a bit too long and unnecessary was the drug party - it makes the film seem extremely outdated (similar to the drug odysseys in "Easy Rider") and really harms its flow because it's not needed.

Other than that, "Midnight Cowboy" is an almost flawless motion picture. I was pleasantly surprised. It does have its flaws (flashbacks are a bit tacky and never used as well as they could have been, for instance) and some of the scenes are a bit uneasy (such as the gay movie theater sequence) but if you can handle its content "Midnight Cowboy" is a truly great motion picture, an uncompromising examination of life on the streets in the late '60s/early '70s. It's a depressing movie, yes, and by today's standards might seem a bit outdated and heavy on the liberal perspective of "life is horrible, etc."...but I still love it and particularly the extremely touching ending will stay with me for a long, long time.

Highly recommended. One of the best films of the '70s. (It was technically released in late 1969 but I'd still categorize it as a 1970s film. It also won the Best Picture Oscar, being the first - and only - X-rated motion picture to do so. It was later re-rated R on appeal.)

4.5/5
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
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Answer: In the opening scene of "Malta Story" Mr A.Guinness bore such a startling resemblance to Noel Coward that I fully expected his first words to be "Certain women need striking regularly - like gongs" or some such world - weary bon mot.Unfortunately his dialogue is hardly deathless prose and even the Master would have had trouble bringing it to life.Indeed Mr Guinness wanders through the picture as if looking for a focal point and failing to find one.And therein lies the fatal weakness of the whole movie.Mr J.Hawkins likewise gives up early on and ends up giving a "Jack Hawkins" performance without an ounce of individuality.It could have been spliced from any of a dozen British war movies.Many of the early fifties usual suspects turn up and do their schtick to very little purpose. The Luftwaffe failed to bomb Malta into submission in much the same way as it failed to bring London to its knees.The courage of the Maltese people in the face of incessant danger was recognised by the King and the island was awarded the George Cross.A worthy subject you might think for a movie,but "Malta Story" does not even qualify for the term "worthy" in its most patronising sense.It gives the appearance of being hastily cobbled together to meet a deadline,perhaps before the actors lost the will to live.
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: What's up with Robert "Pretentious" Altman? Was he saving on lighting? Everything was so dark in this boring movie that it was laughable. I mean, have you ever seen a lawyer's office where everyone works by candlelight?

Don't waste your time. In fact, don't waste your time with anything Altman makes: It's all a pretentious waste of film.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: I know this sounds odd coming from someone born almost 15 years after the show stopped airing, but I love this show. I don't know why, but I enjoy watching it. I love Adam the best. The only disappointing thing is that the only place I found to buy the seasons on DVD was in Germany, and that was only the first two seasons. That is disappointing, but that's OK. I'll keep looking online. If anyone has any tips on where to buy the second through 14th seasons, please email me at darkangel_1627@yahoo.com. I already own the first one. The only down side is that the DVDs being from Germany, they only play on my portable DVD player and my computer. Oh well. I still own it!
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: For all the Homicide junkies out there, this movie was great! Every single character that ever was on the show made an appearance in the movie. It helped to resolve some (but not all) issues from the series. Unfortunately, unless you actually did watch the series, most of the enjoyment would be lost, as the movie made heavy references to every season of the show's existence. This probably would have been appropriate as a series finale as opposed to being a separate movie, but we gotta take what we can get. I hope they make more movies, and continue to feature Homicide characters on Law and Order.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
I sat through this turkey because I hadn't seen it before, and because the premise sounded like it had potential. It was mildly entertaining until the hurricane sequence. At the height of the storm, the wind is strong enough to blow windows out of the house, yet the trees in the background are perfectly upright and not a leaf is moving! In fact, when the characters move outside the house, bright sunlight is visible illuminating the treetops. At that point, whatever credence the filmmakers had developed evaporated faster than the highly localized rain in their film. Too bad all hurricanes aren't like this one, it would surely help our homeowners insurance rates here in the Sunshine State.