Problem: This review is like what?

Review:"New Best Friend" is another entry in the "steal another woman's life" sub-genre; the best of which are "Single White Female" and "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle"; the worse of which you can catch almost any afternoon on the Lifetime Channel. For some reason this type of identity theft happens exclusively to women.

There are just two basic ways to play this type of story. You can make the woman evil at the beginning and let the audience watch knowingly as she hatches and implements her evil scheme. Or you use misdirection to make her appear a good person, as a seemingly unplanned series of events break in her favor until she is revealed to be evil in the climatic scene. Unfortunately the makers of "New Best Friend" could not decide how they wanted to play it and things crash and burn early. We first meet Alicia (Mia Kirshner) scamming the college's financial aid office for scholarship money. We now know that she is a bad person and will view all her subsequent activity with suspicion. But the director and editor apparently forgot that this revelation had been made and spend the next 50 minutes laying misdirection to make us think that Alicia is a good person. This introduces the only element of suspense, not about whether she is evil but about when the director and editor will wise up and stop wasting our time with transparent misdirection.

"New Best Friend" suffers more than most from the teen movie curse of a cast too old to be portraying undergraduate students. There are really only two big parts, Hadley (Meredith Monroe) and Alicia (Kirshner). They were 31 and 26 respectively at the time of the production. It almost works for the 26 year-old Kirshner when she plays the mousy version of Alicia but it becomes glaring when she is transformed into the glamed-up version of Alicia. Monroe's casting is simply a joke, about like having Nicholette Sheridan try to pass as a classmate on "Lizzie McGwire". She looks much closer to a mid-life crisis than to a term paper.

The producers must have owed a lot of favors because this age issue extends to most of the supporting characters. Taye Diggs who plays the town sheriff is younger than most of the students.

The basic setup is that Hadley and two other rich party girls (played by Dominque Swain-age 21 and Rachel True-age 35) are undergrad roommates at college. They share (as their student residence) a mansion that is nicer and better furnished than the mansion on Real World-New Orleans (a premise more believable than soccer moms playing students). Alicia moves into the mansion and begins to take over Hadley's life. At least that way Swain finally gets a roommate from her own generation so the two can have a lesbian scene. Swain's supporting performance is the only good thing about "New Best Friend" and her love scene with Kirshner is fantastic, so cool and artsy that it doesn't fit with any of the other segments, maybe it was subcontracted out to a good director and cinematographer.

The unintentionally hilarious story is presented in a series of dreary flashbacks of rampant sex and nonstop parties, each proceeded by a shot of a comatose Alicia in a hospital bed. About half of Kirshner's screen time is spent lying motionless with a tube in her mouth. Not a good career move Mia.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
+++++++++
A: negative

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:This movie is the best horror movie, bar-none.I love how Stanley just dumps the women into the lake.I have been a fan of Judd Nelson's work for many years, and he blew me away. Its a blend of horror, and drama ,and romance, not so much comedy. His evil, yet charming look captured me right then and there. That look in his eyes, I will never forget. There's something about him, I cant describe.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:A charming romantic comedy. The plot is a little too complicated--I tried to summarize it three times and I can't. Suffice to say it's worth seeing. The movie is funny, beautiful--the plot is totally unrealistic but it works. Everybody in the movie is so nice and everything looks so great--it creates a sweet, romantic feel through the entire film.

The acting is great--Robert Downey Jr. and Cybill Shepherd are in top form and enjoying every second of it. Ryan O'Neal and Mary Stuart Masterson are just OK but fine. If you're a sucker for good, sweet sentimental films (like me), catch this one. Also Downey looks great in his underwear!

Extra bonuses--the title song sung by Johnny Mathis and another great song "After All" sung by Cher and Peter Cetera.
+++++++++
A: positive

Problem: This review is like what?

Review:If the myth regarding broken mirrors would be accurate, everybody involved in this production would now face approximately 170 years of bad luck, because there are a lot of mirrors falling to little pieces here. If only the script was as shattering as the glass, then "The Broken" would have been a brilliant film. Now it's sadly just an overlong, derivative and dull movie with only just a handful of remarkable ideas and memorable sequences. Sean Ellis made a very stylish and elegantly photographed movie, but the story is lackluster and the total absence of logic and explanation is really frustrating. I got into a discussion with a friend regarding the basic concept and "meaning" of the film. He thinks Ellis found inspiration in an old legend claiming that spotting your doppelganger is a foreboding of how you're going to die. Interesting theory, but I'm not familiar with this legend and couldn't find anything on the Internet about this, neither. Personally, I just think "The Broken" is yet another umpteenth variation on the theme of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" but without the alien interference. "The Broken" centers on the American McVey family living in London, and particularly Gina. When a mirror spontaneously breaks during a birthday celebration, this triggers a whole series of mysterious and seemingly supernatural events. Gina spots herself driving by in a car and follows her mirror image to an apartment building. Whilst driving home in a state of mental confusion, she causes a terrible car accident and ends up in the hospital. When dismissed, Gina feels like her whole surrounding is changing. She doesn't recognize her own boyfriend anymore and uncanny fragments of the accident keep flashing before her eyes. Does she suffer from mental traumas invoked by the accident or is there really a supernatural conspiracy happening all around her? Writer/director Sean Ellis definitely invokes feelings of curiosity and suspense in his script, but unfortunately he fails to properly elaborate them. "The Broken" is a truly atmospheric and stylish effort, but only after just half an hour of film, you come to the painful conclusion it shall just remain a beautiful but empty package. There's a frustratingly high amount of "fake" suspense in this film. This means building up tension, through ominous music and eerie camera angels, when absolutely nothing has even happened so far. By the time the actually mysteriousness kicks in, these tricks don't have any scary effect on you anymore. Some of my fellow reviewers around here compare the film and particularly Sean Ellis' style with the repertoires of David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick and even Alfred Hitchcock, but that is way, way WAY too much honor. PS: what is up with that alternate spelling; the one with the Scandinavian ""
+++++++++
A:
negative