input: A River Runs Through It is one of those movies that deserves to be seen in the theater so that the majesty of its cinematography can be truly appreciated. The acting is wonderful and understated, with every gesture and smile and nod carrying meaning. Brad Pitt gives a radiant performance and Tom Skerrit is powerful as the preacher father. The movie moves like a river, you have to be willing to follow it through ebbs and flows, but it is well worth it in the end.

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input: WWF Survivor Series 2001

This was among the worst events of 2001. Perhaps its biggest flaw was the fact that it didn't follow suit to most of the previous Survivor Series'. There was only ONE survivor series match. And that Survivor Series match went on for 45 minutes. What's more, anyone with a working brain would know that it would end with The Rock versus Austin and The Rock prevailing for his team. And don't get me started on the preview before the event. No matter who won it was obvious that no one was going to f***ing die. There was no need for all of that pointless hype. Whatever the storyline, it was just a wrestling event.

And as for the rest of the matches: the first match was Christian defending his European title against Al Snow. It was a good fast paced match and its good to see a heel winning a match fairly. William Regal versus Tajiri was boring and we've seen it 2 or 3 times before. Edge versus Test was good but nothing great. The tag titles steel cage match was the best match of the evening. The battle Royal went on for 10 minutes and no one really cared who'd win in the first place. The Women's title match wasn't great. No, not in the slightest. The main event must have been the most hypocritical match in history. The Alliance lost but guess what, after 5 months every single Alliance superstar returned. The match itself was poor. The Rock eliminated 3 of them and Jericho eliminated 2. The Rock was too caught up with his acting to be there when the invasion began. Jericho was the one that jeopardised the whole match. If I wanted any 2 to be eliminated in the early going it would be them. Everyone knew that Kane, Big Show and Undertaker were just fall guys. 7 matches isn't enough for a Survivor Series. If there's ever a Survivor Series as bad as this again I'll

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input: A Christmas Together actually came before my time, but I've been raised on John Denver and the songs from this special were always my family's Christmas music. For years we had a crackling cassette made from a record that meant it was Christmas. A few years ago, I was finally able to track down a video of it on Ebay, so after listening to all the music for some 21 years, I got to see John and the Muppets in action for myself. If you ever get the chance, it's a lot of fun--great music, heart-warming and cheesy. It's also interesting to see the 70's versions of the Muppets and compare them to their newer versions today. I believe Denver actually took some heat for doing a show like this--I guess normally performers don't compromise their images by doing sing-a-longs with the Muppets, but I'm glad he did. Even if you can't track down the video, the soundtrack is worth it too. It has some Muppified traditional favorites, but also some original Denver tunes as well.

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input: This has to be some of the worst direction I've seen. The close-up can be a very powerful shot, but when every scene consists of nothing but close-ups, it loses all its impact.

Tony Scott has some very beautiful scenery to work with, the backdrops of Mexico, the cantinas, the beautiful estate where Anthony Quinn lives, and the dusty towns Costner rolls through on his journey for revenge. Unfortunately we only catch quick glimpses of these places before the camera cuts to a picture of a big, giant head. Even the transition scenes where Costner is driving alone across Mexico quickly cut to a close-up.

The score is over-dramatic and intrusive, dictating every emotion we should feel. The story itself should have been handled much better. Among other things, too many people pop up out of nowhere to help Costner along - it's just bad writing.

It's a typical thriller storyline, but many others have taken the same premise and done outstanding things with it. Costner's No Way Out had a somewhat similar storyline, but it was a much better movie.

The ending was completely anticlimactic and suffered from the most melodramatic scoring of the film. This movie was never going to be great, but if we saw more of Mexico and less of giant heads this film might have been watchable.

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negative