Part 1. Definition
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Part 2. Example
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 )
Answer: N
Explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").
Part 3. Exercise
mulholland drive did very well at the cannes film festival .
as you can see from the rating it did not do very well from me at the toronto international film festival .
it may not be clear to the viewer why i am so negative on this film for most of the running time
.
in fact it is an interesting mystery story told on the backdrop of the hollywood film industry .
toward the end of the film i think everything that has been built falls apart .
the film was to be a pilot for a tv series but writer and director david lynch did not sell his tv pilot
and i think he decided that he wanted to do something else with it .
something else is what he did .
the film opens with a woman ( played by laura harring ) about to be killed in a car when a car crash saves her life .
she crawls away from the accident with a concussion and finds herself a bungalow with an unlocked door to sleep .
meanwhile young vivacious betty ( naomi watts ) arrives in hollywood from canada .
she wants to build a career as an actress .
betty is a little surprised to find a woman sleeping in the borrowed bungalow .
she does not know who the woman is .
she is even more surprised when the woman awakes and does not herself know who she is .
they fix on a name rita for her , but are not sure if this right or not .
meanwhile local director adam kesher ( justin theroux ) has problems of his own .
he is trying to cast one actress for his new film and is getting pressure from the producers and from crime figures to cast someone else , cammie rhodes ( melissa george ) .
these two threads are joined by a third one in which there is a strange and comic murder that goes terribly wrong .
there is also a strange character called the cowboy ( monty montgomery ) adding to the confusion .
in what was probably intended for the television pilot the film opens with a great vibrancy showing dancing 60s style under the credits .
a lot of mulholland drive starts out fun .
lynch wants you to know he could make an enjoyable stylish film .
he just chooses not to .
as with any david lynch film there is strange material added for little reason .
there are no earthworms , but there are some decidedly strange david lynch touches .
the film is a little long for the subject matter .
toward the end it gets into some heavier violence and sex scenes , clearly not intended for the tv pilot .
unfortunately some of the most important comments to make about this film would be spoilers .
i will not mention them in the main body of the review but i give mulholland drive a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .
mulholland drive spoiler warning .
i have rated this film fairly low .
you should read this only after seeing the film or deciding that you will not see the film .
david lynch is in large part a dark satirist .
most of his work is done in familiar genres but in some way shows their underside .
in mulholland drive i think he is having a laugh at the expense of the crime film genre .
what he does with this film is
( are you sure you want to read this ? ) playing off the audience expectations that there will be a simple explanation for what is going on .
the first 80 % of the film he tells a simple multi - thread crime story with clues sprinkled throughout .
then suddenly at the end he turns the story on its ear with a large number of clues that appear that they should add up to something .
the audience expectation is that they will add up .
but he has given clues that are self - contradictory .
lynch wants the audience to argue about what they have seen afterward and come up with theories .
in fact , the pointers are noticeably contradictory and until i hear a better explanation , i think lynch is merely playing a joke .
there is a visual curiosity that was popular in the sixties .
mad magazine called it a poiuyt .
other sources called it a tri- pronged u - bar .
look at small portions of it and makes sense .
look at the whole figure and it does not .
this film is , in my estimation , the cinematic equivalent of a tri - pronged u - bar .
Answer:
N