instruction:
In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
question:
this is your definitive " hollywood " movie , extremely predictable , following the basic formula ( a horrible ending ) , overzealous writing ( meaning the writing was bad and seemed as if it were trying too hard to make it exciting , therefore making it look as if many things were merely tossed in there to fill space )
and if tommy lee jones and his lovable wise - ass character ( of which we 've seen before in the fugitive and quite frankly , was n't used enough here ) , i 'm afraid the film would have been completely unbearable .
in this film , ashley judd plays a women who is wrongfully convicted of killing her husband while out sailing for a weekend .
while in jail she finds out that her husband really is alive and that he framed the murder on her . over money ( how original ) .
while in jail she works out , exercises and basically does her best to get into near perfect condition .
now she has learned about a law titled " double jeopardy " stating that if she serves her full sentence and get out she could kill her husband and the law could not touch her ( although there has been talk that this is not the way the actual law works ) .
now her po ( parole officer ) , and a bunch of cops are chasing after her and are conflicted whether or not to believe her claims .
skipping over to the acting : the fact that judd is more of a looker than an actress ( no offense , she has been good [ simon birch ] and even very good to great [ kiss the girls ] at times , in the past
and i believe may have the potential to be better . . .
but she 's terribly unconvincing in this and her performance seems stale and unsatisfying )
does n't really add to the movie at all ; just takes away .
as i 'd said , jones was fine , although he did not have much to work with
.
he was much more of a supporting character .
which is fine , and he handled it well ; especially considering the material he had to work with .
i feel this film had alot going for it .
originality not being an issue .
the acting was the only thing ( as i said ) keeping it alive .
the plot seemed pretty intriguing and could have been as well if applied better .
the action scenes were well made ( however sometimes out of place ) .
i was just left unsatisfied in the long run .
so basically some of the action may have been exciting but genuinely over - thought , the plot has certainly been done before ( generally speaking ) , the movie moves way too fast for us to get involved in either the characters or the plot , and is basically a film that was almost saved by tommy lee jones , who if he had some more screentime , could perhaps have earned the film a higher rating ; in my book , anyway .
keep this in mind , if you 're in the mood for a good action film -- rent the fugitive .
d+
answer:
N

question:
jonathan demme 's _ beloved _ , based on the book toni morrison , is a study in skillful literary adaptation .
on the one hand , the film manages to recreate key moments from the novel , evoking morrison 's pragmatic narrative style without using her authorial voice .
on the other hand , beloved omits the some of the finer details of the book , favoring an ambiguously defined back story upon which to build the story 's main events .
this choice is a smartly made one , for it creates an open space in which the story 's wide range of emotions can gestate and grow
.
indeed , the impact of the film is so protracted that much of it can not be felt until long after the end credits have rolled .
_ beloved _ takes place in the second half of the 19th century , during the so - called reconstruction era after the civil war .
for newly - freed slaves , it is a time of confusion and turmoil .
oprah winfrey is sethe , a slave who escaped a kentucky plantation and took her children to an ohio farmhouse , where she hoped the terror would end .
what she did not know was that it would follow her there , and remain with her long after the physical threat had vanished .
_ beloved _ ultimately tells the story of sethe 's search for forgiveness , one long - hampered by an unforgettable sin .
the film starts off on a dreary day ten years after sethe 's escape , as a violent , unseen energy rocks her dilapidated farmhouse .
invisible hands terrorize her family , flinging objects across rooms , shaking tables , rattling floorboards .
sethe 's sons run away , perhaps for good , leaving sethe and her daughter denver to fend for themselves .
demme 's matter - of - fact handling of this supernatural element is just one of _ beloved _ 's intriguing aspects .
all of the characters take for granted that ghosts are real .
when paul d ( danny glover ) -- a former slave who escaped kentucky along with sethe -- arrives at the house eight years later and is confronted with the ghost 's hellish visions , he does n't run in terror .
instead , he asks who the ghost is .
as in morrison 's novel , demme quickly establishes that the horror of the story will not come from the fact of the ghost itself , but from the terrifying past in which the ghost was created .
sethe is the one being haunted , but the ghost in the house is the least of her fears .
in fact , the ghost is one of the reasons she chooses to stay .
the story takes an bizarre turn with the appearance of beloved ( thandie newton ) , a young black - clad woman who appears on sethe 's front lawn , leaned christ - like against a tree stump .
sethe and denver immediately take to the rasping woman and try to nurse her to health .
they know not who she is , but that does n't matter .
only paul d is suspicious of the stranger .
little does the family know that beloved will bring about many changes , and force sethe to release a guilt she has held onto so urgently for eighteen years .
winfrey is arguably beloved 's greatest asset .
she inhabits the role of sethe
so convincingly it is hard to believe this is the same woman who shines brightly on a tv talk show .
lisa gay hamilton does an impressive job in the emotionally demanding role
as the younger sethe , whose appalling actions make her the disturbed woman we see eighteen years later .
danny glover is affable
as the sympathetic paul d , as is kimberly elise as denver , sethe 's wanderlusting daughter .
as sethe 's sage - like mother - in - law old baby suggs , beah richards
authoritatively commands every scene in which she appears .
the film 's least palatable choice of casting is unfortunately that of the role of beloved herself .
thandie newton plays the glassy - eyed girl with a demented fervor which is endearing at first , but which becomes off - putting and unintentionally laughable by the end .
departing from the honed aesthetic he used in such films as _ the silence of the lambs
_ and _ melvin & howard
_
, director demme has used a bit of dramatic overstatement to get across the vivid descriptions in morrison 's novel .
totemic camera shots and color - saturated scenery are decidedly uncommon in demme 's films , but the few he uses here work to the film 's benefit .
_ beloved _ 's most memorable scenes are those of baby suggs ' gatherings in a forest clearing , where the bright yellow - greens of nature entrance the viewer as much as suggs ' words do .
for the most part , though , demme maintains his trademark directorial neutrality .
this , combined with morrison 's equally frugal method of storytelling , may make _ beloved _ somewhat of a challenge to watch , even to those familiar with the book .
though the film compliments the book extraordinarily well
, it falls short in allowing the sort of accessibility one usually expects from a film .
nothing is spoon - fed to the viewer .
morrison 's novel is just as enigmatic , but unlike a movie , a book can be put down to allow the various undercurrents and themes to churn and absorb .
the movie begins like _ poltergeist _ , and ends like _ the color purple _ , with shades of _ the scarlet letter _ and _ little women
_ somewhere in the middle .
taken as a whole
, beloved is a disquieting , one - of - a - kind experience , one to be viewed with guards down and spirits in abeyance .
answer:
P

question:
the swirling sick feeling hit me just a few minutes into " heartbreakers .
" ray liotta 's character was making out with his secretary when his new wife knocked on the door of his office .
while scrambling to collect himself , he frantically shouted to her , " just wait a sex ?
er , i mean sec !
" i was struck by a wave of revulsion , thinking , " geez , did n't lines like
that die when ' three 's company ' was canceled ?
" over the next few minutes , as the barely double entendres and lingering cleavage shots grew more numerous , i realized that the mindset behind " heartbreakers " predated " three 's company .
"
suddenly , i had an out - of - body experience as my internal way - back machine swept me to the mid-1960s .
all across america , the counter - culture was growing like wildfire , but there was scant evidence of it on tv .
while young people were challenging traditional values on the streets , frustrated teenagers like me were stuck at home , sulking while our parents enjoyed the latest bob hope special .
women in skimpy bathing suits would prance onscreen while hope made growling noises and leered at their breasts .
on another channel , dean martin made wisecracks about " booze and broads " and peter lawford , decked out in love beads and a nehru jacket , purred suggestive one - liners as he ogled the go - go dancers .
the adults laughed and laughed .
" heartbreakers " reeks of that stagnant mentality , from its lingering shots of jennifer love hewitt 's vah - vah - voom breasts to its leaden screenplay , which paints women as haughty schemers and men as drooling buffoons too sex - obsessed to realize they are being manipulated .
in addition to liotta and hewitt , the cast includes sigourney weaver , gene hackman , jason lee , nora dunn and anne bancroft .
i ca n't imagine what drew performers of their caliber to this project .
perhaps they thought it was a parody of the sniggering sex comedies of the ' 60s .
if so , they were sadly mistaken .
the story revolves around a mother - daughter con - team .
it opens with the marriage of max ( weaver ) to dean ( liotta ) , a new jersey chop shop operator .
having withheld sex until the honeymoon , max pretends to pass out on their wedding night .
the next morning , she feigns illness , sending a very horny dean off to the office , where he ends up in the arms of his new secretary .
just as the two are about to get overtly physical , max bursts into the room and catches them .
the " horrified " bride dissolves the union , garnering a healthy cash settlement along the way .
of course , the secretary was really her daughter page ( hewitt ) and
the whole thing was a set - up .
the women move on , but an irs agent ( bancroft ) catches up with them and demands a huge amount of money to cover unpaid taxes .
in desperate need of funds , max and page head for palm beach to replay the scam .
their mark this time is william b .
tensy ( hackman , in hideous make - up ) , a decrepit tobacco tycoon obsessed with the joys of smoking .
max starts to put the game into action , but page is so repelled by the old man ( and angry with her mom ) that she slips off to enact her own score , targeting jack , a laid back young beach bar owner who is worth a fortune .
complications arise when page realizes that good - natured jack is stirring actual emotions in her steely little heart .
as if that was n't enough , dean reappears on the scene with revenge on his mind .
the attempt to weld a romance onto a caper comedy served only to remind me of the infinitely superior " a fish called wanda .
"
i wo n't bother to compare the two .
suffice to say that everything done right in " wanda " is done wrong here .
" heartbreakers " is soulless , inept and , at 123 minutes , at least a half - hour too long .
sigourney weaver and jennifer love hewitt throw themselves into their parts , but have nowhere to go with the metallic characters .
gene hackman is utterly wasted in a one - note , one - joke part
that has him doing nothing but smoking , coughing and waxing rhapsodic about smoking and sex .
poor jason lee is stuck in
the ingenue role and the normally charismatic actor comes off as merely bland .
ray liotta manages to squeeze a tiny bit of humanity and humor into his walking clich ? , but only a bit .
the low point in the film has weaver employing a russian accent bad enough to make boris and natasha wince , while doing half - assed slapstick with a broken off penis from a statue .
bear in mind , though , that this is merely the worst segment of a movie made up of nothing but low points .
if you remember bob hope specials with fondness , this might be your cup of tea .
as for me , i 'm going to watch " a fish called wanda " now and try to forget i ever saw " heartbreakers .
"
answer:
N