Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: as an actor I really like independent films but this one is amateur at best.

The boys go to Vermont for a civil service yet when the plane lands it flies over a palm tree - were the directors aware that palm trees are not in Vermont? Pines yes - palms no. And the same for the wedding service - again nice grove of palm trees.

When the boys are leaving VT they apparently could not get a ticket on any major airline since the plane that is filmed is Federal Express. Did they ship themselves Overnight in a crate? Come on guys little details like this separate an indi film from totally amateur.

The Christian brother is far gayer than Arthur with his bleached hair and tribal band tattoo. The two should have switched roles.

The minor characters are laughable and overact something terrible.

Applause to the directors for making a gay film but pay some attention to your locations and casting next time

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: Time for a rant, eh: I thought Spirit was a great movie to watch. However, there were a few things that stop me from rating it higher than a 6 or 7 (I'm being a little bit generous with the 7).

Point #1: Matt Damon aggravates me. I was thinking, 'what a dicky voice they got for the main character,' when I first heard him narrate - and then I realized it is Matt Damon. The man bugs me so very bad - his performance in "The Departed" was terrible and ruined the movie for me (before the movie got a chance to ruin itself, but that's another story for some other time), as it almost did "Spirit". I was able to get past this fact because of how little narration there actually was... thankfully.

Point #2: Brian Adams sucks... The whole score was terrible... The songs were unoriginal, generic, and poorly executed; not once did I find the music to fit; and the lyrics were terrible. Every time one of the lame songs came on, I was turned off. I almost thought I'd start hearing some patriotic propaganda slipped into the super-American freedom style lyrics (I couldn't help but be reminded of those terrible patriotic songs that played on the radio constantly after 9/11). In light of the native American aspects of the film, they should have gone with fitting music using right instruments, not petty radio-hit, teen-bop, 14-year-old-girl crap. I thought I was back in junior high school. I can't believe no better could have been done--I refuse to. Had it not have been for this, I'd rank the film up more with Disney, which knows a thing or two about originality (ok, don't bother saying what I know some of you are probably thinking ;). Too bad, it's a shame they couldn't have hired better musicians.

I liked the art and animation, except for some things here and there... like sometimes the angles appear too sharp on the face and the lines too thick or dark on the body (thick/dark lines mainly near the end). There were often times when I thought they _tried too hard_ on the emotion and facial expressions and failed at drawing any real emotion. But there were also times when the emotion ran thick. Anyhow, many scenes were lazy and the layers were apparent.

OK, I'm falling asleep here so I'll sum it up before I start making less sense...

Nice try on an epic film... it turned out mediocre though. Matt Damon, you suck!

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: A group of friends come face-to-face with a family of hideous cannibals whilst camping in the beautiful German countryside.

The 'mutant cannibal family' concept is almost as old as the hills that the inbred freaks often call home, so any director attempting to breath new life into the genre needs to come up with something pretty darn special in order to impress. With Barricade, Timo Rose tries to give the well-worn routine a Teutonic twist, by transplanting the action to The Black Forest and giving it the German low-budget splatter treatment. The result is a very bloody, but totally unoriginal effort that is made almost unwatchable thanks to some dreadful directorial decisionsin particular, the non-stop use of fancy filters and irritating editing techniques.

Had Timo Rose not opted to utilise every naff trick his editing software offered him, then Barricade might have been a reasonably entertaining gore-fest: his inexperienced cast do reasonably well; the bloody effects are suitably stomach churning; and there are one or two scares and even some well conceived creepy moments. All of this, however, is completely ruined by the awful camera-work, choppy editing, and overwhelming barrage of visual gimmickry used to give the film the distressed look that is so inexplicably popular with today's film-makers.

I give Barricade 3 out of 10 purely for the outlandish gore, which includes a nifty scene where a guy is forced to drink acid, loads of nasty wounds caused by a variety of sharp implements, and some pretty decent shotgun damage.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
Delightful minor film, juggling comedy and detective, romance and drama genres as nimbly as Lt Kenny Williams (Melvyn Douglas) balances his devotion to his girl Maxine Carroll (Joan Blondell) and his duty to the force as an ace detective.

This hodge-podge may not appeal to all viewers today, but in its day, it had something to offer every member of the movie-going family, and the resolution to the rather tired feeling-versus-duty plot is original and refreshing, and well worth the wait.

"The Amazing Mr. Williams" contains what must be among the most outrageous blind dates in film history, and its bright comic repartee sparkles. Ludicrously frocked, Melvyn Douglas delivers some of the best lines: "I'd walk down Main Street in a Turkish towel before I'd let any woman control my life!" And the effervescent Joan Blondell lets her barbs fly with typical aplomb: "Good grief! You look like my Aunt Nellie!'

The crime-solving here is standard fare, although a fine cast of character actors helps bring the material to life.

From today's vantage point, "The Amazing Mr. Williams" is perhaps most interesting for its insightful commentary on gender as a socially defined construct, all the more malleable for its seemingly rigid boundaries. While much of the gender commentary takes place in a superficial battle of the sexes, at times it is both subtle and penetrating, playing out not only in some of the finer details of the film, but in the battle of genres that reaches its culmination in the final scene.