Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings have had a profound influence on my life as a Christian, and I eagerly anticipated watching this movie and finding out more about his life. Words can hardly express my disappointment. This movie was disjointed...it gave no background about his life, no historical context, and nothing about his great writings (except a brief, passing reference to "The Cost of Discipleship" by a colleague at the beginning of the movie.) Instead, we see him enjoying jazz (apparently in the States) and chilling out with his friends before he decides to go back to Germany. Apparently to show his human side. OK, I'm ready for the dramatic part. The part where he stands up for his faith. Instead of emphasizing that, we get a very badly acted romance with a 17-year-old schoolgirl. Whether or not that actually took place, it should not have been a major portion of the movie. Now...still waiting for the dramatic part, or some narration explaining what his writings were all about...or SOMETHING to make us know a little bit of the greatness of this man. drum-roll.....waiting..... ....waiting.....ZIP. Nada. This is the kind of movie that gives "Christian Films" a bad name. All they had to do was set up a structure for the movie to follow, with some background...even some voice-overs, or flashbacks to him preaching from his works...some narrative about who he was and where he had been. But no...this is what we got. Hardly fitting for a hero of the Faith.
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
=++++=
Answer: This is a totally delightful and unexpected film. You start by following a young person who hopes to get into the qualifying football game between Bahrain and Iran. If Iran win they will get into the 2006 World Cup in Germany. The problem is the young person is a girl and girls (or women for that matter) are not allowed into football matches to "sit with men". What follows is a wonderful comedy, played with consummate skill by a small ensemble cast. The film explores the absurdity of restrictions on the freedom of women (and for that matter the young soldiers who have to corral them). There are some excellent set pieces, not least when one of the girls must go to the toilet and, of course, the stadium has no toilets for women. The camera work is of the simplest and in some ways this story could have been told as a stage play. Yet it is the small scale that gives the film its bite. Great cinema? No, probably not; great entertainment - for sure.
An example of a movie review. positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: As someone who has seen and followed Hartley's public work for several years I think much of what used to be fiction told through true stories has been elevated into obscure philosophical mind games.

While entertaining, Fay Grim is another step in the Henry Fool line of thinking, where the movie reflects the quality of an object within the movie itself. In Henry Fool, the object is the memoirs... In Fay Grim, the object is encrypted memoirs - which are themselves stolen, forged and trans-mutated into something so obscure it can't really make any sense - i.e. the process of script writing and film-making in the modern era - where most blockbuster films are little more than a mash-up of the past. That is, in a philosophical sense, what Fay Grim is all about. The object, perhaps, is the tragedy that shock is now cliche and dull (as hinted in the opening scenes at the publishers office).

That being said, many of the movie best points are lost if you do not understand Henry's character and the significance of the memoirs being looked for. Henry is a thinly veiled devil, first visiting Simon as a modern Faust, etc. Without understanding how tragic Henry's character is, much of the quality of Fay Grim's plot and story is lost.

And there is not enough 'detail' expressed through verbal flashbacks - knowing the plot of Henry Fool cannot compare to 'feeling' the quality of the characters as one did in Henry Fool, and so I think for someone who walks into this movie cold there is about 10 minutes of 'so what' responses to highly constructed dialog and then that's it.

However, Henry Fool was also my least favorite Hartley film until I realized that it was bad - putrid and infested - precisely because Henry Fool's confessions were bad... not just raunchy or dirty, but inescapably broken. Henry can not even be a proper villain - and this is perhaps the tragic flaw that makes him most endearing... like Gollum in Tolkien's works, Henry is pitiable.

That doesn't come across in Fay Grim, although Henry's dialog is excellent. What does come across is that the entire movie is constructed as an encryption - a sort of molding of another plot around what ends up being yet another bad story to add to henry's confessions. It is an interesting twist, but one that can't really be digested without viewing the first film. Perhaps showing more of Henry earlier on would have been better than having the publisher describe the basic storyline of the first movie - although this plot is also not really what the first movie was about - unless perhaps one is a casual observer.

Part of the encryption? Hard to say... a little disappointed at the sex gimmicks though. Cheesy.
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer:
The Five Deadly Venoms is easily the most memorable K.F. flick from the Shaw Brothers' stable (exc. maybe Master Killer). It has the artists who came to be known as simply "The Venoms", some of the best fight choreography ever, and, surprisingly for a Kung Fu movie, a great plot! One of my all-time favorites!!!