Teacher: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
Teacher: Now, understand the problem? If you are still confused, see the following 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 )
Solution: N
Reason: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Now, solve this instance: recently i read 4 reviews of pleasantville - one from entertainment weekly , one from a newsgroup , and two from different online resources .
each review compared this film to the truman show .
why ?
the only reason people compared pleasantville to truman is due to the fact that their lives are on television .
other than that , the two movies are completely different from each other .
reviewers seem to love to pick one movie ( i .
e .
the truman show ) , obsess over it , and make it a guideline for other movies .
when pleasantville and edtv opened , all critics seemed to treat the two films like they were subjects of king truman .
the same goes for the thin red line , as well .
when it opened in decemeber , probably 98 % of reviews compared it to stephen spielberg 's saving private ryan , giving thin line no chance whatsoever .
critics loved private ryan so much , that they automatically decided no movie is good enough to reach its standards .
this is why i think pleasantville was underrated . if the truman show had never been made , pleasantville probably would have received better reviews , done better at the box office , and would be remembered after it 's long been on the video store shelves .
sure , it was n't perfect , and it was n't very believeable , but neither was the wizard of oz or star wars , and there stands two of the most prominent movies in history .
with the exception of don knotts as the annoying " tv repairman " the film is cast perfectly : the ice storm 's tobey maguire is david in real life ; he watches the old 50 's sitcom " pleasantville " to escape from his feuding parents .
his twin sister , jen ( reese witherspoon ) is a popular slut who ( steriotypically ) smokes and wears revealing clothes .
but what makes her character believeable is the dialogue - those excessive 90 's terms such as " like " , " whatever " , and " cool " make her sound like the total dimwit she 's supposed to be .
the twins , with a little help from a tv repairman ( casting don knotts in this role was obviously a cameo - esque cast rather than a true acting one ) , are sucked into pleasantville by a magical new remote .
their new parents , played by william h .
macy and joan allen , are perfect in every way .
their new names are bud and mary sue , and right away they start to corrupt the town of pleasantville .
after the siblings fit comfortably in their new roles , the movie begins to take form .
it 's just like watching a sitcom in itself ; you do n't want it to end .
" mary sue " has sex with her date , the school basketball champion ; when he tells all his friends about it , they stop preforming perfectly at basketball , and things start to take color .
soon we learn that these people do n't know how to express true emotions , and when they learn to do so , they eventually turn into color .
this eventually sparks a racial war between the " coloreds " and the " black & whites .
"
entertainment weekly reviewer lisa schwarzbaum claims the movie has , " none of the depth , poignance , and brilliance of the truman show . . .
"
yes , the truman show was maybe a little more intelligent .
but the racial setting - intensified by the forcing of the coloreds to sit in the upper box of the courtroom - certainly classifies as deep , considering it 's what i least expected .
gary ross did not try to create an intelligent , award masterpiece - he just tries to convey moral messages within his work .
take for example big and dave , his past films .
big - be careful what you wish for .
dave - good or bad lying is still lying .
did these movies win big awards ?
no ,
but they won the heart of millions .
pleasantville could have done that too , if it was n't for snotty reviewers who set precedents with preceeding films .
pleasantville
: a-
ad2am
" i almost lost my nose . . .
and i like it .
i like breathing through it .
"
-jack nicholson , chinatown
Student:
P