input: PROM NIGHT (2008)

directed by: Nelson McCormick

starring: Brittany Snow, Scott Porter, Jessica Stroup, and Dana Davis

plot: Three years ago, Donna (Brittany Snow) witnessed the death of her entire family at the hands of her teacher (Jonathan Schaech) who has a bit of a crush on her. Now, she is preparing for her senior prom with her stupid annoying friends. Once there, they start dying one by one because the killer escaped from prison and no one bothered to warn Donna because apparently her prom is too important to interrupt.

pros: I got a few good laughs out of the film due to the terrible dialog and the dumb character moves.

An example:

Everyone decides not to tell Donna that the man who is oddly obsessed with her (she doesn't seem that great) has escaped from prison. Their reason: They don't want to embarrass her in front of all her friends. LOL

cons: Let me start off by saying I'm a huge slasher fan. Usually I can have fun with even the bad ones. I even like some PG-13 horror films. TOURIST TRAP (1979), one of my favorites, was originally rated PG. I also enjoy POLTERGEIST (1982) and THE GRUDGE (2004). So the fact that this is a dumb slasher film that is rated PG-13 does not have anything to do with me not enjoying the movie.

First of all, I had a big problem with the story. I like slasher films that don't even have stories. At least they can be entertaining. This is about a teacher who falls in love with his student, so he kills her entire family. A few years later, he tries to make it up to her by ruining her prom and killing all of her friends ...? Then there were subplots that I doubt anyone cared about. Claire (Jessica Stroup) is fighting with her boyfriend, she has cramps, and I couldn't care less. This should have been a Lifetime feature, not a remake of PROM NIGHT.

And then ... this is a slasher film with terrible death scenes. I don't even care that it's not that gory, some of my favorite slashers (HALLOWEEN, CURTAINS, the original PROM NIGHT) were not that gory but they still had effective murders. Here, we have half the characters dying in the same hotel room off screen, a woman being stabbed several times with no stab wounds, and a closeup on a bad actor's face as he screams in agony. I'm sure that 10 year-old girls were terrified, but not me.

I also hated the characters. There was Donna's unrealistically sensitive boyfriend Bobby (Scott Porter) and I can almost guarantee you will never meet a boyfriend that sensitive in your life, unless you are a gay male. Then we had Donna's annoying friends Claire (Stroup) and Lisa (Dana Davis), and the token mean girl Chrissy (Brianne Davis). If you thought the characters in DEATH PROOF were annoying, try watching this movie. And don't get me started on Ronnie (Collins Pennie) and the DJ (Jay Phillips) who gave me flashbacks to Usher's performance in SHE'S ALL THAT.

Add to all that predictable plot turns, a terrible soundtrack and a big lack of respect to the original material, and you have quite a stinker.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive

pos/neg ans: negative

input: I pity people calling kamal hassan 'ulaganaayakan' maybe for them ulagam is tollywood ! comeon guys..this movie is a thriller without thrill..

come out of your ulagam and just watch some high class thrillers like The Usual Suspects or even The Silence of the Lambs.

technically good but style over substance kamal doesn't look like a police officer, there is no thrill whatsoever dragging and boring till end you might be saving 3 valuable hrs of your life if u skip watching this movie.

kamal at his best is the best in tollywood

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive

pos/neg ans: negative

input: I saw this picture in 1940 for $.11 and I would like to secure a DVD in 2006 The film was the greatest adventure of the time and,like all epics,is still an entertainment marvel (B&W and all)You get a sense of real bonded friendship in the chemistry between the actors and the performances of Sam Jaffe & Eduardo Cianelli are outstanding (This could not be done today I particularly liked the ending where the colonel recites the end of Kipling's poem over the body of Gunga Din and tells the "Untouchable" "You're a better man than I am Gunga Din"They don't make movies of this character today.The only cast member that is still alive today is Joan Fontaine

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive

pos/neg ans: positive

input: I love the music of the Clash and I love the music of Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros. I went to this movie hoping to learn about the man behind most of that. But I came out of the theatre not knowing much more about Joe than I already did after reading the entry on Wikipedia. The movie never really gets through to the person, his thoughts and feelings. What they did was to collect the little material that they had, shaky blurry videos and to interview some people about Joe Strummer at a camp fire. It turns out that most of these people knew him very little or not at all, and that the director just wanted them in the movie in order to have some more celebrities say, "Oh, he was such an inspiration to all of us". Like Bono or Johnny Depp (whom they seemingly asked to keep his pirate costume on to benefit from his current success in Pirates of the Caribbean). It seems that the director could not even wait until the body was cold before he jumped in to sell his version of "the greatest punk rocker and hippie at heart" that ever lived, sanctifying the person without really knowing enough about him.

Sure, being a fan i enjoyed seeing the images of the band, hearing the anecdotes behind the songs and such, but in the end I felt like what remained as the portrait of Joe Strummer could have easily been told in 60-90 minutes.

Go see the movie if you are a fan, otherwise better listen to some music of the Clash or even better the undeservedly unknown Mescaleros, where Joe Strummer reached the peak of his musical development before his death, melting all his rich influences together to one amazing sound.

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive

pos/neg ans:
negative