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

Answer: I rented this movie for a few laughs. I had never seen the SNL skit, but with hits like Tommy Boy, and Waynes World, it couldn't have been that bad, could it? The answer: it was. This movie hardly was a means of relaxing after a hard day at work. I just kept waiting for a plotline and a funny part, but there wasn't any. The highlight was tiffany amber thieson, and thats just about it.

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

Answer: This sure is one comedy I'm not likely to forget for a while.

Wouldn't normally bother to comment on this movie: it's so minor that no one would watch it anyway, but as it happens, it's kind of popular in p2p sharing networks such as Kazaa, and so this saaad production needs to be exposed for what it is.

So what is it then? Well, of course it's not really a comedy; instead, it's intended as a horror flick -- "intended" very much being the key word here. The script is a totally incoherent and unbalanced mess, the special effects are only special in that they're especially pathetic, and as for the acting, well, let's just say that if this had been my graduating play at primary school, my teachers would have burst out crying at our talent.

Of course I realise that this is a very low budget film and that in those cases one should lower one's expectations, certainly as far as things like special effects are concerned. Also, even though I'm a big fan of the horror genre, I'm aware that these movies are only rarely the places to look for interesting scripts and top notch acting.

But still.

B-movies often have some redeeming features to make up for the lack of funding, such as humour. The only laughs in Cradle to Fear lie in the ridiculous performances. If you can find the humour in that--and I could for the first 20 minutes or so, gradually dozing off after that--then that's going to be the only thing the movie has to offer. Oh, that and two or three pairs of breasts.

Woohoo, how exciting.

As for the story, it's not even that it doesn't try to convey anything: the victims either use drugs and/or are involved in serious crime. The lesson: Watch out, naughty boys and girls, because one day you'll be made to pay for what you've done.

I rest my case.

So, all in all, a little bit of sex, a fair amount of drugs, but absolutely zero rock 'n roll.

I rate this one 1 out of 10, but would go to 0 if I could. Or perhaps I wouldn't: it deserves a 1 for spelling the actors' names correctly in the titles. I mean, that's something, innit?

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

Answer: THE WATERDANCE (1991) The main character of The Waterdance, played by Eric Stoltz, finds himself in a rehab center with some others similarly injured. And there he must face an harsh new life, confined to a wheelchair. It's an interesting, and promising premise, but unfortunately, it fails to deploy. What ensues instead is largely Hollywood schmaltz, with some interesting moments. Certainly the cast (Eric Stoltz, William Forsythe, Wesley Snipes, et al) is brilliant, and perform well here as one would expect, but their talents are wasted. The characters are mainly stereotypes of one kind or another, and most of them are thoroughly unlikeable (the Snipes character being the exception). I suppose this is some kind of attempt to break through people's ideas about the handicapped being "crippled" or "weak", by depicting them, for the most part, as in-your-face pricks, but it makes for an entirely annoying experience. Admittedly it will show you something of what those with permanent disabilities go through, in a way that is not softened or romanticized, which is useful, and a good idea, but while the process being depicted can make one a difficult person to get along with, and that's worth dealing with, it is not part and parcel to that that these characters must be, to varying degrees, despicable. They wouldn't have to be Disneyfied, either; surely there's a middle ground somewhere. By the film's conclusion, the Eric Stoltz character has come to accept his status as a handicapped person, but since he is such a flaming narcissistic monster from the beginning of the film to the end, we couldn't care less.

In addition to its character problems, the film suffers from that weird syndrome that so many Hollywood movies suffer from; the syndrome doesn't really have an official name, but you might call it "Inexplicable Forgiveness Syndrome". It goes something like this: characters abuse the crap out of each other, and then without so much as an apology, all is forgiven (an especially obnoxious example of this is in the movie The Breakfast Club, in which one character spends most of the film verbally bullying everybody within earshot; as a resultthey love him. In one of the the latest examples, Spiderman 3, supervillain The Sandman lays waste to a chunk of Manhattan, then wails on Spiderman for what seems like about 15 monotonous minutes before being waved off with what amounts to "bye, now"). The most egregious example of IFS in The Waterdance is a sequence in which, after being called the n-word by William Forsythe's racist biker character and his friends in the previous scene, the Wesley Snipes character whoops it up with the same Forsythe character in the next scene, as if nothing had just happened just a short time hence. Again, without so much as an "Oh yeah, sorry about that business back there where I, you know, called you the n-word". It makes me wonder, do these people actually watch these movies before they release them, or do they just film them with their eyes closed, kind of slap them together in the editing room according to scene number, and call it a day's work?

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

Answer:
Just saw this movie, and what a waste of time. The movie was predictable and slow. It's basically the Mormon bad news bears that play church sanctioned basketball. Rather than watching this movie, I should have had a root canal. The cameo performances were obviously driven by sponsorship / funding. This movie had potential due to the outrageous behavior that is exhibited by Mormons when they play church sanctioned basketball, however because it's rated PG, the true nature of the spectacle could not be transfered to film. The acting is horrible with the exception of Clint Howard and Fred Willard. Thurl Bailey's appearance in the film was completely unnecessary.