Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: As I was watching this film on video last night, I kept getting these tingles that told me this one will endure. I've a feeling I'll be watching this again and again for years to come.

It's got all the timeless qualities you could ask for in a story/film. And even though some cultural references are obscure for me, a Western viewer, at the core this is a universal tale.
Problem: Write a negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: So 'Thinner'... Yep.. This Steven Bachman (read Steven King) yarn about a man who gets his just desserts from a Gypsy Elder who he just killed, The story itself is there, no doubt about it, but I don't know why I didn't enjoy it more than I could have. I guess what really distracted me was the actors. I mean, who's the lead? Robert John Burke? Who's he? And fer crying out loud, can someone please stop hiring Joseph Mantegna for every Italian Mafioso role there ever is? And while we're at it, does every Mafioso have to have a pasta cooking Italian mother? The only good acting job done here is under 10 pounds of makeup, Michael Constantine as the Gypsy elder. He's pretty good. But the rest, I make you all, "better actors..."
Problem: OPTIONS:
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- positive positive
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Answer: "Hollywood Hotel" is a fast-moving, exuberant, wonderfully entertaining musical comedy from Warners which is sadly overlooked. It should be remembered if only for providing the official theme song of Tinseltown -- "Hooray for Hollywood." The score by Richard Whiting and Johnny Mercer has a number of other gems, however, including the charming "I'm Like a Fish Out of Water," and "Silhouetted in the Moonlight." The best musical number is "Let That Be a Lesson to You," in which Dick Powell and company detail the misadventures of people who found themselves "behind the eight-ball," a fate which literally befalls slow-burning Edgar Kennedy at the number's end. The picture celebrates Hollywood glamour and punctures it all at once, as it gets a lot of comic mileage out of pompous and ego-maniacal actors and duplicitous studio executives. The cast includes a gaggle of great character comedians--Allyn Joslyn as a crafty press agent, Ted Healy as Dick Powell's would-be manager, Fritz Feld as an excitable restaurant patron, Glenda Farrell as Mona Marshall's sarcastic Gal Friday, Edgar Kennedy as a put-upon drive-in manager, Mabel Todd as Mona's goofy sister, and Hugh Herbert as her even goofier dad. The "racist" element mentioned in another review here is a ten-second bit where Herbert appears in black-face during a pseudo-"Gone With the Wind" sequence. It's in questionable taste, but it shouldn't prevent you from seeing the other delights in this film, notably the Benny Goodman Quartet (including Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton!) in what I believe is the only footage available on this incredible jazz combo. The "Dark Eyes" sequence goes on a bit too long and comes in too late, but otherwise "Hollywood Hotel" is a gem, well worth your time and certainly a film which should be considered for DVD release.
An example of a movie review. negative (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive).

A: Straight to the point: "The Groove Tube" is one of the most unfunny, unclever and downright horrible films ever made. This "comedy" is so void of anything remotely resembling a trace of wit that it's almost incomprehensible that it was even made. I said almost because there are fans of everything after all.

This film isn't even "good" bad or "enjoyable" bad. To put this movie on the same level of entertainment as "Plan 9" or "Robot Monster" would be a crime to those films. Films like that you can actually watch and get a kick out of. But this film is SO bad, SO poorly made, acted and scripted and SO incredible stale, that there just isn't even a trace of "camp" or "schlock" to be found.

Even though this was made before Saturday Night Live premiered, comparisons were probably inevitable. I'm not a big fan of SNL, but this film is worse than the worst SNL skit you can find. And man, that's BAD. Just to keep the men viewers from leaving, Shapiro throws in a pair of breasts every so often, but poorly-filmed breasts from 1974 aren't going to excite anyone these days. Truthfully this film is so poorly made and is such a sleep-inducing excursion, I doubt if they excited anyone in 1974 either.

A man named Ken Shapiro made this film. I swear to God, any ten-year old with a video camera could have made something funnier and more clever. It's just downright unreal - this is truly an unbelievable film. The "jokes" and "gags" are so infantile that even little boys who like to sneak dad's porno mags out at night won't laugh.

I will give this film one thing - the very last sequence, the "dancing man" sequence, where a guy (Shapiro) on the streets of NYC dances to a tune, is easily the best thing in this horrible film. Not that the "dancing man" sequence is that great either - it definitely has its moments of not being clever as Shapiro desperately tries to fill in the time for the entire song - but it actually was somewhat watchable. The part of this sequence where the cop starts dancing with the man is the one sole trace of cleverness in the entire film. No wonder Shapiro put this sequence last - again, while not so great itself, it easily beats anything else in this "film."

Otherwise, this film is such a complete piece of crap, it's unfathomable as to how an actual human being can be so downright cleverless. The name of this film should have been "Ken Shapiro's Craparama." It's amazing that this was made, but many truly talented filmmakers can't get in. However, I will say that I bet the geniuses at NYU would love this movie. Total garbage.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here:
DVD has become the equivalent of the old late night double-bill circuit, the last chance to catch old movies on the verge of being completely forgotten like The Border. There were great expectations for this back in 1982 a script co-written by The Wild Bunch's Walon Green, Jack Nicholson in the days when he could still act without semaphore and a great supporting cast (Harvey Keitel, Warren Oates, Valerie Perrine), Tony Richardson directing (although he was pretty much a spent force by then) but now it doesn't even turn up on TV. The material certainly offers a rich seam of possibilities for comment on the 80s American Dreams of capitalism and conspicuous consumption, with Nicholson's border patrolman turning a blind eye to the odd drug deal or bit of people trafficking to finance his wife's relentless materialism, until he rediscovers his conscience when he finds out his partners are also in the baby selling business. Unfortunately, he never really gets his hands dirty, barely even turning a blind eye before his decency rises to the surface. The film feels always watered down as if too many rewrites and too many committees have left it neutered and, sadly, the recent DVD release is a missed opportunity to restore the original, nihilistic ending where Nicholson goes over the edge and firebombs the border patrol station that was cut after preview audiences found it too downbeat but which still featured prominently in the film's trailers.

While that probably wasn't too convincing considering how low-key Nicholson's crisis of conscience is in the film, it had to be better than the crude reshot climax where the film abandons logic and even basic rules of continuity: at one point he's holding characters at gunpoint, then he's somewhere else and they're free trying to kill him, one character goes from injured at his house to hopping around like a gazelle on the banks of the Rio Grande while Valerie Perrine's character gets dumber on an exponential level. The villains of the piece are disposed of with absurd ease (and one impressive car stunt) in time for a clumsily edited happy ending and you start wondering if you somehow found yourself watching another film entirely. What makes it all the more clumsy is that the rest of the film is so flat and underwhelming that the sudden lurch into melodrama is all the more jarring. Unfortunately Ry Cooder's beautiful title song, Across the Borderline, says it all much more economically. But if you want to know the film's real crime, it's completely wasting the great Warren Oates in a nothing bit part. When even he can't make an impression, you know something's really wrong. All in all, all too easy to remember why I found this so forgettable at the time.