Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan play co-workers in a Budapest gift shop who don't really like each other, not knowing they're really sweetheart pen pals who have yet to meet.

A very charming romantic comedy, very engagingly played by it's two likable stars and a very eager-to-please supporting cast. The story is well written and the film has that romantic innocence (don't quite know how to explain it) that films today just don't have. This can obviously be compared to the recent You've Got Mail, and the original wins in every way.

This is mandatory viewing each Christmas, I can't think of a better way to jumpstart a Christmas feel than this little gem.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: A fantastic Arabian adventure. A former king, Ahmad, and his best friend, the thief Abu (played by Sabu of Black Narcissus) search for Ahmad's love interest, who has been stolen by the new king, Jaffar (Conrad Veidt). There's hardly a down moment here. It's always inventing new adventures for the heroes. Personally, I found Ahmad and his princess a little boring (there's no need to ask why John Justin, who plays Ahmad, is listed fourth in the credits). Conrad Veidt, always a fun actor, makes a great villain, and Sabu is a lot of fun as the prince of thieves, who at one point finds a genie in a bottle. I also really loved Miles Malleson as the Sultan of Basra, the father of the princess. He collects amazing toys from around the world. Jaffar bribes him for his daughter's hand with a mechanical flying horse. This probably would count as one of the great children's films of all time, but the special effects are horribly dated nowadays. Kids will certainly deride the superimposed images when Abu and the genie are on screen together. And the scene with the giant spider looks especially awful. Although most of the younger generation probably thinks that King Kong looks bad at this point in time, Willis O'Brien's stop-motion animation is a thousand times better than a puppet on a string that doesn't even look remotely like a spider. 8/10.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: The five or so really good westerns that Mann made are unequaled as an ensemble in Hollywood. Even John Ford never made that many with so much quality. The curious thing about them all is how uneven they are. Ford's My Darling Clementine is worth about two and a half of any of them. Or at least two.

The real hero of them besides Mann and Stewart is Chase. Chase being responsible for the brilliant Red River. Chase wrote far country, bend of the river, and probably some others. But none of them are as finished as My Darling Clementine, but then very few films, western or otherwise are.

Each of the five films of Mann have huge gaps, or is it six, lets see. Bend, Far, Man of the West, Furies, Winchester 73, and yep, six, Naked Spur. Each have magnificent scene after magnificent scene, with fairly glaring lapses. Yet so does Red River, which is still the single greatest western ever made. So perfection isn't everything.

But The Far Country has huge, huge holes. It's mawkish, and really comes alive only when Stewart and Mc Entire are locking horns. The rest is pretty pedestrian, with the usual exception of Mann's camera. Mann's camera is a one man course in cinematography. It is about as good an eye as anybody who ever got behind a strip of moving film. It is almost never in the wrong place, never.

The Far Country has one amazing moment. And as usual it comes from Stewart. Nobody in the history of cinema ever received physical punishment with the authority of that man. He is absolutely amazing: look at him in Bend, Far, Winchester, and Man from Laramie: in Bend has been beaten up and is hanging by a thread so believably and with such boiling hatred he looks like somebody displaced from Dachau, in Far he is shot off a raft with such violence, it looks so convincing that you wince, and of course when he is dragged through the fire in Man, well you find yourself looking for the burn marks. What an actor. Not to mention the moment in Winchester when he is beaten up early in the hotel room, also as well as anybody ever did it.

But that was Mann's territory: look at Gary Cooper fighting with Jack Lord in Man of the West. As painful as any fight scene ever recorded. Cooper while not being quite as convincing as Stewart, nevertheless is somehow his equal in looking exhausted at the end of the fight. In short, nobody but nobody but nobody ever showed the human being in extremis as well as Mann.

What a great, great director.

See every western he ever made. They are his real monuments, even if all are scetchy. But so what. When he gets roaring with his great scenes they are as good as anybody, including Ford. And his six westerns as an ensemble are the best ever done by anyone, period.

Thanks, Anthony.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer:
My friends and I rented this from Blockbuster because we saw Nana Visitor's name on the box. This movie is a travesty I hope she negates from her CV.

The "plot" was lose and flaccid, the acting was mostly dry and unbearable in some parts. The movie made no sense whatsoever. The rough plot of an alien parasite species that infects humans has been done many times by films with much better scripts than this, for example, invasion of the body-snatchers and The faculty.

If you ever have the misfortune to come across this movie, I suggest you burn it.

How it classes itself as a horror movie when there was no use of fear, suspense, gore, terror or any of the usual horror film techniques I don't know, however if you still find yourself wanting to watch this film I suggest you have a lot of sugar before hand, so you can find parts of it funny.