Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here: Michael Keaton is "Johnny Dangerously" in this take-off on gangster movies done in 1984. Maureen Stapleton plays his sickly mother, Griffin Dunne is his DA brother, Peter Boyle is his boss, and Marilu Henner is his girlfriend. Other stars include Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo. Keaton plays a pet store owner in the 1930s who catches a kid stealing a puppy and then tells him, in flashback, how he came to own the pet store. He turned to thievery at a young age to get his mother a pancreas operation ($49.95, special this week) and began working for a mob boss (Boyle). Johnny uses the last name "Dangerously" in the mobster world.

There are some hilarious scenes in this film, and Stapleton is a riot as Johnny's foul-mouthed mother who needs ever organ in her body replaced. Peter Boyle as Johnny's boss gives a very funny performance, as does Griffin Dunne, a straight arrow DA who won't "play ball" with crooked Burr (Danny De Vito). As Johnny's nemesis, Joe Piscopo is great. Richard Dimitri is a standout as Moronie, who tortures the English language - but you have to hear him do it rather than read about it. What makes it funny is that he does it all with an angry face.

The movie gets a little tired toward the end, but it's well worth seeing, and Keaton is terrific as good boy/bad boy Johnny. For some reason, this film was underrated when it was released, and like Keaton's other gem, "Night Shift," you don't hear much about it today. With some performances and scenes that are real gems, you'll find "Johnny Dangerously" immensely enjoyable.
Problem: Write a positive (OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive) movie review.

Answer: Hmmmm, want a little romance with your mystery? This has it. I think if the romance was ditched this would have made for a better movie. But how could the romance be ditched when the story's borrowed from something called a Harlequin Romance novel, whatever the heck that is. Had the romance been ditched, the story might have been a little too weak. The mystery here wasn't too bad, quite interesting but nothing on the level of Mission Impossible international espionage. Oh well. I thought Mel Harris was pretty good; her short skirts, i think, added some sex appeal... but this Rob Stewart guy probably could have been better cast, maybe with a more well known TV movie actor. The directing was decent and the writing could have been improved on - both could have been a little edgier, a little darker, more adventurous. One thing that was great about this was the use of real European locations. That could easily have been changed so this could have been filmed in Canada but they really were in magnificently beautiful places like Budapest. Possibly a drawback was the director and/or cinematographer's choice to frame certain shots picture postcard perfect. Not good. Had this been a more dramatic motion picture shot for the big screen, picture postcard perfect scenes really need to take a backseat and just be a nice part of the background. This was just a tv-movie, though, so they had to add some Ummmph to the picture and some of that Ummmph came from the scenery. Overall, twasn't really a bad movie. I'll tell you what, this was absolutely the best Canadian-Hungarian production I have ever seen! (and the only that i know of.) I hereby proclaim this to be a mediocre made-for-tv movie, giving it a grade of C-
Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
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Answer: The spoilers in this review are offered as a public service, because the only way to enjoy this costume melodrama is to know that our protagonist, the Lady Barbara Skelton, gets raped and gunned down in the end. And not a moment too soon. I'd have shot the screen myself but I was afraid I'd hit James Mason.

The original 1943 novel, called "The Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton" (I guess people didn't whine about spoilers back then), was written by a woman, an English navy brat who was either troubled or cynical or both. Her heroine is devastatingly beautiful, and the author seems to think that if you have beauty, nothing else matters. But other things do matter, such as the fact that Lady Barbara's immediate and only response when someone gets in her way is homicide. She murders three men in five attempts. A serial femme fatale, she's got a case of dissocial personality disorder that should have landed her in either Bedlam or Newgate.

Lockwood plays her as a narcissistic vamp, wearing so much makeup that I thought of her as a Restoration-era Joan Rivers (or a restoration-era Joan Rivers, ha!). Yet Lady B. is irresistible to all three principal male characters-- Michael Rennie, James Mason, and Griffith Jones, all of whom do good work, as does Patricia Roc. Of course, all three admirers realize in short order what a psychotic bitch Barbara is, but the plot keeps them all in her orbit until one of them finally does gun her down - accidentally, in what is meant to be either irony or just desserts. Given the dramatic death scene with a boom lifting the camera out through the windows and heavenward, I presume we're meant to give a damn about her death. But hers is the first corpse we don't care about.
Q: What's an example of a movie review?
An example of a movie review is here:
Bonfires of the Vanities is a film drenched in flop sweat. I can recall no film that has tried so hard to be so unrelentingly outrageous, provocative and important, yet failed so consistently across the board. It is like a stand up comic who's not getting laughs, but can't leave the stage. The harder the film tries, the louder each attempt at a laugh results in a resounding thud. The desperation the film displays is so glaring it almost rouses pity for all those involved.

The film achieves laugh-out-loud status only twice. Once is in the sight of Geraldo Rivera playing an obnoxious, arrogant and amoral TV tabloid journalist -- which is funny only because he apparently doesn't realize he is playing himself. The other scene that deserves to be laughed at is the film's final "big moment," wherein the judge played by Morgan Freeman delivers the sanctimonious lecture about what morality is ("it's what your mama taught ya!"). The pomposity of the moment is insulting to the point of being absurd.

Yet, one must admit it is a noble effort. It does have a good, if poorly cast, band of actors, who try to make characters out of cardboard thin caricatures. The film looks professionally made and the little cinematic flourishes that director Brian DePalma just loves are apparent, if not particularly effective. But the film, which apparently wishes to be a commentary on modern morals and ethics, never arises above the level of cartoon. Satire requires style. Farce requires energy. Even sitcom requires timing. But the best Bonfires can muster is desperation. In the end, you don't want to laugh, you just want to turn away.