input question: Select the correct sentiment of the following review: Falls into the film category of "Way too ridiculous in the dialogue and execution departments to be taken seriously". Whereas Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth or My Boyfriend's Back know they are bad, Scarecrows doesn't. Evil Dead set such a high standard for the comedic horror on a budget genre, that Scarecrows is simply out of place.

Suspicions of inexperience are immediately at play as there are no hints of noise or vibration in the hull and cockpit of an airborne plane. The repeated display of a picture of 3 men just screams for a story arc, but nothing comes. Although the men are obviously the scarecrows, there is no explanation.

Knowing this film is too serious for it's own good may produce some grins. I don't recall if Joe Bob Briggs ever previewed Scarecrows, but I believe that he wouldn't stoop this low. However, with an IMDb rating of over 6, there are many people that disagree.
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive
....
output answer: negative

input question: Select the correct sentiment of the following review: Only the Antichrist could have been behind such a disaster. One only hopes that this irony was the motivating force behind the "film"! This movie was so bad, it forced me to register with IMDb, finally, just so I could trash it. What makes this movie all the more tragic is that it had such GREAT source material! I have never seen a movie where all the elements were so grotesquely mediocre as to render the result less than the sum of its parts.

It may seem insignificant, but I'd like to start with the score. As the proud owner of a music degree, I must register my indignation! I was torn between laughter and dry heaves as I listened to what John Scheffer did to Goldsmith's brilliant score; it was far more gruesome than any of the burlesque death scenes, and almost as inadvertently comedic. It was by far the most inappropriate score I've heard since, well, I really can't think of a worse one. Maybe JAWS 4?

As for the plot... I'm sorry. New Age mysticism??? What ever happened to the gritty realism of the original trilogy? In those films (more so in the first two than the third, but still!!) the supernatural was for the most part implied, and it was this subtlety that made the movies so eerily believable. Here we have crystals going black (calling all Skeksis and Mystics!!) and inverted crucifixes galore, even though in certain scenes the crucifux would be perfectly normal but for the camera angle. Gone is the refined psychlogical manipulation tapping the malaise inherent in our collective psyche: in its place a boorish "slap in the face" of recycled cliche and transparent incompetence. Add to that a lead "actress" so unbelievably ANNOYING that you fervently thank the director for those scenes from which she is absent. Never have I seen a little girl so fundamentally irritating since little Stephanie ruined ALL IN THE FAMILY.

Other than that, I have no strong feelings on the subject ;-) Luckily the first three films are sufficiently adroit as to render this train-wreck of wasted celluloid inconsequential or, at the very most, a study in how NOT to make a film. Viewer beware! May induce vomiting if you're lucky.
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive
....
output answer: negative

input question: Select the correct sentiment of the following review: "Panic In The Streets" is an exciting and atmospheric thriller in which director Elia Kazan achieved a great sense of realism by shooting the movie in New Orleans, using a number of local people to fill various roles and making intelligent use of improvisation. As a result, the characters and dialogue both seem very natural and believable. An important deadline which has to be met in order to avoid a disaster, provides the story with its great sense of urgency and pace and the problems which delay the necessary action from being taken, then increase the tension to a high level.

Following a dispute between the participants in a card game, a man called Kochak (Lewis Charles) is shot and his body is dumped in the dock area. When the body is found and the coroner identifies the presence of a virus, U.S. Public Health official Dr Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark) is called in and his examination confirms the presence of pneumonic plague. Reed insists that all known contacts of the dead man must be inoculated without delay because the very infectious nature of the disease means that without such action, anyone infected could be expected to die within days.

As the identity of the dead man is unknown, the task of finding his contacts is expected to be difficult and this situation is not helped when city officials and the Police Commissioner are not fully convinced by Reed's briefing. They doubt that the threat to the public is potentially as serious as he claims it is and their initial lack of commitment is just the first of a series of obstacles which prevent action from being taken urgently. The investigation that follows is hampered by a lack of cooperation from the immigrant community, a group of seamen, the proprietor of a restaurant and also some illegal immigrants before the man's identity and his contacts are eventually found.

Kochak, an illegal immigrant, had been in a gang with Blackie (Jack Palance), Raymond Fitch (Zero Mostel) and Vince Poldi (Tommy Cook) and when gang leader Blackie becomes aware of the ongoing police investigation, he presumes that Kochak must've smuggled something very valuable into the country. As Kochak and Poldi were related, Blackie assumes that Poldi must know something about this and goes to find out more. Poldi, however, is very ill and unable to provide any information. Blackie brings in his own doctor and together with Fitch starts to move Poldi out of his room and down some stairs and this is when they meet up with Reed and an exciting chase follows.

Richard Widmark gives a strong performance as an underpaid public official who copes efficiently with the onerous responsibilities of his job whilst also dealing with his domestic preoccupations as a family man. In an unusual type of role for him, he also portrays the determined and serious minded nature of Dr Reed very convincingly. Jack Palance's film debut sees him giving an impressive performance as a ruthless thug who misjudges Kochak's reason for leaving the card game and also the reason for the intense police investigation. His distinctive looks also help to make his on-screen presence even more compelling.

In typical docu-noir style, expressionist cinematography and neo-realist influences are utilized in tandem to effectively capture the atmosphere of the locations in which the action takes place. Elia Kazan directs with precision throughout but also excels in the memorable chase sequence in the warehouse and on the dockside.
OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive
....
output answer:
positive