input: Ron Howard directed this? The 1966 cartoon is charming, teaching a simple lesson to children using a simple plot. In this movie, Howard gives us a Whoville filled with greedy, manipulative, self-centered Whos. Jim Carrey is terrible, but I'm sure it's not his fault; I imagine the script called for the nastiest person imaginable, so Carrey channeled Tom Green and the result is movie magic. Much like Danny Devito's Penguin in Batman Returns, Carrey's Grinch is so thoroughly unlikeable that any degree of comedy that might be mined from his character simply evaporates. Where the 1966 cartoon featured a Grinch that we could all identify with, Carrey's Grinch is that angry, soulless old man that we've all seen at one time or another, sitting in a parked car muttering to himself or tripping toddlers at the supermarket with his cane. This Grinch is thoroughly bereft of any degree of humanity, humor, or insight whatsoever, and his redemption at the end of the movie rings false. The whole movie rings false: there is some stupid Christmas lighting competition, a failed attempt at explaining why the Grinch is such a jerk by digging into his childhood, and an indecipherable mystery as to why some of the Whos have that weird lip extension and some of them don't. Contrary to the 1966 cartoon, I would imagine children would find this movie tiresome, irritating, and filled with contradictory messages. Did we really need to see Slutty Smurf, aka Christine Baranski as Martha May Whovier? In addition, Ron Howard filled the cast with his untalented relatives. Throw in the requisite butt jokes, fart jokes, sex jokes, and other obligatory Carreyesque low-brow humor, and you have a movie that is about as far from the 1966 cartoon (or book that inspired it) as George W. Bush is from rational, lucid thought. Thumbs down on this big fat turkey.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: I saw this recently on a faded old VHS tape, and remembered it dimly. Looking at it now, it seems charming.

When it was first released, it was recognized by pretty much everyone as a spoof of coming out as a gay teenager. To hammer the point home, the mother is seen reading a paperback copy of "1 Teenager In 10", the most popular coming out book of the time. David Warner hams it up as the persecuting vampire hunter [= gay-hating evangelist], who is of course a self-loathing closet case. The list of sight gags and in-jokes that were included to make sure nobody missed the point would be too long to go into. The producers were having some good-natured fun, and hoping, no doubt, to lighten-up as well as to enlighten.

But I have no clue how a teenage audience would look at this film, nowadays. In some places, where there is education and culture, the terrifying ordeals that gay teens had to go through are a thing of the past. But I'm sure there are plenty of dark, nasty corners of our continent where it's just as bad as it always was.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: i should love this movie . the acting is very good and Barbara Stanwyck is great but the the movie has always seemed very trite to me . the movie makes working class people look low and cheap .the fact that the daughter is ashamed of her mother and that the daughter does not rise above it has always made me a bit uneasy . Barbara Stanwyck as the mother worships the daughter but the daughter forgoes a mothers love to find happiness with her well to do fathers family . i wonder how many others who have seen this film feel this way about it.again the acting was very very good and worth watching . i really don't like the story line . just a personal preference .thank you

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: this movie begins with an ordinary funeral... and it insists so hard on this ordinary funeral feel that i lost interest within 5 minutes of watching, and started skipping scenes. it seems to me whomever made this movie is afflicted to the extent of becoming trapped in a permanent morbid trance, unable to contemplate anything else but death and destruction. well, i ain't one of the dark kids from Southpark, i want a movie that within 10 minutes gets me well into an interesting story, i won't sit and watch 10 minutes of nothing but preparations for a funeral.. my grandma on her last years was fascinated by funerals, perhaps she might have enjoyed this "movie".

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pos/neg ans:
negative