In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

[EX Q]: weighed down by tired plot lines and spielberg 's reliance on formulas ,
_ saving private ryan _ is a mediocre film which nods in the direction of realism before descending into an abyss of cliches .
there ought to be a law against steven spielberg making movies about truly serious topics .
spielberg 's greatest strength as a director is the polished , formulaic way in which every aspect of the film falls carefully into place to make a perfect story .
but for a topic of such weight as combat in the second world war ( or the holocaust ) this technique backfires , for it creates coherent , comprehensible and redemptive narratives out of events whose size , complexity and evil are utterly beyond the reach of human ken .
in this way spielberg trivializes the awesome evil of the stories he films .
_ saving private ryan _ tells the story of eight men who have been detailed on a " pr mission " to pull a young man , ryan ( whose three other brothers were just killed in fighting elsewhere ) out of combat on the normandy front just after d - day .
ryan is a paratrooper who dropped behind enemy lines the night before the landings and became separated from his fellow soldiers .
the search for him takes the eight soldiers across the hellish terrain of world war ii combat in france .
there 's no denying spielberg came within shouting distance of making a great war movie .
the equipment , uniforms and weapons are superbly done .
the opening sequence , in which captain miller ( tom hanks ) leads his men onto omaha beach , is quite possibly the closest anyone has come to actually capturing the unendurably savage intensity of modern infantry combat .
another pleasing aspect of the film is spielberg 's brave depiction of scenes largely unknown to american audiences , such as the shooting of prisoners by allied soldiers , the banality of death in combat , the routine foul - ups in the execution of the war , and the cynicism of the troops .
the technical side of the film is peerless , as always .
the camera work is magnificent , the pacing perfect , the sets convincing , the directing without flaw .
hanks will no doubt be nominated for an oscar for his performance , which was utterly convincing , and the supporting cast was excellent , though ted danson seems a mite out of place as a paratroop colonel .
yet the attempt at a realistic depiction of combat falls flat on its face because realism is not something which can be represented by single instances or events .
it has to thoroughly permeate the context at every level of the film , or the story fails to convince .
throughout the movie spielberg repeatedly showed only single examples of the grotesque wounds produced by modern mechanized devices ( exception : men are shown burning to death with relative frequency ) .
for example , we see only one man with guts spilled out on the ground .
here and there men lose limbs ; in one scene miller is pulling a man to safety , there 's an explosion , and miller looks back to see he is only pulling half a man .
but the rest of the corpses are remarkably intact .
there are no shoes with only feet in them , no limbs scattered everywhere , no torsos without limbs , no charred corpses , and most importantly , all corpses have heads ( in fairness there are a smattering of wicked head wounds ) .
the relentless dehumanization of the war , in which even corpses failed to retain any indentity , is soft - pedaled in the film .
ultimately , _ saving private ryan _ bows to both hollywood convention and the unwritten rules of wartime photography in its portrayal of wounds and death in war .
rather than saying _ saving private ryan _ is " realistic , " it would be better to describe it as " having realistic moments .
" another aspect of the " hollywoodization " of the war is the lack of realistic dialogue and in particular , the lack of swearing .
anyone familiar with the literature on the behavior of the men during the war , such as fussell 's superb _ wartime : understanding and behavior in the second world war _ ( which has an extensive discussion on swearing ) , knows that the troops swore fluently and without letup .
" who is this private ryan that we have to die for him ?
" asks one infantrymen in the group of eight . rendered in wartime demotic , that should have been expressed as " who is this little pecker that we have to get our dicks shot off for him ?
"
or some variant thereof .
conversations should have been literally sprinkled with the " f " word , and largely about ( the search for ) food and sex .
this is all the more inexplicable because the movie already had an " r " rating due to violence , so swearing could not possibly have been eliminated to make it a family film . however ,
the most troubling aspect of the film is the spielbergization of the topic .
the most intense hell humans have ever created for themselves is not emotionally wrenching enough for steven spielberg .
he can not just cede control to the material ; he has to be bigger than it .
as if afraid to let the viewer find their own ( perhaps unsettled and not entirely clear ) emotional foothold in the material , spielberg has to package it in hallmark moments to give the war a meaning and coherence it never had : the opening and closing scenes of ryan and his family in the war cemetary ( reminscent of the closing scene from _ schindler 's list ) , the saccharine exchange between ryan and his wife at the close ( every bit as bad as schindler 's monologue about how his car , tiepin or ring could have saved another jew ) , quotes from abraham lincoln and emerson , captain miller 's last words to private ryan , and an unbelievable storyline in which a prisoner whom they free earlier in the movie comes back to kill the captain .
that particular subplot is so hokey , so predictable , it nigh on ruins the film .
nowhere in the film is there a resolute depiction of the meaninglessness , stupidity and waste which characterized the experience of war to the men who actually fought in combat ( imagine if miller had been killed by friendly fire or collateral damage ) .
because of its failure to mine deeply into the terrible realities of world war ii , _ saving private ryan _ can only pan for small truths in the shallows . .
[EX A]: N

[EX Q]: jerry springer has got nothing on " wild things .
"
john mcnaughton 's new thriller tackles more tawdry themes in less than two hours than springer 's notoriously sleazy talk show broadcasts in two weeks -- bisexuality
, threesomes , poolside catfights , slutty rich bimbos , even redneck gator - wrestling , they 're all part of the movie 's raucous , complex storyline .
but even trash
tv topicality ca n't drag " wild things " down -- this crazy campfest
plays like something you 'd find late - night on the usa network , only infinitely more palatable and with a solid ensemble cast .
despite a smattering of needless scenes ( most of them sexual in nature ) , there 's wicked fun to be had here .
" wild things " would be a guilty pleasure , only there 's no guilty feeling involved in having a good time with it .
high school guidance counselor sam lombardo ( matt dillon ) is well - liked in the town of blue bay , especially by pretty , popular kelly van ryan ( denise richards ) , whose family name is among the florida yachting enclave 's most financially prominent .
hoping to take her crush to a physical level , kelly seductively slinks into lombardo 's house after washing his jeep for a fundraiser , but , the very next day , tearfully admits to her trollop mother ( theresa russell ) that she was raped .
before long , blue bay detectives ray duquette ( kevin bacon ) and gloria perez ( daphne rubin - vega ) are listening to similar allegations from kelly 's rebel classmate suzie toller ( neve campbell ) .
lombardo , who maintains his innocence , hires neck brace - sporting , opportunistic lawyer ken
bowden ( bill murray ) to defend him in court .
the previews give away the following revelations , so if you have n't seen any of the movie 's spots on the television or in the theater , you might want to skip to the next paragraph .
while cross - examining suzie on the witness stand , bowden gets her to break down and admit that the alleged rapes never took place -- that kelly had concocted this entire scheme because she was angry that lombardo was sleeping with her mother and not with her .
to pay lombardo for the damages , kelly 's mother breaks her daughter 's trust fund and gives him $ 8 . 5 million .
but lombardo , kelly and suzie are actually all working together , and plan to take the money and run as fast as they can .
duquette and perez , however , begin to suspect that there 's more afoot to the case than just false accusations .
if there 's a major drawback to " wild things , " it 's that it 's oversexed to a fault .
the much - talked - about hotel room menage - a - trois between dillon , campbell and richards is a turn - off .
it 's also cut short ( sorry , guys ) , and should have been cut shorter -- the movie grinds to a halt for pure titillation once too often .
what we do n't see is far more effective than what we do .
another example of this is kevin bacon needlessly going the full monty in a shower scene .
er , no thanks .
also , bacon 's duquette feels simultaneously underdeveloped and overwritten .
daphne rubin - vega , from broadway 's " rent , " tries to compensate for a superfluous character .
theresa russell is just plain wooden .
and when , in the end , all is out in the open , ask yourself if certain scenes involving these three were really necessary .
but what keeps the movie from being
throwaway junk is an engaging chain of surprises
( some predictable , some not ) that never seems to end .
" wild things " has more twists than a crate full of corkscrews , and most are so gleefully , over - the - top nasty that you ca n't help but be charmed by their absurd showmanship .
a great deal of amusement also comes from watching bill murray in a supporting part that appears to have been written for his sly comedic talent ;
murray 's a stitch , especially when pulling up beside the van ryan limo after winning lombardo 's case and flipping them off .
and do n't leave when the closing credits hit the screen , or you 'll miss the film 's best part -- four bonus flashbacks that smooth over plot holes while offering a few more tiny turns , plus a final scene that caps everything off with a great stunner of a bombshell .
speaking of bombshells , denise richards , who plays almost every scene in a blue bikini top , does the teen tease thing with a malicious allure that she was never allowed to flaunt in " starship troopers .
"
matt dillon flexes
his sleepy - voiced sex appeal , and pulls off personality changes with chameleonic precision .
neve campbell ,
lovely as ever except when sporting a blond wig , gives suzie a vengeful vulnerability that makes her the most interesting member of the conspiring trio .
re - edited and toned down a bit , the dynamics between these three actors could have carried the film to greater lengths .
but what we 're given works well enough .
" wild things " is highly entertaining and , indeed , very wild .
[EX A]: P

[EX Q]: capsule : this super - light situation comedy from sweden tells the story of two close friends with romantic problems .
the script involves formerly taboo subjects like erotic toys and sexual enhancers but otherwise the writing is not a lot different from what is shown free on television .
the characters are paper - thin and the interesting ideas purely non - existent .
this is a decrement - life - by-90-minutes card .
, 0 ( -4 to +4 ) jalla !
jalla !
is basically an exuberant tv situation comedy written instead for the wide screen .
it tells the story of two park custodians and the problems they are finding on the path to true love .
the film is set in sweden where roro and mans ( fares fares and torkel petersson ) are custodians at a public park .
roro is from a tightly knit lebanese family who control him very closely , mans is a swede from a much more liberal background .
they spend most of the day in the bushes at their park , cleaning up after dogs .
roro and mans each have girlfriends , but each has a problem .
roro ( nicknamed " jalla " ) is having family problems .
it seems that his family wants to arrange a marriage between him and a nice lebanese woman , yasmin ( laleh pourkarim ) , but he is already in love with lisa ( tuva novotny ) .
yasmin likes roro , but does not want to get married either .
mans on the other hand has been having a problem of sexual impotence .
the two friends worry about their problems and discuss the problems with each other .
mans thinks the answer to his problem is to purchase sexual enhancers .
the one catch is that he is too shy to go in and buy them .
roro and yasmin decide to give themselves some time by telling the families that they want to marry each other , but then plan to break up before the wedding .
not too surprisingly neither finds that his idea works out the way he quite expected .
the plot turns in several places are contrived .
one knows fairly quickly that if things are going to work our happily for everybody certain plot contrivances have to happen .
lebanese - born josef fares who wrote and directed is perhaps a better director than he is a writer .
when things start to get slow , he just adds throws in another story .
for example halfway into the film mans innocently antagonizes some local toughs and a long chase is added to the film .
characterization is a little better with roro than it is with mans who does not seem to have a whole lot more personality beyond fear for losing a biological function .
we do see some of roro 's family life and his concerns .
that may be because roro 's background is a lot like that of the director .
while the story was entertaining , i did not feel that i got anything worthwhile from the film .
it was just a way to pass about an hour and a half in my life .
one does not have to go to the movies to see entertainment like this .
i rate it a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .
[EX A]:
N