Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: Ordinarily I really enjoy movies like "Chances Are," but I wasn't quite satisfied with this one for a few reasons. The first half was pretty well done overall, with Alex Finch dying and being reincarnated in a new body (played by Robert Downey Jr.). He meets up with his wife (Cybill Shepherd) and friend (Ryan O'Neal) and his daughter, who is now grown up. The scenes with them meeting again and Downey rediscovering who he once was are well done, and there is a good amount of emotion and happiness once Shepherd finally believes its really her husband reincarnated, but from there the film goes downhill. There are several sex-related scenes that turned me off completely, especially Downey and Shepherd wanting to get together again despite the difference in their age now. After that, however, the film manages to end in the most satisfying way possible, considering the circumstances of the plot. I was disappointed because I did not expect the film to become so immoral by the end. There was great potential with this story, and the scenes in heaven are well done. There is a good theme song sung by Peter Cetera and Cher, but ultimately the film is not great. For a better, similar film, try "Heaven Can Wait." Decent, but I really kind of wish I hadn't seen it because of the scenes in the second half.

*** out of ****


Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: This movie raises a number of pressing questions in my mind. Firstly, how has Jennifer Tilly managed to sustain a film acting career for all these years based on that ridiculous squeaky voice and the very limited range of hammy facial expressions she employs? Secondly... what on earth were the people responsible for making this offensive and deeply repulsive film thinking of? And thirdly... given that there were people perverted enough to decide to make dreck like this, shouldn't there have been someone in the system - the studio, the distributors, or somewhere - sane enough to prevent it actually getting completed and released. You really would have to search a very, very long way to turn up another movie as profoundly nasty as this... and it isn't even billed as a horror movie - which, inasmuch as it can be seen as belonging to any legitimate film genre, it certainly is. The movie wallows from beginning to end in the sickest kind of madness, violence and abuse, and has essentially no redeeming features at all. I'm not actually advocating censorship (which I don't believe in)... but I really can't see how anybody could conceivably draw anything positive from watching a film like this.


Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: I would like to say that unlike many of the people who disliked this film and found it impossible to understand I was fully able to understand it for what it is.. A very incoherent attempt at a plot line.

I don't like to toss this word around but in this case it fits very well. The director firstly presents the material in an extremely "arrogant" way and worse, extremely incoherently. It is incoherent in that it presents the material in a messy dislodged order, making us think that the director was too drunk to remember which scenes come first, and arrogant in that at 2 hours long they expect us, the viewer to CARE by the end of it.

I respect surrealist cinema for what it is. (creating a story around a more than real world that does not tie to real life) But there is nothing surreal about having a story placed in ordinary modern times, and a modern day earth setting, that is most importantly not able to engage the audience but furthermore, simply a dislodged series of events that barely tie together. The most accurate way to describe the experience of viewing this film is like viewing a story; perhaps even a very GOOD story as it was based on a book, but being frustrated by the fact that the camera doesn't seem to capture the necessary moments and tie together any means of coherence.

Let's compare stylistic cinema. Compare Gaspar Noe's "Seul contre tous" to this. He gave us a coherent, extremely engaging and intellectually deep story. This movie offers no intellectual study, and while it is very stylistic in it's fragmented presentation, the director has ultimately abandoned the essential art of good storytelling and all we are left with is a mess of events that barely tie in together.

Yes indeed it IS possible to make sense of things.... to a POINT. But as i said earlier the viewer will reach a stage where they simply say "Who cares." It plays out like watching a drab mundane story of a man going to a supermarket and buying groceries in uncronological order. Even with murders it is completely uninteresting and unengaging. Too many people these days will give high marks to something they are unable to understand or make sense of simply for fear of looking foolish, and in every way this film TRIES to make the viewer look foolish.

If you have too much time on your hands, then please watch this film, taking into account what I have said of it. It is a story based on a book that could have been presented in a MUCH more effective way and that is my bottom line reasoning.


Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer:
This film is about a group of five friends who rent a cabin in the woods. One of the friends catches a horrifying flesh-eating virus. Suddenly, the friends turn on one another in a desperate attempt to keep from contracting the disease themselves.

"Cabin Fever" is a horrible film. For one, it tries to be many genres at once. Is it supposed to be a homage, a slasher, a black comedy, or a scary movie with unintentional comedy? Nobody can tell. There's a serious scene at first and a second alter, it turns funny. When the film tries to be funny, the humor is quite bland, excluding the ending. I liked the ending a lot.

But apart from the ending, I was pretty disappointed and disgusted. The violence is cringe-worthy, more looking away from the screen than being scared. The tone changes within each scene, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, and sometimes quite random. In fact, you see a girl doing karate in slo-motion. What are we supposed to get from that? This same girl would bite one of the characters. Was that supposed to be funny? I don't know.

Some of the performances were decent, and many were quite amateurish. I didn't care for most of the characters. I liked the plot but the execution was done horribly. As a horror film, I didn't know what it was trying to be. I didn't find it funny, tense, nor scary. By the end, you're left indifferent, thinking, "What have I just been through?" Unfortunately, you'll never know the answer to that question.