In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
One example is below.
Q: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
A: N
Rationale: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").
Q: ' traffic violation ' dr .
daniel 's review of u - turn dr .
d 's rating : critical condition ( okay , here 's the deal .
i 'll be the first one to grant that everybody needs a day off now and then .
i 'll even go so far as to say that a vacation is a necessary part of doing any job well .
i mean , hey , i 've been known to stretch a weekend into a three - day outing , if friday looks to be a slow day .
and if monday ai n't looking like a pick - me - up , well , i 've been known to give martha nell a call and say , " do me a favor , sweetheart .
bump old man ferguson 's boil lancing to tuesday morning , and tell miss audrey that i 'll swing by her house monday evening and see if we ca n't get her trick knee back in line .
"
a simple sentence like that , and
i 've got a nice four - day fishing trip with the boys , or more often than not , a trip up to cherokee , n .
c . , for jackpot bingo and assorted other mountain funnery .
but the point is , if you take a day off , do something different .
if you 've worked yourself silly for months , relax a bit .
sleep in .
eat pancakes at noon .
microwave an egg in its shell .
watch pro wrestling with the sound off .
listen to some barry white records at high speed .
whatever .
but do not , under any circumstances , spend your vacation doing the same thing you do for a living .
and , if you do , do n't make the final product look ten times worse than it would any other time .
because i do not want to hear your sob stories , oliver stone .
you apparently thought you needed a break from making " important films .
" cool .
so you found this hinky little book and decided to make it a movie .
that 's cool , too .
but , ollie , old sage , do not take a good story and a hot cast and make one of the most pointless and worthless films of the decade .
i 'm just eager to meet you one day
, so i can buy you a stoli , look you in the eye and say , " what in the wide world of sports were you thinking with u - turn ?
" and i 'll stand there staring '
til i get a straight answer .
sean penn stars u - turn , as bobby , a drifter
who 's had some troubles a while back .
he 's heading cross the desert minus two fingers when his mustang ragtop blows a radiator hose , stranding him in superior , arizona , held there by an " ignorant , inbred , turtleneck hick " of a mechanic named darrell .
while darrell puts a new hose on the ride , bobby walks into town to see what 's cooking .
is it needless of me to say that superior , arizona , is not exactly the shiny scrubbed home of all things lovely ?
probably not .
bobby meets up with grace ( jennifer lopez ) , who invites him back to her place , for drape - hanging and other domestic issues .
just as those issues are starting up , grace 's husband , jake , storms in , looking like check - out day of the elks lodge convention .
just beats bobby silly .
bobby takes to the road , only to meet up with jake again , and jake asks bobby to kill grace .
a little while later , grace asks bobby to kill jake .
them murderous arizonians .
got ta love 'em .
if any of this sounds familiar , congratulations .
you win a kewpie doll .
the story is a straight shoplift of red rock west , a cult favorite a few years back from john dahl , maker of the phenomenal the last seduction .
but the contest does n't end there , guys and gals .
we get steals from russ meyer movies , where everybody in town is horny and sweaty .
we get the town from bad day at black rock , minus the train , plus busty women who can speak .
look at any schwarzenegger film , and you 'll see our hero , bobby , as bobby has a mudhole stomped in his keister a dozen times ,
has his ribs stove in at least fifteen times , gets bit by a tarantula , gets shot at , and ends up with vultures circling overhead , all the while getting up like he just got a shaving nick .
bobby as terminator ?
stretch it a bit , and we have a five - finger discount from doc hollywood , where the whole story occurs because of car trouble , forcing the main character to stay at the mercy of the town and the mechanic .
okay , he 's working from a book , so maybe ollie 's not totally to blame for blatantly copping these ideas .
i just expect a man who can make up an alternative history of the united states to be able to craft a few original ideas before exposing the negative .
i just wish he had n't brought a cast like this together for what amounts to
a group toe - stub .
sean penn gives a great performance , and jennifer lopez and nick nolte are as on target as they can be , playing over - the - top caricatures of stereotype characters .
the best thing about the movie is watching penn react to the madness around him and try to figure out exactly what the blankety - blank is going on . too bad
it 's not fun to watch when it 's happening to us . . .
while we sit through
this mess of a film .
u - turn is not a bad film if you 're a fan of technique .
it 's the oliver stone you 've always known .
robert richardson is his usual cinematographer , and rob and ollie know how to shoot a flick -- great camera angles , shifting viewpoints , wicked colors , nice looking pictures .
but pictures of what ?
i think i 'd rather stare at a xeroxed envelope for two hours than try to figure out the tilt - o - whirl point of this loser film
.
plot twists are one thing , repetition is almost unforgivable , and this is dang near as unforgivable as any movie
i 've seen in the past five years .
oliver
, i know your body of work is nothing to sniff at .
you 've been nice enough to limit us to only one doors movie , and films like platoon , jfk , wall street and nixon give us plenty to dig on .
your scripts are certainly respectable , your budgets are up there on the screen , and your actors do n't dog it .
and i know that , maybe , with u - turn , you were just kicking back , just having fun .
that 's fine .
but do n't do that with a movie with the potential of this one .
do some police academy sequel
( imagine that .
) do a big comedy , like a remake of it 's a mad , mad , mad , mad world .
but do not drop a limp u - turn out of your pocket and expect us to accept it as " an oliver stone movie , " and not question why it stinks like week - old snook
.
there 's a right way to have fun , and a wrong way to have fun .
this was as wrong as you can get without going to jail .
A:
N