cos125-project1/Project Code/movieReviews-small.txt

1 A series of escapades demonstrating the adage that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander , some of which occasionally amuses but none of which amounts to much of a story .	
4 This quiet , introspective and entertaining independent is worth seeking .	
1 Even fans of Ismail Merchant 's work , I suspect , would have a hard time sitting through this one .	
3 A positively thrilling combination of ethnography and all the intrigue , betrayal , deceit and murder of a Shakespearean tragedy or a juicy soap opera .	
1 Aggressive self-glorification and a manipulative whitewash .	
4 A comedy-drama of nearly epic proportions rooted in a sincere performance by the title character undergoing midlife crisis .	
1 Narratively , Trouble Every Day is a plodding mess .	
3 The Importance of Being Earnest , so thick with wit it plays like a reading from Bartlett 's Familiar Quotations	
1 But it does n't leave you with much .	
1 You could hate it for the same reason .	
1 There 's little to recommend Snow Dogs , unless one considers cliched dialogue and perverse escapism a source of high hilarity .	
1 Kung Pow is Oedekerk 's realization of his childhood dream to be in a martial-arts flick , and proves that sometimes the dreams of youth should remain just that .	
4 The performances are an absolute joy .	
3 Fresnadillo has something serious to say about the ways in which extravagant chance can distort our perspective and throw us off the path of good sense .	
3 I still like Moonlight Mile , better judgment be damned .	
3 A welcome relief from baseball movies that try too hard to be mythic , this one is a sweet and modest and ultimately winning story .	
3 a bilingual charmer , just like the woman who inspired it	
2 Like a less dizzily gorgeous companion to Mr. Wong 's In the Mood for Love -- very much a Hong Kong movie despite its mainland setting .	
1 As inept as big-screen remakes of The Avengers and The Wild Wild West .	
2 It 's everything you 'd expect -- but nothing more .	
4 Best indie of the year , so far .	
3 Hatfield and Hicks make the oddest of couples , and in this sense the movie becomes a study of the gambles of the publishing world , offering a case study that exists apart from all the movie 's political ramifications .	
1 It 's like going to a house party and watching the host defend himself against a frothing ex-girlfriend .	
2 That the Chuck Norris `` grenade gag '' occurs about 7 times during Windtalkers is a good indication of how serious-minded the film is .	
2 The plot is romantic comedy boilerplate from start to finish .	
2 It arrives with an impeccable pedigree , mongrel pep , and almost indecipherable plot complications .	
2 A film that clearly means to preach exclusively to the converted .	
1 While The Importance of Being Earnest offers opportunities for occasional smiles and chuckles , it does n't give us a reason to be in the theater beyond Wilde 's wit and the actors ' performances .	
1 The latest vapid actor 's exercise to appropriate the structure of Arthur Schnitzler 's Reigen .	
2 More vaudeville show than well-constructed narrative , but on those terms it 's inoffensive and actually rather sweet .	
2 Nothing more than a run-of-the-mill action flick .	
0 Hampered -- no , paralyzed -- by a self-indulgent script ... that aims for poetry and ends up sounding like satire .	
2 Ice Age is the first computer-generated feature cartoon to feel like other movies , and that makes for some glacial pacing early on .	
2 There 's very little sense to what 's going on here , but the makers serve up the cliches with considerable dash .	
2 Cattaneo should have followed the runaway success of his first film , The Full Monty , with something different .	
1 They 're the unnamed , easily substitutable forces that serve as whatever terror the heroes of horror movies try to avoid .	
1 It almost feels as if the movie is more interested in entertaining itself than in amusing us .	
0 The movie 's progression into rambling incoherence gives new meaning to the phrase ` fatal script error . '	
3 Do n't judge this one too soon - it 's a dark , gritty story but it takes off in totally unexpected directions and keeps on going .	
3 So could young romantics out on a date .	
0 Tartakovsky 's team has some freakish powers of visual charm , but the five writers slip into the modern rut of narrative banality .	
3 Vincent Gallo is right at home in this French shocker playing his usual bad boy weirdo role .	
4 If a horror movie 's primary goal is to frighten and disturb , then They works spectacularly well ... A shiver-inducing , nerve-rattling ride .	
1 This 100-minute movie only has about 25 minutes of decent material .	
2 Fortunately , you still have that option .	
3 Less the sensational true-crime hell-jaunt purists might like and more experimental in its storytelling -LRB- though no less horrifying for it -RRB- .	
3 As tricky and satisfying as any of David Mamet 's airless cinematic shell games .	
1 I 'm sure the filmmaker would disagree , but , honestly , I do n't see the point .	
4 Jones has tackled a meaty subject and drawn engaging characters while peppering the pages with memorable zingers .	
4 Bloody Sunday has the grace to call for prevention rather than to place blame , making it one of the best war movies ever made .	
1 Takes a clunky TV-movie approach to detailing a chapter in the life of the celebrated Irish playwright , poet and drinker .	
2 Finally coming down off of Miramax 's deep shelves after a couple of aborted attempts , Waking Up in Reno makes a strong case for letting sleeping dogs lie .	
0 Thanks largely to Williams , all the interesting developments are processed in 60 minutes -- the rest is just an overexposed waste of film .	
0 Comes across as a relic from a bygone era , and its convolutions ... feel silly rather than plausible .	
4 Perhaps it 's cliche to call the film ` refreshing , ' but it is .	
4 Both lead performances are Oscar-size .	
0 Run for your lives !	
3 Mark Pellington 's latest pop thriller is as kooky and overeager as it is spooky and subtly in love with myth .	
3 Claude Chabrol 's camera has a way of gently swaying back and forth as it cradles its characters , veiling tension beneath otherwise tender movements .	
3 Transforms one of -LRB- Shakespeare 's -RRB- deepest tragedies into a smart new comedy .	
1 The screenplay by James Eric , James Horton and director Peter O'Fallon ... is so pat it makes your teeth hurt .	
3 But arriving at a particularly dark moment in history , it offers flickering reminders of the ties that bind us .	
1 Its generic villains lack any intrigue -LRB- other than their funny accents -RRB- and the action scenes are poorly delivered .	
3 The characters are more deeply thought through than in most ` right-thinking ' films .	
3 The film , despite the gratuitous cinematic distractions impressed upon it , is still good fun .	
0 Downright transparent is the script 's endless assault of embarrassingly ham-fisted sex jokes that reek of a script rewrite designed to garner the film a `` cooler '' PG-13 rating .	
4 A smart , provocative drama that does the nearly impossible : It gets under the skin of a man we only know as an evil , monstrous lunatic .	
1 It 's like a drive-by .	
3 is many things -- stoner midnight flick , sci-fi deconstruction , gay fantasia -- but above all it 's a love story as sanguine as its title .	
3 A very funny romantic comedy about two skittish New York middle-agers who stumble into a relationship and then struggle furiously with their fears and foibles .	
1 But it has an ambition to say something about its subjects , but not a willingness .	
3 -LRB- Scherfig -RRB- has made a movie that will leave you wondering about the characters ' lives after the clever credits roll .	
3 -LRB- An -RRB- absorbing documentary .	
2 Reeks of rot and hack work from start to finish .	
1 Plays like a series of vignettes -- clips of a film that are still looking for a common through-line .	
1  	
1 The major problem with Windtalkers is that the bulk of the movie centers on the wrong character .	
2 Swimfan , like Fatal Attraction , eventually goes overboard with a loony melodramatic denouement in which a high school swimming pool substitutes for a bathtub .	
1 This is a heartfelt story ... it just is n't a very involving one .	
4 An unsettling , memorable cinematic experience that does its predecessors proud .	
3 All in all , it 's a pretty good execution of a story that 's a lot richer than the ones Hollywood action screenwriters usually come up with on their own .	
3 Phillip Noyce and all of his actors -- as well as his cinematographer , Christopher Doyle -- understand the delicate forcefulness of Greene 's prose , and it 's there on the screen in their version of The Quiet American .	
2 The Pianist lacks the quick emotional connections of Steven Spielberg 's Schindler 's List .	
3 Inventive , fun , intoxicatingly sexy , violent , self-indulgent and maddening .	
4 Tells a fascinating , compelling story .	
1 Written , flatly , by David Kendall and directed , barely , by There 's Something About Mary co-writer Ed Decter .	
4 Highly recommended viewing for its courage , ideas , technical proficiency and great acting .	
4 In IMAX in short , it 's just as wonderful on the big screen .	
3 It shows us a slice of life that 's very different from our own and yet instantly recognizable .	
1 Amid the shock and curiosity factors , the film is just a corny examination of a young actress trying to find her way .	
2 It 's lazy for a movie to avoid solving one problem by trying to distract us with the solution to another .	
3 ... it 's as comprehensible as any Dummies guide , something even non-techies can enjoy .	
1 Entertains not so much because of its music or comic antics , but through the perverse pleasure of watching Disney scrape the bottom of its own cracker barrel .	
3 Writer\/director Burr Steers emphasizes the Q in Quirky , with mixed results .	
0 Scarcely worth a mention apart from reporting on the number of tumbleweeds blowing through the empty theatres graced with its company .	
4 Invigorating , surreal , and resonant with a rainbow of emotion .	
0 `` Analyze That '' is one of those crass , contrived sequels that not only fails on its own , but makes you second-guess your affection for the original .	
1 Report card : Does n't live up to the exalted tagline - there 's definite room for improvement .	
2 It 's not a particularly good film , but neither is it a monsterous one .	
2 Tsai may be ploughing the same furrow once too often .	
1 -LRB- Green is -RRB- the comedy equivalent of Saddam Hussein , and I 'm just about ready to go to the U.N. and ask permission for a preemptive strike .	
3 A surprisingly ` solid ' achievement by director Malcolm D. Lee and writer John Ridley .	
2 Massoud 's story is an epic , but also a tragedy , the record of a tenacious , humane fighter who was also the prisoner -LRB- and ultimately the victim -RRB- of history .	
3 Changing Lanes tries for more .	
1 Shyamalan should stop trying to please his mom .	
3 A macabre and very stylized Swedish fillm about a modern city where all the religious and civic virtues that hold society in place are in tatters .	
4 One of recent memory 's most thoughtful films about art , ethics , and the cost of moral compromise .	
2 The narrative is so consistently unimaginative that probably the only way to have saved the film is with the aid of those wisecracking Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys .	
4 Filmmaker Tian Zhuangzhuang triumphantly returns to narrative filmmaking with a visually masterful work of quiet power .	
1 A mawkish self-parody that plays like some weird Masterpiece Theater sketch with neither a point of view nor a compelling reason for being .	
2 Takes one character we do n't like and another we do n't believe , and puts them into a battle of wills that is impossible to care about and is n't very funny .	
1 And if you appreciate the one-sided theme to Lawrence 's over-indulgent tirade , then knock yourself out and enjoy the big screen postcard that is a self-glorified Martin Lawrence lovefest .	
0 The whole film has this sneaky feel to it -- as if the director is trying to dupe the viewer into taking it all as Very Important simply because the movie is ugly to look at and not a Hollywood product .	
3 Whenever it threatens to get bogged down in earnest dramaturgy , a stirring visual sequence like a surge through swirling rapids or a leap from pinnacle to pinnacle rouses us .	
1 Swinging , the film makes it seem , is not a hobby that attracts the young and fit .	
2 But when it does , you 're entirely unprepared .	
3 Devos delivers a perfect performance that captures the innocence and budding demons within a wallflower .	
4 300 years of Russian history and culture compressed into an evanescent , seamless and sumptuous stream of consciousness .	
3 The filmmakers want nothing else than to show us a good time , and in their cheap , B movie way , they succeed .	
3 Mr. Polanski is in his element here : alone , abandoned , but still consoled by his art , which is more than he has ever revealed before about the source of his spiritual survival .	
4 `` Spider-man is better than any summer blockbuster we had to endure last summer , and hopefully , sets the tone for a summer of good stuff .	
2 Absorbing character	
1 Violent , vulgar and forgettably entertaining .	
2 It 's the unsettling images of a war-ravaged land that prove more potent and riveting than the unlikely story of Sarah and Harrison .	
3 Winds up being both revelatory and narcissistic , achieving some honest insight into relationships that most high-concept films candy-coat with pat storylines , precious circumstances and beautiful stars .	
3 If Mostly Martha is mostly unsurprising , it 's still a sweet , even delectable diversion .	
4 A thoughtful and surprisingly affecting portrait of a screwed-up man who dared to mess with some powerful people , seen through the eyes of the idealistic kid who chooses to champion his ultimately losing cause .	
3 Keenly observed and refreshingly natural , Swimming gets the details right , from its promenade of barely clad bodies in Myrtle Beach , S.C. , to the adrenaline jolt of a sudden lunch rush at the diner .	
2 A brilliant gag at the expense of those who paid for it and those who pay to see it .	
4 A triumph , a film that hews out a world and carries us effortlessly from darkness to light .	
1 Just about everyone involved here seems to be coasting .	
3 A fascinating , dark thriller that keeps you hooked on the delicious pulpiness of its lurid fiction .	
1 I suspect this is the kind of production that would have been funnier if the director had released the outtakes theatrically and used the film as a bonus feature on the DVD .	
1 It 's hard to say who might enjoy this , are there Tolstoy groupies out there ?	
1 Daughter From Danang reveals that efforts toward closure only open new wounds .	
4 One of the year 's most weirdly engaging and unpredictable character pieces .	
4 Intriguing and downright intoxicating .	
1 Although fairly involving as far as it goes , the film does n't end up having much that is fresh to say about growing up Catholic or , really , anything .	
0 The movie is silly beyond comprehension , and even if it were n't silly , it would still be beyond comprehension .	
3 Sleek and arty .	
0 Poor editing , bad bluescreen , and ultra-cheesy dialogue highlight the radical action .