featherynscale | What's my gender?

In case you missed the greater significance of the last post, I am king of the bored people today.
On the one hand, it makes me wish to poke out my eyesballs with a spoon. On the other, it means I have time to post this little gem:

What's My Gender?
Round II

Here's the deal. Five writing samples are below. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to guess the author's gender and comment with your guesses. If you feel especially expository, explain why you think the way you do.

**Note on source material: The following are excerpts from reviews posted on a movie review community. I will post credit to the authors when this round ends. Looking up the authors is cheating :-P

1. Pessimists tell me that the thinking man is dead. They don't mean it literally -- that there was one thinking man in the world and he just ended it all -- but rather that the culture of examination, skepticism and critical thought is, if not completely extinct, in its death throes. Being an optimist by nature, I always make it a point to doubt these grim predictions. "Oh, you can't mean that," I'll say. "There are plenty of people who think issues and concepts through on a regular basis, like... umm... just give me a second, I can do this. Okay, okay, I've got it. How about that one guy? You know, he had that funny haircut for a while, and he used to... he used to drive that one... car?"

2. Anyway...I'm a big fan of Ben Stiller's comedies, and this one just added on. While I was expecting a dog in the theater, this movie was hilarious. I haven't really seen much with Christine Taylor or Vince Vaughn either (just something here and there) but I loved them both in this movie.
What else made this movie great? The cameos by people like Lance Armstrong. That's what really put this movie over the top for me, was the random cameos that just made the movie better and better.

3. The term “stepford” has been introduced as an understood adjective in our pop cultural lexicon, so it probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise as to what the twist is. What is surprising is how Oz and Rudnick completely mishandle it, with a plot holes so huge that the Titanic could probably sink through it. By the end of the film, you'll be puzzled as to what really happened to the women, especially since everything the movie tells you in the end is contradicted by earlier events. That’s not the only problem with the production. The tone of the film is wildly uneven, with punch lines and sight gags so ludicrous that they seem to come right out of the Scary Movie franchise. A comic take on The Stepford Wives might have been a bit easier to swallow minus the overwhelming campiness.

4. There are a lot more physical bodies in Riddick, but the number of characters actually focused on are about the same amount as in the first so it wasn't overwhelming trying to keep up with everyone. The plot was fairly basic yet had a couple of interesting twists, and I actually didn't quite figure out the ending (though when it happened I was like, "Of course... DUH..." to myself). It could lead to some interesting follow-up either film, book, comic, or even cartoon/animation-wise, but I wouldn't want them to run it into the ground either. In Pitch Black, Riddick was just a cool character; now, I actually really LIKE him and don't want to see him screwed with too much.

5. The first Shrek movie was a milestone in animation; not only delivering something the kiddies love to watch, but their parents love to watch too - maybe more than their children. The sequel is more of the same, but better. The animation is crisper, the tone is sweeter, and the pop culture references are even better - everything from The Lord of the Rings to COPS is spoofed (after sniffing a pouch found on a feline felon, an officer declares, "Catnip." "Uh, that's not mine..."). There are a few more off-color jokes to be found, but thankfully, most of it will go right over toddlers' heads.