Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Inclubabu Plot so thin, it es unnoticed.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

capone666 PleasantvilleThe worst part about being a 1950s housewife was making your bed. Then making your husbands.Mind you, the post-war married couple in this dramedy would enjoy having separate bunks.During a TV marathon of the black-and-white sitcom Pleasantville, high school loser David (Tobey Maguire) and his much cooler twin sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) are magically transported from the free-spirited 1990s to the uptight 1950s.As the siblings navigate their black-and-white surroundings their liberated attitude affects everyone in town, including their sexually repressed parents (Joan Allen, William H. Macy). But as coitus turns townsfolk Technicolor, it begets segregation.A humorous yet powerful allegory on race relations and sexual orientation, this underrated box-office flop from 1998 manages to deliver an array of impactful social messages without getting lost in the science or absurdity of its high concept premise. Incidentally, living inside of a 1950s TV set would give you radiation poisoning. Yellow Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

fortunesmiles231 I have to say this is an exceptional film. Every time I watch it I am amazed by the genius of its simplicity and the superb acting. J.T Walsh and Jeff Daniels, as well as the ever glorious William H Macy. This is a story that highlights the cruelty of bigotry and narrow-mindedness in a very unique way. The burning of the books because they tell the wrong stories and restricting songs and paintings because they are promiscuous.Gary Ross is an incredible writer that can spin a story so exquisitely. All I can say is that the time to watch this movie, you will not be disappointed.

sharky_55 The key theme in Pleasantville is that you do not turn colour until you have truly been set free, until you have broken the shackles of your confinement and step out of your pre-defined mould (utopia as dystopia). On face value this seems a little confusing; after all Jennifer doesn't seem to do anything much than start reading and studying, somehow magically struck by the nerd gene and gaining her pigment and redemption. On a closer look, this seems to be linked to the cultural and artistic explosion that occurs in Pleasantville with their arrival - Mr Johnson's multicoloured murals, the books and their spontaneously appearing stories and illustrations, the rock-and-roll tracks that suddenly creep up onto the buttons of the jukebox. David goes through the opposite transformation. A cleverly edited sequence of faux-intimate closeups at the beginning establishes his loser, outsider status. We expect him to burst with colour as soon as he makes the changes and gets Bud to receive Margaret's cookies. But it is actually an act of bravery, in taking on the 'bullies' that harass her coloured mother that sees him undergo the same change. No doubt they are carbon copies of the brutes back in high school in the real world. Gary Ross' imagery is clear and clean cut, which is probably why this has been studied in schools. The colour is a delightful and distinct way of representing freedom and blossoming. First it starts with just a red rose after a sexual awakening - a double meaning, with the petals also flowering and blossoming. And you have all the sexual undertones that go with roses and 'pins' and cherries. The splashes of colour are applied to other concepts - a buzzing clock, to signify time (and the town) finally moving forwards after years of stasis, a burning bush for orgasmic clarity of thought (biblical reaching here to the apple and the idea of 'knowledge is power') and eventually, a historical mirroring of events that are not so long and completely gone. There is a brilliant allusion here to To Kill a Mockingbird, with the 'coloured' congregated in the upstairs level of the court. What's also wonderful is the use of humour to flip our expectations. Ross has more or less established the conventions of the Pleasantville restrictions by the time we dive into the screen, but it is nevertheless hilarious when a player missed a shot and the team stares incredulous at the defective ball like it was a ticking bomb, or when Jennifer hurries off to the bathroom and find each stall utterly empty. Mr Johnson is so helpless and trapped within routine that he has taken to rubbing the same spot at the bar over and over. But by the end of the film he sits on one end of the bench. Personal and political repression has been replaced by freedom to choose...they have no idea what their roles are or how this particular episode might end...but that is the beauty in it.

GusF The first film directed by Gary Ross, this is an absolutely wonderful and thought-provoking parable on society. It concerns a pair of teenage twins who are transported into the universe of a 1950s sitcom "Pleasantville", a seemingly idyllic place where firemen only save cats from trees because there are no fires, everyone is terribly wholesome and sweet and the closest thing to dramatic conflict is a date being cancelled because of an unfortunate case of the measles. However, it soon becomes clear that there is a dark underbelly to this world as conformity is stressed above all else and people, women in particular, are expected to know their place.The first rate script by Ross, whose previous credits include classic films such as "Big" and "Dave", is a powerful statement on the problems which existed in 1950s America but are certainly not exclusive to that time or place. It nicely deconstructs the dippy world inhabited by characters of that era's sitcoms such as "Leave It to Beaver" or "Father Knows Best", which (almost) completely ignored the social issues of the time as well as the existence of people who weren't white and middle class. In 234 episodes of the former, only one black character appeared and she was a maid. The special effects were innovative for their time and never look less than brilliant. It was shot entirely in colour and decolourised where appropriate, in stark contrast to the events of the film itself. The black and white scenes look beautiful and really help to sell the idea that this is an initially black and white world as opposed to merely a partially black and white film.Tobey Maguire gives a great performance as David, a pretty nerdy high school boy who has encyclopedic knowledge of "Pleasantville". Prior to entering it, he loves the world of "Pleasantville" as nothing bad ever happens there and wishes that real life was like that. After he is transported there and assumes the identity of Bud Parker, he discovers that it is essentially a gilded cage where any form of individuality or artistic expression is discouraged. He becomes the champion of colour over black and white in Pleasantville and, in the process, learns to appreciate the real world. This is best illustrated when he returns to it at the end of the film and comforts his distraught mother, played very well in a great cameo by Jane Kaczmarek, instead of simply ignoring her as he did earlier.Reese Witherspoon is excellent as his twin sister Jennifer, a liberated girl of the 1990s who finds the sweaters and poodle skirts - and what they represent - to be more than a little oppressive. Rather than merely holding hands with Skip Martin, she introduces him and Pleasantville to sex, something which starts the ball rolling on the colour conversion. Over the course of the film, Jennifer grows significantly as a character and abandons her wild lifestyle in favour of her education. She takes the decision to remain in Pleasantville's universe to go to college but, considering that time seemingly moves at a different rate, she presumably won't be gone too long, comparatively speaking.The best performance in the film comes from Joan Allen as Betty Parker. She is introduced as the perfect 1950s sitcom wife and mother who is always impeccably dressed and has dinner on the table every night at six without fail. As the changes caused by David and Jennifer begin to ripple through Pleasantville, however, she realises that there is nothing more to her life than that. Like many real women in the 1950s, she wants something more. As such, she develops a sweet relationship with the soda shop owner Bill Johnson, who is played very effectively by Jeff Daniels. Bill is likewise faced with an existential crisis when it occurs to him that his sole function in life is to make hamburgers and serve sodas. Encouraged by David, he pursues his interest in art and paints a surrealist mural in full colour in defiance of the oppressive Chamber of Commerce. When Betty becomes "coloured," this is a great scene in which David helps her to use her make-up to "" as black and white, a wonderful allegory for the practice of light skinned African-Americans attempting to for white. The scene in which she is harassed by several black and white boys for being "coloured" is an even more effective allegory.J.T. Walsh, who sadly died before the film was released, was very well cast as the McCarthy-esque Pleasantville mayor Big Bob, who wants everything to remain the same. He claims that it is a "question of values," the excuse typically used by "traditionalists" who find themselves on the wrong side of progress and, eventually, history. In a very strong performance by William H. Macy, George Parker represents the more benign face of conformity who realises the error of his ways in the end. It also features great ing performances by Marley Shelton as Margaret Henderson, Don Knotts as the mysterious TV repairman and Paul Walker as Skip Martin, who is not as nice as he first appears.Overall, this is an absolutely brilliant film which has some very interesting things to say about the danger of idealising the past. If the entire film had been a parody of the unreality of saccharine sweet sitcom conventions in the style of the "Brady Bunch" films, it would have still been a great film as the comic writing in these scenes is very sharp but, to his credit, Ross took it to the next level. This is one of my favourite films of the 1990s. Just sublime.