Rating: 
Summary: One of the greatest movies of our times.
Review: This movie is an extremely complex look at the nature of humans. The two main characters in this movie are analogous to Adam and Eve, as they are two people put into a perfect world by a God figure (the television repair man). How any Christian can attack the movie for being anti-Christian is beyond me. It is a story straight from the Bible. Before the man and woman enter into the perfect world of the fifties, the television show does not delineate humans, who posess the choice between right and wrong. They are simply animals. This is the essence of being human: deciding between right and wrong. We are inherently sinners, and this is the choice that God has awarded our species with. This is what separates us from animals. This movie is a Biblical portrayal of the essence of humans, and the gifts that God has given us.
Rating: 
Summary: I'll use short words, so you can follow me...
Review: Its amazing how badly some people have misconstrued this movie. I'll TRY to explain it.The 'black and white people' are not Christian, or right wing, or moral, or any of those things - they are automata - living and reliving the same 'pleasant'events over and over without considering that there could be an alternative. Whenever one of them breaks the cycle, and becomes something other than their preordained Pleasantville self, they 'go colour'. In some case this is sex, or masturbation, or art or - in the case of the Father, realising he loves his wife and she isn't just a cook - anything that wakes them up and makes them human. The most important thing, though, that totally undermines the moral outrage felt by some of this world's own 'black and white people' (as seen below) is the transformation of Reese Witherspoon's character. SHE becomes colorised when she stops being an airhead 'slut' (her own word) and starts to read and use her mind. She turns down a date to study. The point is that she has changed from her own tired repetitive behaviour - has used her mind and decided what it is she really wants to be. THAT is the point of this film. As for the lack of racial minorities - its hard to see how they could have handled the introduction of them into the all-white sitcom world of the 50s, especially without accusations of tokenism. Is suspect, however, that the bus link to 'Springfield' that comes into being at the end will being diversity to Pleasantville.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: After reading some of the reviews here it appears that this killer flick acomplished it's goal --it generated reaction. It really is up to you to figure out what it means. Some hate it most like me love it. Maybe the ninties aren't so bad after all. NEWSFLASH: premarital sex is not a hazard to your health. Sex is beautiful not dirty. For me, it is about being human free to choose my own destiny and the relationship to the unknown that makes it a thrill ride. Maybe this IS heaven and hell depending on what I make of it while I am here. This film is what the art of film making is all about. Great stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: So Bad, You Don't Care How It Ends.
Review: I have to agree that the movie spends too much time being preachy and simplifies things too much. I cannot see how this movie can be so thought provoking as I really cannot identify with any of the characters. Worse than being a preachy movie, it became a bad movie with a bad story about halfway through. If your story is bad, it doesn't matter how dazzling your special effects are and it does not matter how good your cast is. It got to the point where the movie was so bad that I did not care how it ended. The premise of the movie had so much potential but fell flat on its face. It was not uplifting in the slightest. Many reviewers found this movie to be "thought provoking" and that is fine. It's good for a person to think once in a while.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting movie, good performances.
Review: These Christian types are so darn defensive! Maybe you should go out and burn every copy of this video since you don't agree with it! God forbid anybody should have a contrary view to that bunch. God bless America that we're all allowed to (so far...)
Rating:
Summary: ENOUGH WITH THE CHRISTIAN GUILT-TRIP!!!
Review: Morals morals blah blah blah...your missing the point this movie is trying to make. This isn't an attack on christians, as the right-wingers would have us belive, after all they're so oppressed. Instead it has to do with the ability for us to take control of ourselves and discover ourselves. Sure, the way the movie chose to do it may have been a bit crude, but for CHRISTS SAKE...get over it!! This isn't meant to drive people down a morally-corrupt path! Its a fun movie with good intentions. Get off your soapbox.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and Thought-provoking
Review: This is one of the most clever, original films of 1998. Like Jim Carrey's The Truman Show, this film explores our world's current social situation with a television show, but instead of making a relatively sad, negative point of view of things it makes it an inspiring, hope-filled satire with lots of light black comedy. The premise of the black and white mixing with the color is ingenious, and it makes for direct symbolism. But, there are many true flaws in the film, involving its ignorance of its own script and an ending which takes too much time to finish, and finishes the old-fashioned, predictable, easy way which the film itself preaches is the wrong way. At the end, the movie's important message is that having a dangerous, eventful life makes your soul free, and having a slow, uneventful life makes you have a simple, black & white soul.
Rating:
Summary: Morals
Review: Apparently some self-appointed moralists have decided that this film is about sex. I didn't see it that way at all. It is about passion--in one case a passion for art, in another the surprising birth of interest in reading, and also sex. There is nothing very preachy or left-wing or immoral about it. This is a movie, a peice of entertainment, something to divert us and make us think. The 50's with all the family values (I grew up then) was racist, sexist, politically repressive, and quite comfortable, if one happened not to be the victim. This is a first-rate movie with good performances. Don't be afraid of it. You won't experience peace without honor.
Rating:
Summary: A superb movie that will inspire all kinds of views
Review: A truly affecting and wonderful film, although easily misunderstood. Any film that garners so much conflicting opinion on its moral commentary is a film that really works to let the audience decide what it is about, although the audience for its part, may be so convinced of their interpretation that they may not realize this. What is it about? Two kids from the 90s get sucked into a Twlight Zone universe that is completely defined by the episodes of an sugary sweet b&w 50s sitcom. Nothing outside what is directly addressed in the episodes exists - other towns, sex, toilets, fire, bad weather, literature, working plumbing, etc. Pleasantville at first has no life, and the people are not even human, just paper dolls going through motions. But the 90s kids realize their potential to be human, and cause their development to accelerate out-of-control toward the reality. What the kids learn along the way is that there is something missing from their all-to-real lives as well, some element of innocence that is worth having. Without the moral implications of many types of good and bad behaviors, the film expresses the beauty of being human, both the good, the bad, and the not-so-black-and-white. Of course this leaves the film wide open for anyone to interpret the film according to their own moral beliefs. Conservatives types will end up hating the film because of their demand that any depiction of a moral situation must also provide moral guidance, which is not what the story is about. What it is about is an evolving world full of promise as well as pain but that still has a chance at saving itself from the horrors of the modern world (shown to us in the beginning) and the mindless inhumanity of utter conformity and perfection. We are literally left with the question: what happens now?
Rating:
Summary: Unpleasantville
Review: A preachy movie created by a left winger who tries to impose his morals, or lack of morals, upon moviegoers. Do you gain color if you have premarital sex or cheat on your spouse? Cast members in this movie did! Apparently the creators think that premarital sex and cheating is okay, too and the colored people are portrayed sympathetically while the black and white people are mindless. Not all the special effects gimmicks can save this preachy, morally deprived movie. Save your money and do not buy this manipulative video.
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