Rating: 
Summary: Life is better in "Pleasantville"
Review: From Writer/Director Gary Ross(Big, Dave) comes the original and breathtaking film "Pleasantville". The film opens in the America of today, where we are taught that the world is in a down spiral and will only continue to get worse. A teenager named David(Tobey Maguire) is a fanatic of the 50's television show "Pleasantville" and knows everything about it. Meanwhile his twin sister Jennifer(Reese Witherspoon) is a satire of teenage life in herself with her getting ready for her date. They both fight over the television remote and when it breaks, a television repaire man knocks on the door, offering a remote "with more oomph" in it. When they click it, they are magically transported into the world of "Pleasantville". "Pleasantville" seems to combine the worlds of many 50's television shows, from the twin beds to the lover's lane where nothing goes on besides holding hands. David and Jennifer become Bud and Mary Sue, the children of George and Betty(William H. Macy, Joen Allen). The townspeople have no idea of an outside world. When Jennifer asks what is outside of mainstreet, the teacher answers, "The end of mainstreet is just the beginning again." Life is absolutely perfect, with the basketball team incapable of missing a shot. When one player Skip discusses his first sexual experience with the team, everyone misses the basket. David can adapt to this world easily because of his "Pleasantville" knowledge, but Jennifer tries to change everything, and make it her definition of normal. From this black and white world, vibrant colors emerge and changes begin to appear. Rock and roll blares from the jukebox, and the teenagers no longer just hold hands at lover's lane. The kids at school become interested in books, and the library becomes one of the popular hangouts. Bud's employer Mr. Johnson(Jeff Daniels), a soda jerk, becomes involved in art when Bud hands him a book filled with reproduced works of art. He then goes on to paint his own works of art on the outside of his diner. As the people change from black and white to color, there are still many people left unchanged. This splits the town in the ways that America was divided during the era. The chairman of the chamber of congress (J.T. Walsh) wants to keep things pleasant, so he wants to take out the things that are unpleasant. Violence breaks out, and the people do not realize that they would be in color as well if they expressed their inner feelings. Mary sue questions why she isn't in color and Bud answers: "Maybe it's not just the sex, it's the change". "Pleasantville" shows how different life was in the 50's, but it is not really as different as you might think. Some of the townspeople accept their new change with happiness while others fear it. They are pleasant but they are not really happy. They are merely settled into there lives with an everyday redundancy. "Pleasantville" is a cinematic masterpiece with incredible acting and a remarkable kindness to it. The film is a suprising joy.
Rating: 
Summary: good message
Review: I thought this was a very good movie with a great message-life is unpredictable,you should live it to the fullest. Also,I believe it should have been nominated for best picture,but,the Academy usually doesnt honor good movies.
Rating: 
Summary: A pale reflection
Review: More Leftist tripe from Hollywood land. In Gary Ross's Pleasantville twins David and Jennifer are contemporary teenagers attending high school. In an opening montage teachers tell their students about seriously diminished job possibilities, the HIV virus, drugs, teenage pregnancy, depletion of the ozone. The twins' parents are divorced and squabbling. The world flirts with social anarchy. Longing for a more stable environment seems reasonable. But what if you got what you longed for? David (Tobey Maguire) is a loner obsessed with a 1950s situation comedy, Pleasantville. Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) sleeps around. Through the intervention of a somewhat sinister television repairman, the pair are transported into the black-and-white world of David's favorite program. They become television characters Bud and Mary Sue Parker, the children of George and Betty Parker. They are stuck in "Pleasantville". Life is perfect there: no poverty, no rain, no illness; there are no roads out of town because there is nothing outside of town; the pages of all the library books are blank; firefighters rescue cats from trees, they've never seen a real fire. Jennifer and David prove disruptive elements. She introduces sexuality into the town; she even explains the facts of life to her mother. He introduces literature (the printed words appear as he explains the story) and modern art. Bits of coloring begin to appear: on a rose, a girl's lips, a shiny car and, eventually, Betty's face. A thunderstorm lashes the normally sunny town. Color comes to the flesh and clothes of the townspeople, one by one. The old guard reacts, vigilante-style, against the changes. Store windows are smashed, books are burned. The "colored" are jeered at and harassed blah, blah, blah..............What Ross is trying to do here is say something about the human resistance to change without being political, yet the whole film is clearly a metaphor for the shift in attitudes from the 1950s to the 1960s. It's no surprise that Ross (who wrote Big and Dave) is a Liberal opposed to all things 'Right-wing'. The idea for the film, he told one reporter, came to him "the day after Newt Gingrich was swept into power." As such, the film is based on a smugness and a falsity. The present always preens itself on being smarter than the past; but this is not inarguably true in every aspect. (It's not even inarguably true that high school dating was more restrained then than it is today.) And the falsity overarching the film is the assumption that the 1950s were actually as they were represented in 1950s TV. David and Jennifer are not revisiting the world of the past, just one of its media representations. Pleasantville is only a satire on the sort of TV that the public was willing to accept in the 1950s.
Rating: 
Summary: So-so movie, great DVD director's commentary.
Review: When I first saw this film in the theaters way back in 1998, I was not particularly impressed. It was a mildly interesting fairy-tale/social allegory but overall nothing about the film struck me as especially fresh or original. Another film which came out around that time, "The Truman Show", which shared similar themes with "Pleasantville" (protagonists searching for something "real" in a world of imaginary construct) was in my opinion much more poignant and satisfying. Some time later I was at the video store looking for a DVD to rent and decided to give "Pleasantville" another viewing, especially since the excellent New Line Platinum Series always provides tons of additonal DVD extras such as director commentaries and behind-the-scene featurettes. I was hoping that I might enjoy the film more the second time around, which turned out not to be the case. I still found the film to be just so-so. However, writer/director Gary Ross provides a wonderful, intelligent and insightful commentary track to this film. Just to hear his thought-process behind many of the ideas and concepts he tried to communicate in the film is well worth the price of the DVD alone. Yes, I know it seems strange not to like a film but to love its commentary. All I can say is that Gary Ross is obviously a talented and smart man, and just because I don't happen to enjoy "Pleasantville" as a "movie" doesn't mean that I cannot appreciate and respect the ideas of the filmmaker. Oh, and by the way, don't forget to check out Paul Thomas Anderson's excellent "Across the Universe" music video, also included on the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Life in Color
Review: "Pleasantville" is, superficially, about teenage fraternal twins who get sucked into a television set and into the world of the male twin's (Tobey Maguire of "Cider House Rules") favorite 1950s black-and-white TV show--a composite of many "classic" shows of the era. Mom is the perfect housewife, Dad is clueless about anything other than going to work and being fed when he gets home, and the other characters are cardboard cutouts unaware of their own interests and desires. Slowly but surely, the twins begin to subversively turn these characters on to these interests and desires--and in doing so, the characters come into color. Particularly interesting is Jeff Daniels' character, the owner of the malt shop, who discovers his love for art and painting. The movie takes a drastic turn in tone about halfway through, becoming a tract on racism and turning those who are different into the "other". Since the film is set in the late '50s, this is nice foreshadowing of how the counterculture would be viewed with suspicion in the '60s. Fine acting all the way around, from Maguire and Reese Witherspoon ("Election") as the teens, Daniels, and the brilliant Joan Allen and William H. Macy as the parents. Uneven in tone, but a fascinating piece of work. Not only is the film entertaining on a superficial level, but it is especially rewarding for those who follow the advice of the "American Beauty" tagline and take a closer look.
Rating:
Summary: not my speed
Review: So much hype and praise for this film. I have no idea what all the fuss was about. If there was some sort of socialogical statement being made, it was lost on me. The story wasn't engaging, and the film on a whole, was weird. Didn't go for it.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-See for the Pre-1950 Boomer
Review: This movie is great on many levels. For a baby-boomer like me who remembers the fifties it reminds me of growing up and watching the "crazy" teenagers in my neighborhood. If that's all you get out of the movie it satisfies. As a high school student in the sixties it reminds me of the major cultural and economic shift that occurred. If you graduated from high school in the mid-sixties you know what I'm talking about. And, if you lived in the northeastern U.S. and came from a diverse community, you remember that changes that occurred from 1962 on. While some of it was painful, it was also liberating and I learned a lot about myself, about people not like me, and and about people who I thought were like me--members of white, lower-middle class (or was it upper-lower class?) The subtext is on point and I am always blown away when the character, named not too subtlely "Whitey" describes Margaret as a "coloured" girl. I've made sure my teenagers have seen the movie, but doubt the reading theme which I love, hits them the way it hits me. Most of all it provides memories--too many to recount here, like the screen when the TV was off, and the "fifties" women with heels and aprons. I never saw anyone's mother dressed like that! Enough said, just buy or rent and enjoy. It's a beautiful movie.
Rating:
Summary: A Pleasant Surprise
Review: Judging from it's rather modest box office take you probably aren't expecting much from Pleasantville, and neither was I, only to come to find it's actually a visionary masterpiece from the writer of Dave that unfortunately had it's fate lain at the doorstep of inept marketers. They tried to pass it off as a shallow teen comedy, when anybody who recognizes the names in this jaw-dropping ensemble cast ought to know better. Would Tobey Maguire or Reese Witherspoon stoop to the depths of their peers? Would William H. Macy or the esquisite Joan Allen waste their phenomenal talents on a kiddie flick? Would Jeff Daniels... bad example. Would the late J.T. Walsh allow from his last role to be a throwaway, made for no other reason than the sake of money? Just in case you haven't picked up on my condescending tone, the answer to these questions is no. Tobey Maguire stars as David, a 90's teenager who escapes his everyday humdrum life by living vicariously through his favorite 50's sitcom. But when he's transported to Pleasantville he discovers that the idyllic small town life that his parents and grandparents had spoken so fondly of isn't all it's cracked up to be, beneath the surface that is. Our black and white memories of "The Greatest Generation" are put to the test when he, along with his promiscuous sister (Witherspoon), spark change in their tiny world. It's residence cast of their shackles and for the first time in their conceptually scripted lives they're allowed to experience vitality and life. Gradually these emotional transitions seep through into their physical universe. They begin changing colors, which picks at the sores of racism in a way many viewers may not want to be confronted with. It's a metaphor that could've been lifted directly from President Kennedy's speech when he said, "If we're to be judged by the color of our skin, then who among us would be content to have the color of our skin changed." This is a profound usse of symbolism that, while it does require you to suspend your disbelief, handles it's material with the utmost respect. Macy and Allen are the mild-mannered parents to these teenage trendsetters, but unbeknownst to them, their marriage is build on a lie. A lie that says that a woman's place is in the home and that a wife is of no value expect as a domestic. Betty (Allen) begins to question her lot in life, exploring her sexuality with a goofy soda shop owner (Daniels) who aspires to become a painter. Together they make a nice couple, but Betty's husband is left out in the cold. That's what makes this film so exceptional, there aren't any rights or wrongs, blacks or whites. Everything is layered, and in not-so-obvious ways. Much of the subtlety will likely to lost on the unobservant. To you I suggest that you watch the movie again, this time with the insightful DVD commentary track by director and writer Gary Ross. He sheds much light on what I consider to be one of the finest fantasy films ever made. With a cast like this there's bound to be a heck of an acting punch to this movie, but I consider Macy's performance to be the best of the bunch, maybe even better than Fargo! He's essentially playing "the villian," the angry white male, but does it in such a way that we empathize with him. He brings a sense of understanding to the role, he realizes that he's a victim of a changing society. His whole life he's been brought up to believe that if he's a good and responsible man that he won't have to worry about household duties, making himself dinner, ect. This is typical of every actor in this movie, putting it among my favorite of 1998. It's a must-see that's gone unseen for far too long.
Rating:
Summary: Worth losing yourself into for two hours!
Review: "Pleasantville" is a movie full of vision and potential, and it knows this, which is what makes it such a successful movie. From the start, the movie knows its themes and meanings, and that in order to be a hit, it needs to convey those meanings dead on while providing us with an engrossing story full of comedy and drama. In doing this, it makes all of these goals it sets for itself, portraying two very different ways of life to show just how powerful change can be in a society as well as in a person's inner beliefs. In watching it, I was first under the impression that it was going to be a flat-out comedy, and during it's first half, and pretty much during the rest of the movie, it maintains a healthy balance of comedy and drama, never becoming too melodramatic or preachy. Teenagers Jennifer and David are stereotypical children of the nineties, endulging in dates and all-night TV programs whle their divorced mother argues with their father over the phone. The mother character is not important; she is merely there to establish the fact that they have a mom who lives with them. The movie may seem to be too teenage-oriented in its beginning, portraying their lives, but this is important in setting up the contrasts that will ensue when the story picks up. One of these stand-out contrasts is a fading sequence of classroom discussions in their school, and it's intriguing to see the many differences in the topics of today's classroom discussions in comparison with the ones we will see later. The goods start pouring on when Jennifer and David have an argument over who gets to use the living room television (David: You can watch it upstairs! Jennifer: Upstairs? It doesn't have any stereo!), at which point their remote control shatters, just in time for Don Knotts to show up and hand them a weirdly shaped replacement, which sends them into the world of Pleasantville, a black-and-white television show of the fifties. Their arrival is a shocking revelation to the both of them, and David asks Jennifer to maintain the premise in hopes that they'll be able to go home again. As they make their way through Pleasantville, all the contrasts start coming out, coming as more of a shock to Jennifer who, unlike David, has no background on the show's plot. Things like the use of their language are shown in a new light (no one swears in Pleasantville), as well as the fact that the people in the show live their lives like a script, never changing their ways, always sticking to what they believe to be normal, everyday behavior. There are characters who are seen in a different light, however, those who want so badly to break the routine and get into something more, like the soda shop owner, who has a passion for painting but only gets to endulge his hobby at Christmas, or the socially repressed Betty, mother of Mary Sue (Jennifer) and Bud (David), who is terribly unhappy in her marriage but plays along with it. That's when things start to go awry, after Mary Sue's date with Skip, during which unspeakable things take place. Soon, Lover's Lane is a hotspot for this sort of activity (no one really can apply a name to what goes on up there), and as the routine of the show begins to change, things begin evolving into voluptuous colors, bursting into new life. People are taking on colors and hues unthought of in Pleasantville, which brings out the hardened conservative citizens who consider the changes to be associated with some sort of wrongdoing. Try as they might, those close-minded citizens are no match for the one that are discovering new and exciting aspects of their lives, and it soon becomes a lesson about the power of change and acceptance. This lesson is taught in a wonderfully refreshing way. Just like the television show, Pleasantville is totally black and white, but when out-of-the-ordinary things begin happening, the affected people and/or things beginning taking on brilliant colors. This is a nice resemblance of the contrasts of conservative and open-minded people: people living a lie are basically trapped in the black and white of society, while those of us who have fun with our lives and realize our potential can appreciate the colors of life. This is one of the film's subtle approaches to its theme of change: the coversion into color will be seen by many as just part of the story, while those reading more into it will get the message. Characterization is very important for the movie's plot advancement, and the filmmakers know this, which is why we have so many characters that are deep and have something special to say. Each character is a stereotype of a societal group: Jennifer/Mary Sue is one such character, who goes from being a boy hungry teeny bopper to someone who is just realizing their full potential. Betty is the most touching of the characters, the timid housewife who has always done her duty as a wife and mother, and becomes quite confused, but not inhibited, by her emotional attraction to the soda shop owner, whose passion for painting brings some of the most colorful flourishes to the Pleasantville canvas. The town's mayor is the hardened conservative, and since he stands in such a high position of power, it is easy to see why Betty's husband, George, is intimidated into foresaking some of his own passions and beliefs in order to fit in with the crowd. The only thing that may come as a put-off is the lack of knowledge into Don Knott's character, who provides the portal into the show. There is never an explanation as to his reasons for needing someone to put into the character's shoes, so we are left to wonder just exactly why David and Jennifer are put there in the first place. This is a put-off, but not one large enough to keep the movie from achieving its goals. The all-star cast is brilliant. Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play teenagers David and Jennifer, with Maguire playing the show buff quite nicely and convincingly. Witherspoon is the more involving of the two: her character has a much deeper meaning to her, and since she goes through more of a change, our actress gets to show her ability in new and successful ways. Joan Allen and William H. Macy play Betty and George, who go through different changes at different points in the movie. They are a believable fifties couple, and both of their changes in character are heartfelt and filled with emotion. Jeff Daniels plays the soda jerk, who is quiet and speaks loudly through his artistic ability. Daniels brings out the best of this character, and makes this his best role since that of "Gettysburg." And J.T. Walsh plays the conservative mayor, and does so with a sternness that only he could bring. The story's message is simple: change is something you shouldn't close the doors on. It relays this message very nicely, with the help of its stereotypes and brilliant cast of actors. The visual feast of its story is something to be dived into with an open mind in order to enjoy the movie's full potential, and trust me: it's worth losing yourself for two hours into as complex and moving as this.
Rating:
Summary: CLose to perfect
Review: If you don't own a DVD player, this disc will ake the purchase worthwhile. I watched it again this past weekend and, even after a half-dozen viewings at home, was so thrilled at parts that I almost had to watch standing up. Some movies invite us to identify with a character, with others we might identify with the director (ex: Taxi Driver). With Pleasantville I connect simultaneously with characters AND the writer/director Gary Ross. I watch Tobey Maguire deciding to explain what's outside of town to his rapt audience and I feel his thrill and ride along with Ross's control of the material. When I saw it in a theater my friend said, "I'm glad Gene Siskel got a chance to see this before he died." I agreed whole-heartedly, if with some sadness. I feel even more positive about Pleasantville now. If I worried about some of the logic in the story (do people see in color when they fulfill themselves or do they appear in color?) I worry less now. What appears in color seems more intuitive to me now and I just enjoy it. The DVD has great extras: a stunning Fiona Apple video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson; informative, amazing featurettes on how the effects were done; comment tracks by composer (and grump) Randy Newman and by Ross (who may talk for ten minutes on the highest themes of the movie then mention that a fence had to be lowered so Tobey could jump over it). This movie deserves more attention.
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