Pleasantville is a 1998 sci-fi/fantasy/comedy work of art. It's hilarious, it has probably the best cinematography out of all of cinema (thanks to the brilliant DP, John Lindley), has a creative, thought provoking story, and it will change the way you look at the world. That's a lot. It's an extremely underrated film, and it deserves more attention than it receives. There's literally nothing wrong with this movie. But, out of all of that, it also has a strong, positive message to society. A message that many people who see Pleasantville will get mad about.
I'm getting ahead of myself. Okay. The movie is about a brother and sister, David (Tobey Maguire), and Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon). David is a retro-TV nerd and Jennifer is the most popular girl in school. One night, there's a marathon of a fictional TV sitcom named Pleasantville, and David wants to watch that, but Jennifer wants to watch MTV. They get in a fight, and they break the remote. For inexplicable reasons, Don Knotts immediately shows up as a TV repairman with a new remote. After he leaves, they fight again, and accidentally press a button on the new remote, and are put inside the Pleasantville TV show. They are really confused and want to get out, but Don Knotts won't let them. David basically leads Jennifer through this black and white world, but soon Jennifer starts introducing the made-for-TV city to not-acceptable-for-1950s-TV stuff: sex. But now, since this town is introduced to new things, their entire world is beginning to change. It's not so "pleasant" anymore. The basketball team loses, for one thing, but the main thing is that COLOR is introduced, and they are shocked. At first, when people start turning to color, they think it's a virus, but soon it spreads everywhere, not just to people, but to flowers and cars. Now, Mayor Big Bob is angry at all of this and forbids color in his city, so all colored people must hide from his wrath. Then, there's a bit of a revolution, and suddenly *BOOM* the entire city is color!
There's not a single black person in the movie to show how ill-diverse the 1950s were, yet they were represented so well. The main message of the movie is that even though a person is a different color than you, they're still a person. But, of course, the low-ish average rating of the movie on IMDb is because of all of the triggered conservatives blasting about how liberal the movie is. Really, it's not like the movie is saying that conservatives are bad, in fact they never state anything about race or politics in the movie. These conservatives are angry that... that... *gasps* black people are people too!
I'm just going to summarize a few reviews from IMDb: There's one guy who said that it was too preachy for him, and he'd never let his children watch it until they weren't impressionable. There's another who claimed that it made them "sick and disgusted." There's yet another who claims that it's the most racist and sexist movie they had ever seen. One said it was made by "liberal bitches."
HAHA. I just came across this gem from a Jason Rodriguez:
this movie was a waste of 3 bucks it was so boring and it wasn't even funny. it was a disgrace to movies and I don't know why there were great reviews for the stupid worthless movie which was so dumb and liberal
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I just wanted to share it with you guys who should happen to come across this blog. LOL. I give this movie 5/5. Loved it. Loved the message. Loved the cinematography. One of the best films ever made. Flawless.
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