Let's Talk About Movies: Pleasantville (1998)

Directed by Gary Ross

Note-A Level 3 Spoiler Warning is in effect for the film Pleasantville. If you haven't seen this film before, and you plan to, maybe wait until after that before you read this.-End Note.

Alo Party Peoples.

Why? Nothing came out this week and I need to fill a slot in my schedule.

Gary Ross' Pleasantville is one of my favorite movies. It might actually be my favorite movie. I don't think it's the best movie, or that nothing can come close, but it happens to be my favorite. It came out the year I was born, and I didn't see it until I was at least seven when it showed up on cable, but I remembered it fondly.

Years later, I remembered the name and searched for it to be sure I didn't hallucinate it. Sure enough, I saw that it did exist, and soon got a second hand DVD to watch it again. When I did so, not only was it still good, as good as I remembered it, it got better now that I could appreciate the subtext. I even tried to write a review of it last year in October, but I don't think that piece does it justice. I wasn't exactly a great writer at the time, and this movie deserves better.

Why do I love this movie? I love it because it dared to aim higher. It's premise of a pair of 1990's twins trapped in a 1950's sitcom called Pleasantville easily could have been just a silly comedy, that would have been enough. It would have still been a good movie. However, what makes it my favorite is that it chooses to explore this concept more, it decides that their modern sensibilities would cause serious problems in the utopia of Pleasantville.

The fictional Pleasantville is a 1950's sitcom about a suburban town of the same name. In this town, life is simple, the weather is always 72°F and the skies are always clear, the basketball team never misses a shot, it's a nice place. Tobey Macguire plays David, a massive fan of the show that ends up getting a magic remote from a mysterious TV repair man. He ends up trapping himself and his sister Jennifer inside the show, and from there the opening act plays out as what the film was sold as, a light toned comedy about 1950's sitcoms.

Then things get interesting. Jennifer was always the rebellious type, and in Pleasantville there's nobody to reign in those urges, so she ends up sleeping with Skip, the star of the basketball team. After this experience, while driving home, Skip notices a rose, it's red, really red. This ends up spreading to the point where the town is split between the monochrome traditionalists and those that embraced these changes and ended up in technicolor.

Margret: "Go on, try it."

That's the thing about the town of Pleasantville, it's name is quite descriptive. As Mr. Johnson, the owner of the soda shop puts it "it never gets any better or worse". Which leads me to the big allegorical touchstone of this movie. Around the end of act two, David has begun to accept some of the changes in Pleasantville, and he takes a technicolor girl named Margret out to Lovers Lane, which has become entirely technicolor because of all the, changes, brought on by Jennifer, while there she spots an apple.

She gets the still monochrome David to eat the apple, and this causes the first rainstorm in Pleasantville. This understandably freaks out the towns inhabitants, and David calms them down with a line that sums up the films message.

"It's rain. It's okay, it's fine, nothing to be scared of. Here, I'll show you. It's just rain, it's okay. It's fine, come on out."                                                                                                                                                                David/Bud, Pleasantville

In case you didn't get the symbolism (and how could you not), Pleasantville is the garden of Eden. The siblings arrival disrupts that paradise, they are the serpent. The TV repairman, who pops up from time to time to check in on the twins, is not happy that they've been causing changes in his little utopia, he's God. However, since some people, understandably, think the film is glorifying sin, I have to say something. The film is more complicated than that. As my evidence, I point to the character of Jennifer. Like I said earlier, she was always the rebellious type, she drinks, smokes, and all that stuff. She is the one to introduce change in Pleasantville, in her words, "[She's] had about ten times as much sex as any of these girls, and I still look like this. [monochrome]." It's only when she decides to study, instead of going out to Lovers Lane again, that she becomes colorful.

The Town Council doesn't exactly like these changes. After a riot at the soda shop over a painting of a nude woman, they institute rather strict rules in response. Lovers Lane and the town library are closed off, paint colors besides black, white and grey are banned, music of a non pleasant manner is also banned. People start putting up "NO COLOREDS" signs in businesses. This film isn't exactly subtle with it's message. That change isn't something to be feared, that it's a natural part of life, and that trying to stifle it causes more problems than it solves.

In general, I love this movie. It's creative, funny, and it tries for some big ideas. Sure, it's about as subtle as being kicked in the face by a florescent blue donkey, but that's not a big issue with me. Because it easily could have been just a silly comedy, that would be fine, but it tries to be something more. I respect that about the movie, and it's especially good for a first directing job. Besides that, it's well written, there isn't a bad performance to be seen, and Randy Newman's musical score is just amazing.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B

Let's (Not) Go Out To The Movies: Trust Me

Directed by Clark Gregg

Alo Party Peoples.

If there's one good thing to come out of the Digital Age, it's the unprecedented ability to be heard. Today, more people can express their views to larger audiences than at any point in human history. Fifteen, even ten years ago, it would be unthinkable that, I for example, would be able to have my opinions on contemporary film heard by a literally global audience.

It's also allowed for entirely new models of distribution for artistic ventures. Streaming content on services such as Netflix or YouTube allows artists to more or less work around the studio system entirely and provide their craft directly to the audience. This means that things that might seem like risky business to the aforementioned studios can now see the light of day. Today's topic, Clark Gregg's Trust Me, is one of those.

Clark Gregg plays Howard, a talent agent for child actors who's been down on his luck lately. After his last client was stolen from him by Sam Rockwell as Aldo, a long time rival of his. He strikes it big by discovering an unknown young actress by the name of Lydia, played by Saxon Sharbino, and bags her the lead role in a YA franchise. He faces opposition from Paul Sparks as Lydia's volatile father.

The cast work off each other alright. Clark Gregg is fantastic in the lead, and the rest of the cast do their jobs well. This isn't Gregg's first credit as a writer, but it is clear that this is his pet project, and it's alright, I guess. Honestly, there isn't that much to talk about here. It's not bad, the script is solid, it holds together well, but it just doesn't aim that high. I guess I can say that it's a bit inconsistent, the first two acts play as a semi-serious comedy with hints of drama, and it's good comedy. However, then it becomes all out drama in a way that I won't reveal because it's 1) a spoiler, and 2) goes against keeping my blog PG, but it just doesn't fit with the preceding first hour.

Trust Me got a limited theatrical release and it's now available via iTunes and on demand in the United States. I can't exactly recommend it, but not much came out in theaters this weekend, so go ahead and watch it.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B

Let's Go Out To The Movies: Edge Of Tomorrow

Directed by Doug Liman

Alo Party Peoples.

Lindsay Ellis once called Tom Cruise "a one man lifeboat for non-franchise scifi movies", I'm not sure that's entirely accurate, and if it is, that's only recently, but his movies do tend to do well, and in the Franchise Age, original anything is in short supply.

Sure, Oblivion wasn't exactly Hugo Award material, not by a long shot, but it was something new and it at least tried to play with some big ideas. That's something else to cherish, when most blockbusters assume that the audience either can't handle or just don't want any challenge from mass entertainment, it's nice to see films that dare to aim higher.

I imagine the pitch for Edge of Tomorrow went something like "let's cross Aliens with Groundhog Day to make the best video game movie ever." Five years into a meteor borne alien invasion, the beasties have taken over most of Europe. In a last ditch effort to save mankind, an assault is planned from London. Tom Cruise plays a U.S. Army Major whose been managing PR for the war effort and promoting the Halo/Starship Troopers/Call of Duty inspired exoskeletons used in the invasion. Unfortunately for him, he gets drafted onto the front lines, and dies within ten minutes of landing in northern France. Fortunately, he's now discovered why the aliens are so good at killing humans, they've got infinite continues.

Every time the humans came close to winning, they could just restart the level and try again. After killing one of the alien commanders, Cruise has acquired control over the temporal Game Genie, and he's found Emily Blunt as someone who was in this situation before. They decide to train him to find the alien's hive mind/get to the final boss, and take them out for good.

This is probably the best original sci-fi movie I've seen since Pacific Rim. I keep coming back to the video game comparison because that really seems to be the visual inspiration, the main recurring action beat looks like something straight out of Mass Effect, and I could see EA or Activision deciding to take their by now finely tuned first person shooter engines and releasing tie-in DLC for this movie.

Tom Cruise is great in this, at first he comes off as just the worst kind of person. He even states that he took the job of PR manager just to stay off the front lines, and his character development is shown by him slowly becoming the natural born action hero that Tom Cruise plays so well, and Emily Blunt as Cruise's mentor, the "Full Metal B****" totally sells the hard bitten soldier routine.

Edge of Tomorrow is probably going to come off to some as counter-programming to The Fault In Our Stars, which has been kicking Edge's ass at the box office. For now, this is strongly recommended, it's an entertaining action movie, there are some good performances from some good actors, and it's one of the most inventive pitches I've seen at the movies this year.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B

Let's Go Out To The Movies: The Fault In Our Stars

Alo Party Peoples.

Directed by Josh Boone

In 2000, a man named John Green had just graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio. He was studying religion, and was going to become an Episcopalian priest, but after he graduated, he spent five months counseling with the parents of cancer patients at a hospital. He was deeply affected by the experience, stating that:

...''I found myself really unfulfilled by the answers that are traditionally offered to questions of why some people suffer and why others suffer so little,'' he says. ''I still go to church sometimes but I would not feel comfortable leading the services.''...

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/interview-john-green-20120119-1q71w.html#ixzz312lC0lnW

Remember, this man is an award
winning novelist.

Instead, he became an author, and his first book, Looking for Alaska, was published in 2005. The same year, Paramount purchased the film rights to the book, but that project never came to fruition. In 2007, he started a project with his brother Hank called "Brotherhood 2.0", where they would only communicate by a shared video blog on YouTube for a year. This project propelled them to Internet stardom, and the two "vlogbrothers" are now incredibly influential people. The vlogbrothers YouTube channel now has over two million subscribers, has uploaded over one thousand videos, and they've branched out into other venues. They host series such as Crash Course, where John teaches history and literature while Hank teaches science, Mental Floss, where John discusses trivial facts, and they also launched the crowdfunding service Subbable, a method for content creators on YouTube to get direct support from fans without Google taking a cut. They're kind of awesome dudes. During all of this, he's continued to write, and his most recent book, The Fault In Our Stars got a film adaptation, which is our topic for today. 

Sidenote-Incidentally, I tried to cover this movie in May. The filmmakers and Mr. Green were going on a premiere tour, and said tour happened to come to Dallas. I had my mother come by to get me, I got out of swim team for it, and it was going to be a wonderful time. Unfortunately, the screening was filled to capacity, literally minutes before we arrived. We saw the line filled with TFiOS fans, it was seven blocks long, and we had to turn back. The man is an incredibly popular author. The two of us ended up seeing Neighbors instead, which I didn't review for reasons that I'd rather not discuss here.-End Sidenote

Shaline Woodley plays one Hazel Grace-Lancaster, a teenager with terminal thyroid cancer, who meets a young man named Augustus Waters at a support group in "the literal heart of Jesus Christ". They fall in love, bond over the book An Imperial Affliction, and they become inseparable. They end up going to Amsterdam to meet the author, he turns out to be kind of a terrible person, but they still have a wonderful time. They've "been given a little infinity in the numbered days" through this relationship. You laugh, you cry, you have a wonderful time.

The assembled cast is quite good. Shaline Woodley is so much better here than in Divergent, I don't know if it's Oscar worthy, but it's definitely an improvement. Ansel Elgort's Augustus is entertaining, if a little insufferable at times, and I could have sworn that John Green was playing the author of An Imperial Affliction, and I was looking forward to rooting out the symbolism in that, but he's actually played by Willem Dafoe, who is terrific. It's like Dr. Bickman on Black Box, sure he's a terrible person, but he's also so entertaining to watch.

This isn't exactly my usual review material, the film I thought I would cover is Edge of Tomorrow, but this is good stuff. John Green is a damn good writer, and a man I respect a good deal, this is a faithful adaptation of his book. It's charming, emotionally moving, entertaining, and it's probably going to dominate the box office, go ahead and see it. Now I hope they do An Abundance of Katherines next, that book was a fun read.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B