40 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
40 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
recently i read 4 reviews of pleasantville-one from entertainment weekly , one from a newsgroup , and two from different online resources .
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each review compared this film to the truman show .
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why ?
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the only reason people compared pleasantville to truman is due to the fact that their lives are on television .
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other than that , the two movies are completely different from each other .
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reviewers seem to love to pick one movie ( i . e .
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the truman show ) , obsess over it , and make it a guideline for other movies .
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when pleasantville and edtv opened , all critics seemed to treat the two films like they were subjects of king truman .
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the same goes for the thin red line , as well .
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when it opened in decemeber , probably 98% of reviews compared it to stephen spielberg's saving private ryan , giving thin line no chance whatsoever .
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critics loved private ryan so much , that they automatically decided no movie is good enough to reach its standards .
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this is why i think pleasantville was underrated .
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if the truman show had never been made , pleasantville probably would have received better reviews , done better at the box office , and would be remembered after it's long been on the video store shelves .
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sure , it wasn't perfect , and it wasn't very believeable , but neither was the wizard of oz or star wars , and there stands two of the most prominent movies in history .
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with the exception of don knotts as the annoying " tv repairman " the film is cast perfectly : the ice storm's tobey maguire is david in real life ; he watches the old 50's sitcom " pleasantville " to escape from his feuding parents .
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his twin sister , jen ( reese witherspoon ) is a popular slut who ( steriotypically ) smokes and wears revealing clothes .
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but what makes her character believeable is the dialogue-those excessive 90's terms such as " like " , " whatever " , and " cool " make her sound like the total dimwit she's supposed to be .
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the twins , with a little help from a tv repairman ( casting don knotts in this role was obviously a cameo-esque cast rather than a true acting one ) , are sucked into pleasantville by a magical new remote .
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their new parents , played by william h . macy and joan allen , are perfect in every way .
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their new names are bud and mary sue , and right away they start to corrupt the town of pleasantville .
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after the siblings fit comfortably in their new roles , the movie begins to take form .
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it's just like watching a sitcom in itself ; you don't want it to end .
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" mary sue " has sex with her date , the school basketball champion ; when he tells all his friends about it , they stop preforming perfectly at basketball , and things start to take color .
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soon we learn that these people don't know how to express true emotions , and when they learn to do so , they eventually turn into color .
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this eventually sparks a racial war between the " coloreds " and the " black & whites . "
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entertainment weekly reviewer lisa schwarzbaum claims the movie has , " none of the depth , poignance , and brilliance of the truman show . . . "
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yes , the truman show was maybe a little more intelligent .
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but the racial setting-intensified by the forcing of the coloreds to sit in the upper box of the courtroom-certainly classifies as deep , considering it's what i least expected .
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gary ross did not try to create an intelligent , award masterpiece-he just tries to convey moral messages within his work .
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take for example big and dave , his past films .
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big-be careful what you wish for .
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dave-good or bad lying is still lying .
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did these movies win big awards ?
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no , but they won the heart of millions .
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pleasantville could have done that too , if it wasn't for snotty reviewers who set precedents with preceeding films .
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pleasantville : a- ad2am " i almost lost my nose . . . and
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i like it .
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i like breathing through it . "
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-jack nicholson , chinatown
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