Pleasantville (DVD) (Rpkg)

This is SUCH a fantastic movie! It comments on things like racism, sexism, etc and it does it so well!

Ilike pleasantville but it does have nudity and cursing in it. Meant for kids that are mature enough to watch it.

Birthday recipient loved it!

Yo recibí el paquete y estoy muy satisfecho con la compra.Por un error en los registros se indica que el paquete se pudo haber perdido.

I know it's corny but it really made me laugh and think way back to the 50"s, before I was born. Just seems like a nice place where people dont have to lock their doors, and kids had respect for their elders. A very simple time of life and a time worth living, and you could take a date to the movies for under a buck.Anyway, this movie will make you laugh and think about your life.

Seriously, was "Pleasantville" the best movie of the 1990's? I know I'm overlooking a lot of superlative work to say that but I just happened to watch it again last night and got clobbered all over by its wonderous ingenuity and charm. "Pleasantville" is a movie I NEVER get tired of and by golly, now that it's only $5.99 to buy it new you really have no excuse but to give it a shot.I will forgo a synopsis here because so many other reviewers preceding me have already done so. Let me just observe that if you want to experience full-frontal allegory, you cannot do better than this. There is so much symbolism and social commentary gently packaged in this sweet parable of an Eisenhower era sitcom come to life! I must confess for this 51 year old reviewer the demographic and generational arrows launched by "Pleasantville" score a direct hit on my boomer-era heart. I would hope younger viewers unaware of the '50's TV conventions being employed as background here can still understand the social strictures and conventions referenced, and even if they can't, can still marvel at the incredible comic/dramatic performances AND the spectacular b&w/color photography that is SO important to the storytelling.The cast--KILLER! Reese Witherspoon, Tobey McGuire, Jeff Daniels, Bill Macy (where's my dinner!), J.T. Walsh (alas! His last role--RIP)--all sublime REALLY in every respect. But I gotta RAVE at you about just how POWERFUL and INTENSE Joan Allen's performance as an archetypal sitcom mom awakening slowly, and painfully, to a fully 3-D technicolor life, turns out to be (the same journey the entire town takes, albeit grudgingly). I believe this was my first exposure to Joan and her tortured but determined journey depicted here still gives me shivers. I can't imagine any other actress giving such a finely calibrated and sympathetic portrayal. This performance--really ALL of "Pleasantville"--are prime examples of just how GOOD "comedy" acting can be. So much more than just slapstick here!I can't overlook Don Knotts--who better to provide 1950's "cred" than Barney Fife himself? If you can find it, check out the criminally forgotten Knotts movie The Love God? for Don at his most comically surreal; Yeah, maximum "guilty pleasure" for your reviewer, but I love the outrageous '70's Dacron Polyester Mens' fashion parade and especially the hysterical courtroom faceoff; Don goes on trial as a porn merchant, and gets denounced in open court as a "capering libertine, a lecherous goat, partaking in depraved orgies"--Truly comedy from beyond space and time as we know it!For those of us who remember the 1950's, "Pleasantville" is ESSENTIAL viewing that will pluck every emotional string you still have. No doubt there are stone hearts who can watch and not be moved, but I'm certainly not one of them. So many memorable & quotable lines of dialogue too: "I don't WANT it to go away!!!" "Those are Whitey's cookies!" "Where's My Dinner!" "You're safe for now, you're in a bowling alley!" "I'm wearing three pounds of underwear here!" "You can pin me anytime!" And I could go on--share your own favorites later.Also highly recommended, and on a similar wavelength: Matinee [Import] starring John Goodman as an early '60's schlock horror movie producer flogging his new monster epic as the all-too-real terror of the Cuban Missle Crisis unfolds. Then, if you're ready to graduate to the "hard stuff", steel yourself for the almost psychedelic melodramatic swoons of the incredible director Douglas Sirk in All That Heaven Allows Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Douglas Sirk (NTSC All Region Import), or if you're really feeling daring, WRITTEN on the WIND (NTSC All Region Import) Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone, Douglas Sirk.Let me close as I began: "Pleasantville" is a landmark modern masterpiece and let me declare here publicly, given its unprecedented and amazingly deft use of color in the plot (as you'll see) is especially deserving of the best picture (and sound--OUTSTANDING Randy Newman orchestral score) possible. So--I say again--WHERE'S MY BLU-RAY?!?

Everybody should see it!

I knew what this film would be about before I rented it, but I'm stunned that it would be THIS good. Nothing against "Saving Private Ryan" or "Shakespeare in Love", but this film should have won Best Picture in 1998 and it was a shame that it wasn't nominated. It's an even bigger injustice that it did not get a nomination for best screenplay or cinematography.In the hands of another writer, this movie could have been made as just a parody of 1950's sitcoms like "Leave It To Beaver" or "Ozzie and Harriet." But this film isn't about how clichéd those series look decades later. It's about the false nostalgia for a past that never existed. We survived the past and we know that everything turned out all right. Because of this, we selectively choose our memories and weed out the unpleasant ones. That's why the past is sometimes seen as "the good ol' days." "Pleasantville" does not represent how the 50's actually were but rather an idealization of what people THINK the 50's were---no one had sex, everyone got along swell, and life was fairly easy. Nothing could be further from the truth, and there are many films from that era which show how real people (even in suburbia) actually lived. This film argues that free will and choice is ESSENTIAL to life and that we should embrace freedom instead of fearing it. It isn't just about making out, but having the OPTION to make out.Another reviewer claimed that this film was an attack on the 50's, but David and Jennifer could very easily have been dumped in the world of "The Brady Bunch", "Gilligan's Island" , or "Batman." But setting "Pleasantville" in a 1950's sitcom allows for the brilliant metaphor of black and white versus color. Black and white photography is a stylized depiction of the universe, but unless you're color blind it's not the way you actually see the universe. When we first see Pleasantville's citizens, all of them are cardboard cut-outs of stereotypes. As they begin to open up and become real people, color seeps into their world. The catalyst seems to be the willingness to experience new sensations and become vulnerable. Jennifer has slept with lot of guys when she was in the normal world, so sex does not change HER into a color character. On the other hand, when she actually finishes a book (without pictures) for the first time in her life, THEN she becomes colorized. Similarly, David does not bloom into color until he breaks out of his aloofness and defends his "mother." Compare the way he ignores his real mother at the beginning of the film to how he consoles and comforts her at the end to see how much David has changed.I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. There are a lot of films out there that are very entertaining and/or very moving--like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Titanic." Movies like "Pleasantville" which challenge the audience and force them to think are very rare, and should be treasured by the discerning filmgoer.