Pleasantville (New Line Platinum Series) |  | Director: Gary Ross
Actors: Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $1.86
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Rating:  387 reviews
Sales Rank: 4145
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: N4728
ISBN: 6305308659
UPC: 794043472824
EAN: 9786305308652
ASIN: 6305308659
Theatrical Release Date: October 23, 1998
Release Date: June 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Tobey Maguire (The Cider House Rules) and Reese Witherspoon (Election) star as two modern american teenagers who are sucked into their television set and end up living in a black-and-white fifties sitcom.Running Time: 134 min. System Requirements: Directed by Gary Ross Writing credits Gary Ross Cast overview: Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J.T. Walsh, Reese Witherspo |
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Product Description
When 90's teens David and Jennifer get zapped into the perfect suburbia of the black & white 50's sitcom, Pleasantville, chaos ensues.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 1-JUN-2004
Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com
Fantastical writer Gary Ross (Big, Dave) makes an auspicious directorial debut with this inspired and oddly touching comedy about two '90s kids (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) thrust into the black-and-white TV world of Pleasantville, a Leave It to Beaver-style sitcom complete with picket fences, corner malt shop, and warm chocolate chip cookies. When a somewhat unusual remote control (provided by repairman Don Knotts) transports them from the jaded real world to G-rated TV land, Maguire and Witherspoon are forced to play along as Bud and Mary Sue, the obedient children of George and Betty Parker (William H. Macy and Joan Allen). Maguire, an obsessive Pleasantville devotee, understands the need for not toppling the natural balance of things; Witherspoon, on the other hand, starts shaking the town up, most notably when she takes basketball stud Skip (Paul Walker) up to Lover's Lane for some modern-day fun and games. Soon enough, Pleasantville's teens are discovering sex along with--gasp!--rock & roll, free thinking, and soul-changing Technicolor. Filled with delightful and shrewd details about sitcom life (no toilets, no double beds, only two streets in the town), Pleasantville is a joy to watch, not only for its comedy but for the groundbreaking visual effects and astonishing production design as the town gradually transforms from crisp black and white to glorious color. Ross does tip his hand a bit about halfway through the film, obscuring the movie's basic message of the unpredictability of life with overloaded and obvious symbolism, as the black-and-white denizens of the town gang up on the "coloreds" and impose rules of conduct to keep their strait-laced town laced up. Still, the characterizations from the phenomenal cast--especially repressed housewife Allen and soda-shop owner Jeff Daniels, doing some of their best work ever--will keep you emotionally invested in the film's outcome, and waiting to see Pleasantville in all its final Technicolor glory. --Mark Englehart
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 387
 To the 1 star people, ya some odd things but it shows all that is human January 12, 2010
ZRod (California)
Yes, there is instances of sex, nudity, masturbation, violence, etc; But there is also talk of change, acceptance, growth, joy, sorrow, and much more.
This movie shows everything that we as humans are, both the good and the bad and how we can and have grown from it. It is a beautiful and meaningful movie which everyone should watch more than once (the first time just to see the story, second time to understand it).
To the people who give it one star, the ones who all say its all about sex, etc, come on! Look deeper, stop pointing out only what you want to see! If we didn't have our bad side we would never appreciate, well, anything, not our best friends, our family, God, life, or a simple flower from the one you love to cheer you up, negativity allows us to have all of those things and so much more and that is one of the few messages of this movie.
great for high school students December 21, 2009
Truth Seeker (Los Angeles)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I used this with high school students for a remedial English class, to a great response. Because the symbolism and the story features are so obvious, yet entertaining, it was easy for them to identify metaphors, allusions, themes, etc. These inner-city (mainly Latino and Chicano) non-readers were able to write fairly decent essays about the themes in the film and the use of symbols, etc. They also learned something about what the famous 1960's were a rebellion against -- just how oppressive that focus on conforming to societal norms can be -- and some gained insight into similar pressures in their own lives today. There is just enough sexual references to catch the attention of all, without any explicit sex to make it unacceptable in the classroom. (most have much more explicit sexual content on their ipods).
Truly Original September 27, 2009
A. Simon (USA)
This movie was one of the few films made in recent decades with a truly original plot (another one was The Truman Show). I admit that I went to see it, expecting another leftist political propaganda movie from Hollywood, full of the usual cliches. You can argue either way that it is and it is not, but like Dead Man Walking, it does a superb balancing act. It starts out portraying the grim statistics of the present day and the contemporary characters are nothing if not contemptible (the mother is chasing after a single guy, leaving the kids alone; the sister is a cheap whore). The teenage boy takes refuge in overdosing on a 50s black and white TV show where you have a nuclear family and the horrors of contemporary life are absent, and then he is catapulted there. Once there, however, things are bland, too bland. Once he starts introducing books into the kids's lives and once the slut starts screwing around anything with pants, color begins to come into the picture. Unfortunately, things start to break down and some people suddenly start to act in a decidedly nasty way and the parents break up.
Definitely an original film. It is surprising that Hollywood produced it.
Pleasantville September 23, 2009
Charmaine Keller (Kansas City (home of Hallmark))
I managed to accidentally buy 2 instead of 1 of this DVD, but other than that, one needs to understand what McCarthyism thinking did to this country and the dynamics of fear in a society during social change to get this one, but I love it. Video condition is excellent. New. Both of them. lol
Big Thumbs UP! September 13, 2009
M. Lion (Bloomington, IN United States)
When I first began to watch this movie I thought it was going to be a real "oh let's go back to the good old days" moralizing yawner of a movie. I was exactly wrong. What a beautiful commentary on how the human spirit must express itself. In short, I love this movie.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 387
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