Pleasantville (1998) - Ross lays out Hollywood liberal ideas in original classic

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A fabulous rainbow drives through this classy and supremely elegant poster for Gary Ross' Pleasantville

A quarrel over a remote control gets two teenagers sucked into the boy's favorite 1950s sitcom Pleasantville, where everything is black and white, and neither fire, sex, toilets, art nor death exists.

Pleasantville is written, co-produced and directed by great Californian filmmaker, debuting Gary Ross (Ocean's Eight (2018)).

It is a really good film based on an exciting and original idea. The plot moves fast, seemingly because Ross wants to cover many points. The conservative proprieties have no qualities; the advent of sins and unrest after the fall of the residents of Pleasantville are also casually leaped over: The present time (and colors) are simply preferable to repression (whatever the costs, apparently.) Liberal emancipation is for the good in absolute terms in this anti-conservative, liberal fantasy that's also interesting as an ideological time machine. Ross' somewhat complacent point is also carried through with the preachy lines from Tobey Maguire (Labor Day (2013)) at the film's end. Before this, however, Pleasantville is fantastically sweet, funny, attractively photographed (by John Lindley (Castle Rock (2019, TV-series))) and produced in a staggering scheme of black and white and colors. 

The turns from especially William H. Macy (Sahara (2005)) and Joan Allen (Room (2015)) have moving high points, but the performances are good all over. Pleasantville has cinematic qualities, thought-provoking themes - and great hair and makeup work! It is a modern Hollywood classic, an inventive and original work from Tinseltown. 

Related posts:

 

Gary Ross: Ocean's Eight (2018) - Commercially mandated spin-off sinks 

The Hunger Games (2012) - A global, teen-centered sci-fi smash

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 60 mil. $

Box office: 49.8 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.83 times its cost)

[Pleasantville premiered 17 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 124 minutes. Shooting took place from March - July 1997 in California. The laborious camera work on the film cost the life of camera operator Brent Hershman, who fell asleep behind the wheel driving home one night after a 19-hour work day on the film. The film opened #1 to an 8.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3), grossing 40.5 mil. $ (81.3 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars, winning none: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, lost to Shakespeare in Love, Costumes, also lost to Shakespeare in Love, and Score (Randy Newman (Toy Story 4 (2019))), lost to Nicola Piovani for Life Is Beautiful. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Ross returned with Seabiscuit (2003). Maguire returned in The Cider House Rules (1999); Reese Witherspoon (Just Like Heaven (2005)) in Cruel Intentions (1999). Pleasantville is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Pleasantville?

Pawn Sacrifice (2014) - Zwick, Knight and Maguire's mediocre chess genius movie

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The evocative but dour poster for Edward Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice

 

Bobby Fischer became an obsessive chess master already as a boy. When, as an adult, he is to face Russian Spassky in the chessboard clash between the world's superpowers, the US and the USSR, his psyche creaks on him.

 

Fischer is not a wildly sympathetic character, and the game of chess doesn't really get opened up in Pawn Sacrifice, which for some time makes it seem somewhat grey and dull. But as it reaches its Reykjavik showdown, it grows some legs, especially through the engaged performances of Tobey Maguire (The Great Gatsby (2013)) and Liev Schreiber (Salt (2010)) as the two chess masters. We have got a complex character in Fischer to be sure, but he also remains too enigmatic until the very end. Pawn Sacrifice is not a bad film, but I don't feel we get far enough into Fischer for it to fully succeed.

It is written by Steven Knight (Amazing Grace (2006)) and directed by Edward Zwick (Glory (1989)).

 

Related review:
 

Edward Zwick: Blood Diamond (2006) - Fundamentally flawed, unsuccessful Africa-venture with important issues at its core

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 19 mil. $

Box office: 5.5 mil. $

= Box office disaster

[Pawn Sacrifice premiered September 11 (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 115 minutes. Filming took place in Reykjavik, Montreal and LA from October - December 2013. The film opened #33 to a 0.2 mil. $ first weekend in 33 theaters, widening to #12 with 1 mil. $ in 781 theaters in North America, where it grossed 2.4 mil. $ (43.6 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 427k $ (7.8 %) and Spain with 230k $ (4.2 %). The film is far from historically accurate, as is revealed here. Pawn Sacrifice is fresh at 72 % with a 6.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Pawn Sacrifice?

The Details (2011) or, Foibles of the Sexless Marriage

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+ Best Mega-flop Movie of the Year

Most people wouldn't want to be Tobey Maguire in Jacob Aaron Estes' The Details

QUICK REVIEW:

Our hero in The Details is a sexually neglected doctor/husband/father, whose new lawn gets plagued by raccoons, which begins a downwards-facing spiral for his otherwise comfortable life.

Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man (2002)) lights up in this comical-dramatic showcase, and Dennis Haysbert (Dear White People (2014)), Laura Linney (Mystic River (2003)), Elizabeth Banks (Walk of Shame (2014)), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas (1990)) and red-hot Kerry Washington (Django Unchained (2012)) are also all great. - Haysbert even provides a few touching moments in Details.
This is a VERY untraditional American film that walks far into the realm of dark comedy and the dark crannies of drama. It is funny and surprisingly believable and dramatic until SPOILER the third act, wherein everything in the narrative gets 'solved' in a long car scene, which isn't exactly the solution one had hoped for, plus the scene includes a few lines simply because the writer/director thinks they sound good.
He is Californian Jacob Aaron Estes (Summoning (2001), short), and Details fits well together with his only other feature to date, if one wanted to do an auteur analysis of Estes' works, Mean Creek (2004), which is also SPOILER about an unfortunate murder. A perhaps intended point after watching The Details, (perhaps not), SPOILER could be that grownups seemingly don't have to let such a murder take them down, whereas kids are more helpless.
Details lights a fire under many prejudices, like our stereotypes of the good doctor and the brutal Italian-American. The film isn't for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it.

Related post:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Laura Linney and Tobey Maguire in Jacob Aaron Estes' The Details

Watch the great trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 63k $ (US only)
= Mega-flop
[The details surrounding The Details are mysterious and hard to come by, but it is clear that something behind the scene went awfully wrong between Estes and distributor The Weinstein Company: The Weinsteins apparently paid a handsome sum for distribution rights and then tried to recut the film and held it under wraps for a long period before finally releasing it on very few screens (less than a hundred) and only in the US! No wonder the film didn't make any money. Estes seems to have been the one who has paid the dearest for this utter failure: He hasn't directed since and has only now gotten a co-writing gig on Rings (2015), the third movie in the Ring horror franchise...]

What do you think of The Details?
Any details on why the fate of this film has been so dismal and/or the inside stories of the making of it are welcomed