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?

He Was a Quiet Man (2007) - Good performances elevate Cappello's dark romance

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+ Best Box Office Disaster of the Year

Christian Slater looks astonished, holding a giant bomb to his chest, on this curiosity-sparking poster for Frank A. Cappello's He Was a Quiet Man, which has a tagline and title that eerily echo what neighbors and co-workers to sudden homicidal maniacs often utter in the aftermath of carnage

Bob Maconel is a middle-aged, ugly man, who is planning a small massacre at his office workplace, when a colleague beats him to it, and he instead starts dating the paralyzed colleague hottie, whom he had saved in the attack.

He Was a Quiet Man is a psychological romance-drama written and directed by Frank A. Cappello (No Way Back (1995)). You might call it a different kind of office drama.
Christian Slater (Breaking In (2011-12)) and William H. Macy (ER (1994-09)) are really good here, but especially Elisha Cuthbert (The Ranch (2016-18)) as the paralyzed love interest make an impression and actually act here. (I have previously lampooned her for the often grotesque situations her annoying character found herself in in her most famous outing as Jack Bauer's daughter in 24 (2001-10)).)
Cappello treats the story as a playground for especially digital effects and inventiveness (such as a talking fish), and most of it works for this small, dark pearl of a film.

Related posts:

2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch a TV-teaser for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 83k $
= Uncertain - but certainly a box office disaster
[He Was a Quiet Man premiered 11 March (South by Southwest Film Festival, Austin, Texas) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, for 21 days. The film opened #84 to a tiny 2k $ in 3 theaters in North America, where it was pulled after just one week's release. This was the film's smallest out of 6 markets. The 3 biggest were South Korea with 41k $ (49.4 % of the total gross), Turkey with 17k $ (20.5 %) and Italy with 12k $ (14.5 %). The film's budget is unknown, but if it was made for a modest 1-2 mil. $, it would rank as a box office disaster, since it almost made no money at all theatrically. Cappello only returned as a director 8 years hence in 2015 with 2 video shorts. He has directed an episode of Malibu Gothic (presently unreleased) and upcoming hitman-focused feature Steele Wool. Slater returned in Slipstream (2007); Macy in The Deal (2008) and Cuthbert in My Sassy Girl (2008). He Was a Quiet Man is fresh at 79 % with a 6.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of He Was a Quiet Man?

Fargo (1996) - The Coen brothers make movie magic with dark-humored crime thriller

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+ Best Movie of the Year

+ Best American Movie of the Year + Best Breakthrough Actress of the Year: Frances McDormand + Best Cop Movie of the Year + Best Dark Comedy of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year + Best $ Return of the Year: 8.65 Times the Cost + Best Mega-hit of the Year + Best North Dakota Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year

A homespun, fantastic, ominous poster for the 'homespun murder story' that is Ethan and Joel Coen's Fargo

Pathetic car salesman Jerry Lundegaard of Minneapolis hires a couple of goons to kidnap his wife, so that his father-in-law will pay a hefty ransom, (of which he will receive half, - enough to help him against the creditors that are at his throat.) - But nothing goes as planned in Fargo, North Dakota.

Fargo is written and directed by Minnesotan master filmmakers and brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (Miller's Crossing (1990), both). The film claims to be based on a true story, but the Coen brothers have since been pressed to divulge that it is essentially only true that it is a story.
Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)) as Brainerd police chief Marge Gunderson and William H. Macy (Cellular (2004)) as Jerry Lundegaard both give outstanding performances in Fargo: McDormand is hilarious, Macy is exceptional, making us actually like his morally inadmissible character. Steve Buscemi (The Boss Baby (2017)) and Peter Stormare (Graceland (2015), TV-series) are also just swell as the pair of really ugly guys that Macy employs.
The Coens elegantly weave humor with suspense and a particular, snowy kind of poetry in Fargo, where life is lived right alongside pointless violence, (much as in real life.)
Fargo is a precious gem and a true masterpiece.

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Unbroken (2014) - Despite good elements, Jolie's Grand WWII Biopic is mostly distant and weak (co-writers)
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) or, The Man Who Wasn't Dylan  
True Grit (2010) - The Coens' grand western present
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
A Serious Man (2009) - One of the Coens' best; a philo-religious serio-comedy
Burn After Reading (2008) or, Idiocy 2008
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Top 10: The best big hit movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 
The Big Lebowski (1998) - The stoner comedy to reign over all

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
Barton Fink (1991) or, The Writer's Hell

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 60.6 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[Fargo was released 8 March (USA) and runs 98 minutes. Shooting took place in North Dakota and Minneapolis, including in Fargo and Brainerd, from January - March 1995. The film opened to a 730k $ first weekend in 36 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #6 and in 716 cinemas (different weeks) and grossed 24.6 mil. $ (40.6 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 7 Oscars: It won for Best Screenplay and Best Actress (McDormand). It lost Supporting Actor (Macy) to Cuba Gooding Jr. for Jerry Maguire, Cinematography (Roger Deakins) to John Seale for The English Patient, Director to Anthony Minghella for The English Patient, Editing to The English Patient, - and Best Picture also to the much inferior epic, The English Patient. The film was also nominated for 4 Golden Globes, won 1/6 BAFTA noms, won Joel Coen the Best Director Prize in Cannes, was nominated for a César award (France's Oscar), won 6 Independent Spirit awards, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other honors. Kathy Bates directed a pilot for a Fargo-based TV-series with Edie Falco in 1997, which only aired in 2003. A successful TV-series executive produced by the Coens called Fargo, set in the same locale but in a different decade and with other characters, have been successful for 3 seasons (2014-17). IMDb-users have voted Fargo the original movie in to #161 on the site's Top 250 list, sitting between The Sixth Sense (1999) and The Deer Hunter (1978). The Coens returned with The Big Lebowski (1998), another masterpiece. McDormand returned in Primal Fear (1996). Fargo is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.7 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Fargo?

The Cooler (2003) or, Lady Luck for Bernie

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+ Best Las Vegas Movie of the Year

William H. Macy looks doubtfully out at us in delicious neon on the poster for Wayne Kramer's The Cooler

QUICK REVIEW:

Bernie is a 'cooler' [a person whose bad luck 'cools' off winning tables] in a second tier Las Vegas casino, but as he falls in love with a lovely waitress, the customers begin to win, and his boss Shelly becomes furious.
The acting between William H. Macy (Fargo (1996)) and Maria Bello (A History of Violence (2005)), with an Oscar-nominated Alec Baldwin (It's Complicated (2009)) as the pit-bull-like boss on the sideline, is strong, - and it's also The Cooler's main attraction. The film also has some nice secondary performances, especially from Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas (1990)) as a heroin-junkie-singer.
The drama is strong and realistic in this romantic gangster dramedy, and it walks a fine line in dealing with the uglier sides of life without overdoing it and turning dour.
The film is co-written and directed by South-African filmmaker Wayne Kramer (Running Scared (2006)). I would probably have taken The Cooler in a different direction, but in Kramer's hands, the lady luck-theme is given the floor and SPOILER we receive a happy ending.
Lovely movie.

 

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2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 10.4 mil. $
= Even-Steven

What do you think of The Cooler?
Other recommendable gambling-movies?

The Sessions (2012) - Lewin's personally important true-story dramedy is deeply satisfying - and educational

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A blue-templated, uplifting, fresh and curiosity-striking poster for Ben Lewin's The Sessions

The Sessions is the true story of Mark O'Brien, a poet who is bound to his iron lung due to his debilitating polio condition, who in 1980's California as a middle-aged gentleman gets his sexual debut thanks to a life-savvy sex therapist's generous sessions.

 
John Hawkes (Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)) and Helen Hunt (As Good As It Gets (1997)) are both magnificent, and William H. Macy (Fargo (1996)) has a lovely and very funny part as O'Brien's open-minded, candid priest here in a real gem of a film, in which all the secondary parts are also filled out by wonderful actors across the board. With underplayed, fine photography and music, The Sessions works its magic by totally un-senzationalizing sex with a paralyzed man, and by broadening the human horizon in doing so. It is written and directed by Ben Lewin (Georgia (1988)), who has survived polio himself and who handles the true story here with insightful deftness and a keen sense of common humanity, empathy and not least a warm and liberating sense of humor that makes the rare situation we get confronted with here so very recognizable and palpable. The result is poignant and deeply moving
Full of heart, meaning, fun and tears, The Sessions is a uniquely wonderful film, pushing boundaries and making perfectly natural sense with its inherent agenda of the right for a sexual life for people with disabilities.

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2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Top 10: The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Watch the amazing trailer here and then GO GET THIS MOVIE!!!

Budget: 1 mil. $
Box office: 9.1 mil. $
= Big hit

What do you think of The Sessions?