Pleasantville

I finally watched Pleasantville for the first time in my life. I know, can you believe it? So many movies I haven't seen.

My main objective for watching the movie is to fulfill my fantasy of dating Reese Witherspoon. I figure if I see every movie she's ever been in and she learns about how obsessed I am, she'll like me. Sounds like a high school tragedy, doesn't it? (And by sheer coincidence, Tragedy by the Bee-Gee's is currently on the radio as I write this.)

As I mentioned, the movie stars Reese Witherspoon, in addition to Spiderman, I mean Tobey Maguire, as her brother, William H. Macy as their father, and Joan Allen as their mother.

Tobey is obsessed with an old T.V. show called Pleasantville, sort of a spoof on late 1950's, early 1960's T.V. shows like Leave It To Beaver and My Three Sons. His sister Jennifer, on the other hand, likes to get around. A lot.

On the day of the big Pleasantville marathon, Jennifer plans to have her boyfriend over, but Tobey plans on watching the marathon. They get into a fight over the remote and it breaks. But not to worry, Barney Fife the T.V. repairman mysteriously shows up at the door with a new magical remote. Unbeknownst to Tobey and Reese, the remote sends them into the T.V. show - black and white and all. As my son would say, this is a gray T.V. show. They then spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to, so to speak, 'get back to the future', only this version is funny.

The presence of the 2 kids in town changes the balance of harmony and things start to fall apart. Then colors start appearing and people start to freak out. What's going on? Will the town tolerate these new changes? I mean, some people have color and some don't. The funniest thing in the movie was a sign in the window that read, "No Coloreds", alluding to segregation in the early to mid-1900's, though the reference is to people in technicolor. In fact, I don't think there were any African-Americans in the movie at all, or black people.

This movie is clever and funny. I'm disappointed that it took me this long in life to see the movie. If you haven't seen it, then you need to knock it off of your list. Because after you see it, "Fire! Fire! Fire!.......Dog in a tree!" will have a lot more meaning to you.

The movie is rated PG-13 for language and sexuality. And Jeff Daniels painted a naked picture of Joan Allen on the window of the diner. It's not a bad picture either. And her in the tub...quite a visualization.

I gave this movie 4 stars, and that's without the Reese bias.