Just watched Pleasantville, a movie which for me is elevated above its extremely fluffy level by how much I enjoy the black-and-white mixed with color graphics. (The movie’s plot involves a black-and-white town which, object by object, turns color).
The last time I saw it, “Buffy” fanaticism hadn’t yet taken over my brain; this time, I recognized both Danny Strong (Jonathan from “Buffy”) and Marc Blucas (Riley from “Buffy”) playing background teens in Pleasantville. Danny Strong even gets a couple of lines. Geeky? Me?
Another thing I like about Pleasantville: It’s really unusual for a piece of American pop culture to embrace cubism as great art.
LOL! Amp, that’s the first thing I said when I saw that movie – “Hey! It’s Jonathan!!”
I’m not only a dork, I’m a HUGE fan of the HITG (Hey, it’s That Guy!) game. The Law and Order franchise makes it great fun – “Hey – that grieving father is Commander Sinclair from B5! (He also played a former alcoholic who was briefly suspected of murder in another episode!)
Funny. I watched Buffy and thought “Hey, its that guy from Pleasantville”.
Another HITG fan here. L&O is a pretty good one for the game–one of my favorites was West Wing’s Alison Janney as the informant whose death cleared the ADA office for Sam Waterson’s tenure: “Hey, it’s C.J.!”
I too liked the positive portrayal of modern art in Pleasantville, as well as the use of Brubeck’s “Take Five”. I know dropping that song into a scene is an almost cliched way of establishing a hip, smooth mood, but it’s such a choice tune.
My dear, sweet, Republican mother is a fan of Dr. Laura. (For those of you uninitiated, bat-sh*t insane, hypocritical supposedly “moral” call-in “advisor”.) I had no intrest in seeing Pleasantville, until Dr. Laura lambasted it on her show as the threat to Western Civilazation, yada yada yada.
So glad my mom listens to crazies: that’s one of my all-time favorite movies.
There are so many good Buffy books out there, recently “Why Buffy Matters” and “Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan” Good stuff!
Also, check out my Halloween pumpkins. :^)
Plot, script, and overdone symbolism aside, the acting in that film was beyond superb. William H. Macy was totaly and utterly brilliant, Joan Allen was magnificent, Jeff Daniels needs to be watched more than once for the complexity of his character.
One of my favorite movies ever.
I also really like Pleasantville. I thought the ending didn’t live up to the potential of the movie. It was just too clean, and neat. But there’s so much good in the movie, they show art, knowledge and sexuality as places for potential liberation.
Like Antigone I partly love this movie because the religious right hate it so much (she reaches for an APPLE!!!!!).
Am I the only person who was happy that Jonathon had a line and Riley didn’t?
I have never watched any of the Buffy TV show; enjoyed the movie, was never tempted by the show.
After my wife and I were mind-assimilated into the Whedon Collective by Firefly, however, we decided we had to watch Buffy. So Netflix now has the whole umpteen kajillion disks queued up for us.
Got the first season, disc two, today. (Disc one is apparently in postal hell.) So we watched an episode. “Never Kill a Boy on the First Date” I think it was.
God, it sucked.
Please tell me things pick up.
Robert,
Yeah, ya gotta hang in there. The first season is rough, but trust me: it’s worth hanging in for seasons 2 and 3.
NOT a memorable episode. Not only are seasons 2-5 much better than season 1, but most of season 1 is better than that episode (although there are also several episodes first season that are much worse, and there are some serious stinkers early on in season 2 as well).
Also, although a lot of season 1 is very episodic and won’t be hurt by watching out of sequence, enough is sequential that it might be worthwhile to watch them in order. This is much more important after season 1, but even in season 1 there is some build cross episode.
Ah, my first real fandom…
Thanks for the data points, AK & Charles. We’ll definitely give it a shot then.