Pleasantville really misses where it could have shined. The whole concept of the establishment of Pleasantville being stable enough to take the matter to court is questionable. The Pleasantville people were obviously scared of the changes, at least the older classes were, and fear leads to anger. I can imagine acts of violent racism before I think of a court trial in that situation. After all, those fighting for the status quo are fighting for their very reality, the only existence they know. Just my opinion.
Here are a few more, and remember, we’re talking movies that are at least okay, not great, alright? Spoilers ahead…
TITANIC- a movie which many love to hate but that I like pretty well…except for the utterly stupid part where Rose gives up her seat and jumps back on the boat, leading her would be hubby to chase her and young Jack through the boat, pistol blazing. I mean, come on. I’m not a Titanic basher, but that scene was bad.
THE MATRIX- a potentially great movie turned into a good one by way too many shoot-outs and a little too much kung fu. Notice how the good guys had no problem killing cops and security guards by the score, who were just normal guys doing their jobs? And at the end, does everyone just crawl out of their pod, unplug their matrix and feeding tubes and enter the post-atomic desert? Thanks, Neo. I know, wait for the sequals.
GODFATHER III-made stupid by Sofia Copolla’s performance
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN- I agree that the tacked on prologue and epilogue were unnecesary. After the attention to detail and realism in the opening battle scene, I was disappointed by the thoughtlessness of other scenes. Why did Tom Hanks try to take that machine gun nest with a frontal charge, instead of sneaking up behind them? Why in the hell didn’t they blow up the bridge to begin with, since it was strategically vital only to the Germans, instead of trying to fight for it? Why didn’t those German panzers use their machine guns? Each one would have had two or three machine guns designed to prevent infantry from ramming their machine guns into the portals, opening the hatch and tossing in grenades, and basically just charging and beating the hell out of them like in the movie.
JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES- sort of an okay movie, made stupid by a totally unnecessary love interest between one of the vampire slayers and the victim/vampire in training.
Okay, this isn’t a movie, but I’ve already posted a long list of those here and I have to get this off my chest. It’s always bugged me to no end that “Star Trek: Next Gen” and “Deep Space Nine” had characters named “Data” and “Quark.” It would be like naming modern-day characters “Sandwich” and “Carburetor.”
Thought of another one: The Untouchables was a very good movie, full of great photography, acting, suspense and music and a compelling story.
And then they blew the ending. Oh, it was just like real life… to a point.
In the movie, as in real life, Al Capone is on trial for tax evasion. But he isn’t worried because the jury is in his pocket. Unbeknownst to him, however, the judge also knows the jury has been tampered with (or at least suspects it).
The judge therefore dismisses the jury and replaces them with a new one from another case (that had been completed) and they say Capone is guilty without ever hearing the case! No wonder Capone attacks his lawyer. The guy didn’t object to it!
(IRL, the new jury did hear the case before convicting Capone.)
- I totally agree with whoever it was who named Blair Witch Project. Even my kids, who were at long last allowed to watch it, on video, in the safety of our brightly lit living room, with Mom sitting right there with her finger on the “pause” button (I hadn’t seen it yet either), spent more time giggling at their ineptitude than cowering in horror at their fear. Even La Principessa, who is 10, knows that when you’re lost in the woods, what you do is sit down and wait, you don’t go wandering around in circles.
I had trouble with the fact that they’re so totally lost in a state park or something in Maryland. There’s no sound of traffic on a highway in the distance? No power lines?
- After watching Speed for the second time I couldn’t help noticing the essential-to-the-plot lack of a deadman switch on the subway car. And the brakes don’t work, but the accelerator does? Right. And there just happens to be a crane on the roof of the building? And the bus, when its gas tank is punctured by the screwdriver, starts leaking gasoline instead of diesel? And nobody notices the hole in the garbage can, all afternoon? And Jeff Daniels, the experienced cop hot on the trail of a mad bomber, just walks into the bomber’s house without checking for booby traps? Uh-huh.
Oh, well, it was a comic book and you have to accept it on its own terms, I guess.
Am I, like, the only one who came to the realization that the witch of the title (you know, the Blair Witch?) had them under, like, a supernatural influence? So, like, the normal orienteering rules didn’t apply? Or was I watching some totally unrelated movie, or what?
Nope, I got that too, Phil. Well, I got it when I wasn’t curled into a tiny ball on the couch.
Also, they weren’t in a state park. They were in some random patch of woods, and living here in Maryland, I have NO problems believing they couldn’t hear anything.
pldennison: Same here. I saw Blair Witch before all the hype started coming down, and it scared the piss out of me. I imagine if I had watched it later, after its reputation had spread, it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well. It’s a movie that has to blindside you.
And anyone who complains about the film’s realism, saying, “Why didn’t they follow the river?” or “Couldn’t they have used a compass?” or whatever – well, whoooosh, y’know, right over the head. That was kind of the point of what was going on. Heather even says it in the film, something to the effect of: “How can you get lost in a little patch of woods in this day and age?” It’s clear to me it’s the Witch (or whatever) leading them in circles, fooling their senses.
But then the majority of mainstream viewers have been trained, over decades of television and lowbrow moviemaking, not to extrapolate at all on what’s going on on-screen. If it isn’t explicitly stated or shown, then it just isn’t part of the movie for them. Same deal with the reaction to Blade Runner: “Whaddaya mean Deckard might be a replicant? When did they say that?” Or the entirety of Eyes Wide Shut or Magnolia or Thin Red Line or any other semi- or totally allegorical movie. “You mean the whole movie might have been Tom Cruise’s dream? And all the soldiers were representative of tiny puzzle pieces in a monolith of metaphorical Soldier-ness? When did they tell us that?” They didn’t, not exactly, anyway; it’s implied, and you have to put it together for yourself.
I don’t hold it against anyone if they didn’t “get it” – it’s just a different kind of viewing experience. And like I said, it’s the result of decades of dumbing-down of storytelling. Somebody else alluded above to the “turn on the light bulb!” ending of Sixth Sense, and you could say the same thing about the military neighbor’s climactic twist in American Beauty or the courtroom scene in Pleasantville or any number of well-regarded mainstream films. They come out and present their themes and ideas directly, explicitly. If that’s what you’re used to, if that’s how you’ve been trained to watch films, then it’s not your fault when other kinds of stuff don’t connect. And you probably wouldn’t enjoy anything by Ozu, or Bresson, or any other filmmaker who puts the most important material under, instead of on, the surface.
So for a lot of people Blair Witch is about a trio of foul-mouthed twenty-somethings who get lost in the woods, and that’s all. That, for the most part, is the story on the surface, and if that’s all you see, then I don’t blame you at all if you find it boring. If that’s all I had seen, I probably would have found it stupid and dull too.
I don’t mean to start a debate here; I’m sure the merits of Blair Witch have been hashed out in many threads before this. All I’m pointing to is the meta-issue of how people watch movies, and how, subjectively, where you’re looking significantly impacts what you see. Sounds obvious, but it tends to be forgotten in practice.
We now return you to your ongoing thread, already in progress…
The Truman Show is one of my favorites of all time. I thought the ending worked because it was a TV show, after all…once Truman left, the show was over, and so was the movie. Made perfect sense to me.
I loved the way Jim Carrey, the ultimate scene hog, had his back to the audience during most important part of his character’s life. I’m sure it’s not easy for an actor to choose to do that, let alone Jim Carrey!
Actually, I thought his portrayal of a high-school derelict in Parenthood was quite well done.
I agreee with all the BLAIR WITCH defenders. It’s obvious that they SPOILER
ended up in the old house of the child killer, which had been burned down many years before, so the old Blair Witch seems to have the power to move and bend time and space. That’s a hell of a confusing thing if you’re caught in the middle of it
No mention of all those Alfred Hitchcock films? Can’t think how much time I wasted just trying to spot some old fat guy.
SPOILER ALERT: Don’t read if you haven’t seen The Cell:
I was also kind of disappointed that it wasn’t very necessary for her to go into the killer’s mind to find the girl. But by the end of the movie, that wasn’t the point. Finding the girl became the subplot, and the goal of the woman was really to let the killer rest (by drowning him.)
And, yeah, a real forensicist(Is that the term?) would’ve looked for information on that Carver logo from the beginning.
END SPOILER SECTION
All in all, though, I thought it was a wonderful movie. The in-mind scenes are exactly the kind of surreal stuff that happens in my dreams.
It’s also interesting to think about what’s real; they build the sets out of real materials, but they are not the real objects they are trying to be, so they are fake, but to the characters, they are real, but they are really fake, because it’s all in their head. Real, fake, real, fake, AHHHHH!!! Too confusing.
Excellent observation, my child. You have done well. 
The key to understanding the end is that, throughout the film, whenever we’re watching Truman, the movie is the TV show. Peter Weir’s genius touch is to shoot Truman at all times as if we’re watching the show; we never, ever see Truman except via the same cameras and views by which the on-screen TV audience is seeing him. When we go out into the control room, then we’re in normal movie-watching mode, but when we watch Truman, we are in fact watching the TV show within the movie.
The brilliance of the movie, therefore, is in creating a paradoxical dichotomy; we pass judgment on the voyeurism in the film and root for Truman’s freedom, even as we simultaneously watch Truman in exactly the same way the movie’s TV audience does. Subtle but effective, and very very smart… and given this reality, the ending couldn’t have happened any other way.
I’m another one who liked the Blair Witch, although it didn’t scare me. (My sister keeps complaining about how stupid it was-she doesn’t get how original it TRULY was, BEFORE the hype that is.)
I love Titanic myself, but…Brock Lovett says that the Heart of the Ocean was worn by Louis the XVI, and that if it were around today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond…um…the blue diamond worn by the French Kings WAS the Hope diamond! ARGH!
I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned The Blair Witch Project.
hmm…
I haven’t goten freaked out by movies since I saw Fantasia (the Original, mind you) when I was 2, but I got FREAKED when I was watching “Stir of Echoes” but HOW THE HELL DOES A CREEP-ASS MOVIE LIKE THAT HAVE A SAPPY ENDING?!?!?!?!?!
she’s singin’ and prancin’ around, and hot-damn if that is a good ending for the movie!
first time I saw it, I just stared at the screen in disbelief!
I was totally just like, umm… when does the movie start again?
then the second time (at a friend’s) I just got up and left at the ending!
anyway, my $0.02
Cervaise, you know, I just don’t tell you that I love you nearly often enough!
And what about Elliot Ness killing Frank Nitti? That always bothered me about it. I know it gave the audience some satisfaction watching Malone’s killer get thrown off the roof, but IIRC Nitti took over the operation after Capone went to jail.