And now, a selection from the Wal Mart discount DVD department...

A masterpiece of modern -- er, shall I say 50's? -- cinema. Usually, when I write a movielog entry for a film I watched and logged long ago, I write the new log entry before rereading the old one, and then compare them after I'm done. This time, I think I'll read the old entry first, just for fun. (And for the convenience of other curious readers, I'll even provide a link.)

Eeek, I think my writing style has changed since then. Those movielog entries used to be so organized and formal. Now, I just sort of babble endlessly about offtopic nonsense, kind of like I'm doing right at this moment. But I could be organized if I wanted to, right? Whatever. Ain't that swell?

Back to the movie.

[14 hours later...]

What was I most struck with this time around, watching the movie? Well, the visuals were simply astounding. After we've been in the black and white Pleasantville world for a while, and the eyes have becomed sufficiently accustomed to seeing nothing but grey, the moment that captain of the basketball team guy sees the red rose after returning from Lover's Lane. Wow.

I could babble about stuff I'd never know if I hadn't watched the DVD specials, like how they talked about the difficulty involved in a black and white picture to look right on color film stock, or filming everything in color and then converting it digitally to b/w, and then preforming major contrast and brightness adjustments just so it would look normal. Eeek.

(BTW, I try not let DVD extras affect my ratings, because they are not strictly a part of the film itself, but I loved the way they did the special features on this film. More on that in a bit.)

Well, yes, the film is a technical marvel. The story telling is what really makes the movie shine though. As director Gary Ross pointed out on the commentary track, the basic concept of the film, when described, can easily sound like it would be a corny, cheesy comedy. "A couple of modern teenagers get magically transported into the fictional world of a stereotypical 50s sitcom, where the weather is always sunny, all the houses are lined with white picket fences, and everything is 'swell'."

Right now, my mind is flooded with the images of the paintings, the books, the giant mural, the book burnings, and the amazing scene of driving through the shower of pink petals. All of this probably makes no sense for those who haven't seen it, so I guess I'm not doing a very good job.

If I may quote from the script:

INT. CAR.

David looks up and out the windshield. The same thing seems to be happening around them.... Many of the Dogwoods have started to turn PINK. Not all of them, but at least fifty percent of the petals have "bloomed" in some weird false spring. The road twists and turns on its way to the top, as they finally reach a crest in the hill.

DAVID

Wow.

THEIR POV. LOVERS LANE

There, sitting in front of them, is a whole world gone Technicolor: THE LAKE IS BLUER THAN BLUE. THE WEEPING WILLOW IS GREENER THAN GREEN. THE DOGWOOD PETALS (all "turned" now) SWIRL IN THE WIND LIKE SOME STRANGE PINK SNOWSTORM. A LONG LINE OF PASTEL CARS STRETCHES OUT ALONG THE SHORE.

...

Which brings me to my next point: What a brilliant (yet stunningly simple) idea, to include on the DVD-ROM the ASCII text of the complete original screenplay! I want more DVDs to do this. Good one. Excellent. The perfect use of the technological capabilities of the medium.

I suppose that by some standards, the number of special features on this disc isn't huge, but I liked the ones they had. Videos several minutes long in which the f/x people, photography director, and the artist who did the mural painting could talk and describe their experiences making the movie. Minimal editing. Minimal producing. Just these guys sitting there and talking. In a way, I like that better than a half hour of flashes between sentence-length heavily edited soundbytes, like a lot of the DVD's use as behind the scenes material. I think others could learn from the way this one was done. Just leave the camera running, let the people talk as long as they want, and publish that.

Oh, and you gotta dig that Fiona Apple video. Yeah.

I have gotten way off track as far as describing the movie itself though. But while we're at it, one nit pick: Why must the test setup be shown before the film every time the "Play Movie" menu item is pressed? Some of us already have our tv's correctly adjusted (enough to meet our own satisfaction, at least). We don't need to see this stuff every time the movie starts. Yes, I know I can skip past it, and that's exactly what I did. It's annoying. Just leave it as an item buried in a submenu, and don't make people jump by it for each play. Thank you.

Should I get back on topic now? Okay.

What else can I convey about how much I love this film? I love the way it shows how, through the presence of two external people, an entire self-contained world can become transformed into something so much greater than what it once was. I love its message of embracing the unpredictablity of the future. I love the way every character in the film goes through some fundamental transformation between the beginning and the end.

Well, anyway, it's a great film. I almost forgot how good it was. I'm terrible at writing a cutesy conclusion to these things, so that's it.