Pleasantville (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #26

Henceforth, all good and decent citizens of Pleasantville are to obey this CODE OF CONDUCT:

1. All public disruption and acts of vandalism are to cease immediately.

2. All citizens of Pleasantville are to treat each other in a courteous and pleasant manner.

3. The area commonly known as Lovers Lane as well as the public library shall be closed until further notice.

4. The only permissible recorded music shall be the following: Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, Jack Jones, the marches of John Philip Sousa and the Star-Spangled Banner. In no event shall any music be tolerated that is not of a temperate or pleasant nature.

5. There shall be no public sale of umbrellas or preparation for inclement weather of any kind.

6. No bed frame or mattress may be sold measuring more than 38 inches wide.

7. The only permissible paint colours shall be black, white and grey, despite the recent availability of certain alternatives.

8. All elementary and high school curriculum shall teach the non-changeist view of history emphasising continuity over alteration.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Steve Jobs (5 Stars)

I chose to watch this film today deliberately. Last week it was on a short list of films that I was considering adding to my top 100 films list. I decided against it and only added "Kick-Ass". I realise now that I made a mistake. "Steve Jobs" is a film that should have been in the list, not at the bottom, but somewhere in the top 50.

I like Michael Fassbender as an actor. I've admired him ever since I first saw him as the fallen angel Azazeal in "Hex". His portrayal of Magneto in the X-Men films is stunning. I've never liked a bad guy so much. He steps up and gives a stunning performance as Steve Jobs in this film. There are probably other actors who look more similar to Steve Jobs in their facial appearance, but Fassbender captures his mannerisms and traits so perfectly that we can believe he really is Steve Jobs before our eyes.

The film is a play in three acts. We see Steve Jobs presenting new products in 1984, 1988 and 1998. We don't see anything of his childhood and very little of his early business years. That isn't the film's intention. It shows his relationship with his daughter and his business colleagues, especially John Sculley and Steve Wozniak. At the three presentations the same characters arrive to speak with him, most of it arguing. The film is well crafted in not demanding any technical knowledge from the viewers. My good friend Emma Roberts refused to see it in the cinema because she said she knew nothing about computers. That was a mistake. She would have enjoyed it as much as me.

As I've pointed out in my previous reviews, the whole film is spent in character development. In a normal film the character development comes first, and then the action. This is a film that doesn't need action. It's a talkie. From the very first scene Steve Jobs is involved in conversations with the people around him. The film is so intense in its lack of action that I had tears in my eyes at the end.

Success Rate:  - 0.9

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Looper (4½ Stars)

This film has a premise that's ridiculously illogical, but it succeeds because of the story written on top of the premise and the excellent acting. Any film with Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt has to be good, doesn't it? They both play the same character, which stretches credibility. I'll explain the reason below.

The film takes place in Kansas in 2044. I would have preferred them to say "the near future" than name a year, but I'll let it go. In the future (i.e. some time after 2044) time travel has been invented, but it's been outlawed. That's understandable. If everyone could travel into the past to change events there would be chaos. A criminal gang in the year 2074 is using time travel discreetly for its own advantage. It's difficult to cover up murder in the future, so if they want to kill someone they send someone into the past, bound and hooded, to be executed by a waiting hitman on arrival. The payment for the execution is made in silver bars strapped to the victim's back.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of the hired killers, called Loopers. The reason for the name is that at the end of a person's contract he has to kill his future self. The payment is in gold bars, after which he can do whatever he wants for the next 30 years. At this point he'll be captured and sent back into the past to be executed. That's the loop.

That's a tidy system, until Joe's future self (Bruce Willis) arrives from the future. He's spent years training, so he manages to avoid being shot. He goes on the run, and young Joe is sentenced to death for not doing his job. Young Joe goes on the run as well, and eventually the two Joes find one another.

Old Joe wants to work together with young Joe to kill the future gang leader while he's still a child. It's not certain who he is, so he's going to kill all the children on a small list. (Does that remind you of "Terminator"?) Young Joe disagrees with killing children, so he goes to war with his older self. They're fighting against one another, not together as suggested by the poster.

By being in the past, everything old Joe does changes time, including changing his own memories. This puts young Joe at a disadvantage. Whenever young Joe goes somewhere to search for his older self, old Joe immediately remembers it and hides somewhere else.

Maybe you can already see what the problems with the premise are. I'll name a few points. You might be able to think of others.

It's said that the problem in the future (2074) is disposing of bodies. Why not kill the person and send his corpse into the past? That would eliminate the need for a hitman in the past. All that would be necessary is an undertaker. Alternatively, the corpse could be sent back into a cage with wild animals waiting for food.

Why should the hitmen be expected to kill themselves? Someone else could be given the job, making it less personal.

In fact, why shouldn't a hitman from the future be sent back to perform the executions? That would be much tidier.

Success Rate:  + 3.9

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Pleasantville (5 Stars)

A year ago I published a list of my 30 films to watch before you die. I mentioned that I had already compiled a list of my favourite 50 films, a list which would include some other films that I regretted not including in the first list. This is one of the near misses, and an essential inclusion in any longer list. I just checked my list. It's actually a list of 100 films, and this is number 54. Oops! I need to rearrange the list. "Pleasantville" can't miss the cut a second time.

There have been disagreements about what "Pleasantville" is about. It's obvious why. The film quite deliberately touches on many different issues. If you ask five people what the film is about and they give five different answers, none of them are wrong. What's important is what you can take out of it for yourself.

The film is about racism.

The film is about the subjugation of women.

The film is about the role of science in society.

The film is about the beauty of art and literature.

The film is about the struggles between the old and the young.

Today I'll just pick on the religious themes. Pleasantville is a perfect world. It's the Garden of Eden. The people are innocent. God lives among them, in the guise of a television repair man called Norm. Since it's a perfect world the televisions never break down, so nobody ever sees Norm. His shop is in the middle of the town, but the most anyone does is look through the window. There's no reason to go inside.

Norm allows David, a teenager from 1998, to enter the world of Pleasantville, which is forever stuck in 1958. David appreciates Pleasantville and wants it to stay the way it is, but his sister Janet accompanies him. Janet brings temptation into the pure and innocent world by taking on the identity of a schoolgirl called Mary Sue. She has oral sex with the captain of the school basketball team, and she teaches older women how to masturbate. In traditional Christian thought these are terrible sins.

Even David falls into temptation. He sees the changes all around him, wrought by his sister, and he enjoys them. Not just that, he begins to argue with Norm. Norm wants to put things back the way they were, but David claims that the new ways are better.

There's a burning bush outside David's home. Could the Biblical allusions be any more obvious?

Of course, there are many other things that could be written about the film. I feel overwhelmed, unable to write an adequate description of "Pleasantville" and its themes unless I spent days writing about it.

David (Tobey Maguire) wishes he had a coloured girlfriend.

David finally finds himself a coloured girlfriend.

"Pleasantville" was highly praised by critics, but it was a box office flop. At the risk of sounding arrogant, the public wasn't smart enough to appreciate it. It's a very deep film that requires the viewer to think about it. I watched it repeatedly when it was new, I forget how many times. In the last few years it's been less often, only twice since 2010. So many films, so little time.....

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Steve Jobs (5 Stars)

How can a film in which so little happens be so good?

That's the question I'm forced to ask after watching this film today for the second time. It's a talkie. The film is divided into three scenes, and in each scene Steve Jobs, played by Michael Fassbender, talks to his friends, his co-workers and his family. That's it. It must sound boring when described like that, and yet it isn't. It's a work of genius.

In a film of any quality time is spent developing the characters, after which the plot itself develops, involving action and drama. This film is different. The whole film is spent developing the characters. Everyone is described by his relationship to Steve Jobs. It's like he's the sun, and everyone else is a planet orbiting around him. Some planets are close and receive a lot of light. Others are more distant and are only partially illuminated. This is what makes the film so powerful. 

The director is Danny Boyle, famous for making "Trainspotting" and more recently "Slumdog Millionaire". It's been about 15 years since I saw "Trainspotting". As I remember, I didn't like it. The constant bad language put me off. Maybe if I watched it again I would appreciate it more. One day I will. "Slumdog Millionaire", on the other hand, is a film I deem important enough to list as one of the 30 films everyone should watch before he dies. Check my list on the right if you're reading my blog on a PC. I've tried to compare "Steve Jobs" to "Slumdog Millionaire", and I can't do it. The films are so drastically different that I can't see how Danny Boyle progressed from one to the other in the space of seven years. Between them he made two other films, "127 Hours" in 2010 and "Trance" in 2013, neither of which I've seen. Maybe if I watch them I'll be able to trace a line between the films.

Allegiant (4 Stars)

"Allegiant" is the third film in the Divergent series, based on the novels by Veronica Roth. It begins after the death of the Erudite leader Janine. Tris and her colleagues from the Dauntless faction want to go out of the city to look for another civilisation, but they are prevented from leaving by Four's mother Evelyn. Eventually they succeed in escaping. Outside the city walls they encounter a highly advanced race that claims the city of Chicago is an experiment that has been running for 200 years. The outsiders seem benevolent, and Tris trusts them completely, but Four suspects they might have bad intentions.

The lines between good and bad become less and less clear in this film. Tris realises that she has to fend for herself. The fight sequences are more exciting than in "Insurgent", making this a better film.

Steve Jobs (4½ Stars)

This is a biographical film about the life of Steve Jobs, founder of "the other computer company". If I remember correctly, that's what Apple once called itself in an advertising campaign. In the early days of personal computers, from the late 1970's to the end of the 1980's, there were several companies that manufactured personal computers (more often called home computers), companies like Commodore, Atari and Texas Instruments, but the two most successful companies were IBM and Apple. Roughly speaking, IBM had a 60% market share, Apple 30%, and the other companies battled for the remaining 10%.

The film is effectively a play in three acts. All three acts take place in what looks like the same conference building – if it's not the same they're at least generically identical buildings – where Steve is presenting new products in 1984, 1988 and 1998. There are short flashbacks to previous events that occurred at other locations, but apart from that, everything happens on stage, in back rooms or on the roof of the building.

In 1984 Steve Jobs was presenting the Macintosh, in 1988 he was presenting the NeXT Cube, in 1998 he was presenting the iMac.

The strength of the film is that it doesn't just tell us about his successes and failures in his business life. It shows us the development of his relationship with his daughter Lisa, from the age of five (in 1984) to nineteen. At first he refuses to accept that she's his daughter, but even as time progresses we're given the impression that he rarely sees her. He didn't get on well with Lisa's mother because he thought she was only trying to get money from him.

In each act of the film the same people appear to talk to him, whether to encourage him or argue with him. There's his marketing executive Joanna Hoffman, his old friend and business partner Steve Wozniak, the corporate head of Apple John Sculley and a reporter from GQ. In their interaction with him we see that Steve Jobs was a difficult person to get on with. He had ideas in his head about what his computers should be like, but his ideas were based on aesthetics, not on commercial viability.

The film is a masterpiece from the hands of the British director Danny Boyle. The acting by Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs) and Kate Winslet (Joanna Hoffman) is amazing. I didn't necessarily get to like Steve Jobs – that wasn't the film's intention – but I got to know him inside out, and well before the end of the film I cared about him and wanted him to find a solution for the problems in his life. This level of character development is something that all films should aspire to.

The Martian (4½ Stars)

This is one of the 2015 summer blockbusters that I approached with caution. Late summer, I ought to say. It's been presented in the media with a lot of hype, as the must-watch film of the year. From the trailer and the brief synopsis it seemed to be a re-imagining of last year's "Gravity", which certainly didn't live up to expectations.Then I read an article on the film's making in which it was said that on the first day of filming that everyone involved with the film would win an Oscar. I certainly hope that was misquoted. If they were told "Let's work hard to get Oscars for everyone" it would be more acceptable, but in the form I read it it sounded awfully conceited.

I needn't have worried. The film's director is Ridley Scott, someone who can be relied on not to make a million dollar turkey. There are a few of his films that deserve to be in my "30 films to watch before you die" list, but since I was restricting myself to one film per director only "Thelma and Louise" made the cut. "Gladiator" was just as deserving.

The film is about a manned mission to Mars in the near future. Thank you for not specifying the year, it's always embarrassing when watching the film after the year has passed and we still haven't got that far. Due to a storm the mission has to be aborted and the ground crew has to leave the surface in a hurry. In the chaos of the storm one of their crew, the botanist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, is assumed to be dead and left behind. The next Mars mission is four years in the future and there isn't enough food to sustain him that long. Being a botanist he knows how to grow crops on Mars, so he makes the best with what he has -- potatoes only -- and settles in for the long haul.

The obvious film to compare "The Martian" with is "Gravity", and it compares very favourably. The main problem with "Gravity" is the credibility and scientific accuracy of the story. Even to me as someone who has never studied astrophysics, "Gravity" seemed very artificial, and Sandra Bullock's return to Earth seemed like dumb luck more than skill. In contrast "The Martian" is easy to believe, and it's obvious that Ridley Scott did his homework before making the film.

This is a film worth watching again. Wait for my next review when I have the Blu-ray Disc in my hand next year.

Will it win Oscars? Somehow I doubt it. Science fiction films rarely have success at the Academy Awards, except for technical categories like cinematography. The Academy prefers films about films, or films about actors, so "Trumbo" is a more likely film to win the major awards next year. Let's wait and see.

Dumb and Dumber To (4 Stars)

Despite being a big fan of Jim Carrey I didn't intend to see this film in the cinema. I vaguely remember seeing the first Dumb and Dumber film many years ago and not liking it. I wrote it down to Jim being at the beginning of his career and not having developed his style. However, my good friend Elisha persuaded me to see the film with her, for which I have to thank her. The sequel, though not up to the quality of most of his other films, is very watchable.

Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) had a mental breakdown after the events of the first film and has spent the last 20 years in a mental institution. His best friend Harry Dunne has been visiting him every Wednesday. Suddenly Lloyd reveals that he's only been pretending to be mad as a prank. Awesome! After Lloyd's discharge the two visit Harry's old home, where they find out that Harry had a daughter 20 years ago who has been given up for adoption. They decide to search for her, not because Harry loves her but because he needs a kidney transplant and he thinks she would be the ideal donor.

I won't write any more about the film because it's still running in the cinemas in England. Just one small thing: don't leave the cinema too soon, there's an after-credits scene.

It was interesting to see popcorn being unloaded before I went in to see the film. They sure eat a lot of it at Cineworld. And the man told me that it was only one of four pallets that had just been delivered. I hate popcorn. It isn't the taste, it's the smell. I find it so sickly. The fresher popcorn is the worse it smells. When I worked at IBM in Poughkeepsie there were microwave machines in the corridors to heat popcorn, and the smell filled the building. It was awful.

This is Elisha. Is she wild? I'm not telling.

Here is Elisha scavenging cardboard from the streets. It's all for a good cause. She needs it to pack the items she sells on Ebay.

Pleasantville (5 Stars)

For some reason I haven't watched this film for a long time. Years. I'd almost forgotten about it. But this is an amazing film, thought-provoking from beginning to end.

It's a fairytale, beginning with the words "Once upon a time". David and Jennifer are brother and sister (maybe twins), two high-school children of the 90's, but totally different in their personalities. Jennifer is the cool popular girl in class, dating boys, and no longer a virgin. David is an outsider who avoids dealing with the ugliness of reality by engrossing himself in a 1950's television series called "Pleasantville". One Friday night David and Jennifer fight over the television's remote control; David wants to watch a Pleasantville marathon, Jennifer wants to watch a concert on MTV with her boyfriend. (Note for my readers: the film was made in 1998 when there was still music on MTV). The remote control breaks, and a mysterious television repair man immediately appears at the door who gives them a replacement. As soon as he leaves they continue to struggle with the remote control, when suddenly they find themselves inside Pleasantville, dressed in 1950's clothing, and in black and white.

David and Jennifer have now become Bud and Mary Sue Parker, the children of George and Betty Parker, the main characters in the television series. David already knows the episodes inside out, so he quickly works out where they are in the series' chronology, and he advises his sister to play along with the situation until they find a way to escape. Unfortunately Jennifer doesn't conform to the world's moral code. Instead of just holding hands on her first date with Skip Martin, leader of the school's basketball team, she performs oral sex with him. This creates a rupture in the universe, and colours begin to appear. At first David tells her to stop, but then he begins to introduce his own changes by encouraging Bill Johnson, the owner of the soda shop, to be independent and paint.

People begin to change their ways, the young people first, and then the adults. Reflecting the inner changes, they turn from black and white into colour, one by one, while inanimate objects gain colours at random. The changes aren't just in moral issues, such as the teenagers beginning to have sex, which they had never done before. Actually, the parents had also never had sex. Their children had just appeared from nowhere. Everything not shown in the television episodes didn't exist until David and Jennifer introduced it into their world. But there are other changes. For instance, the children begin to read books, much to the disgust of the town's elders. Pleasantville's mayor considers sexual promiscuity and reading books to be equally abhorrent.

Change is resisted, but change wins. Gary Ross, the film's director, wants to present personal change as the catalyst for changing society. "This movie is about the fact that personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression, that when we're afraid of certain things in ourselves or we're afraid of change, we project those fears on to other things, and a lot of very ugly social situations can develop". I can see this message in the film, but to me personally the element of personal change is what I take from the film. There's a conversation between Bud and Mr. Johnson:

        Bud: "People change."
        Mr. Johnson: "Can they change back?"
        Bud: "I don't know, I think it's harder."

This is something I've experienced in my own life. 12 years ago I went through a very big change in my life. The change wasn't voluntary, it was forced upon me by a very bad person, probably the most evil person I've ever met personally. I tried to change back later, but it was impossible. At the time I was suffering from depression and asked to be admitted to hospital for help. For a week I was doing well and improving. Then a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeremy Kenney-Herbert, transferred me to another hospital where my life was put at risk by being surrounded by violent patients. At first I accused Dr. Kenney-Herbert of incompetence in misdiagnosing me, but as time progressed I recognised that he was acting with malice. For reasons I can only speculate he hated me and wanted to hurt me. I lost 17 months of my life when I could have been discharged after a few weeks and returned to work.

Do I hate Dr. Kenney-Herbert? No. If I hated him I would lower myself to his level. He couldn't act any differently. He commits evil because it's his nature. I was unfortunate that I crossed his path, that I was put under his control at the time in my life when I was most vulnerable and least able to defend myself. I'm sure that over the years he has ruined the lives of many who have crossed his path. I can be thankful that I've now moved on. I've become a stronger person despite his attempts to destroy me. But I've also become a changed person. I didn't like the changes at first, but I now accept them. I won't attempt to change back.

I've been putting off writing a full report of my time in hospital. At first I delayed it because it was too traumatic for me to write about. Then I told myself I should leave the report until a significant date, such the 10th anniversary of my discharge. When that time arrived I didn't write it out of laziness. Maybe I should do it next month when my Five Star Month is over.