Pleasantville is suppose to be a fictitious town on TV but with the strike of a cosmic button, Tobey Maguire's David and Reese Witherspoon as Jennifer gets transported into the reel dimension. They become part of the Parker family, a black and white community with everything in 'perfection' and order and where everyone is well, pleasant. Good thoughts, good will and all existence from rice squares and pancakes to the trees and the flowers are well, 'swell'. The only problem for the Parker siblings besides being trapped in a foreign time-warp are the citizens. They think straight and live life in a repetitive order with no self-expression nor do they display signs of human nature ie. fault. Sex, art, individualism, opinions and colours are introduced in every way imaginable to the sheltered town by the Parkers and soon Pleasantville illuminates with life and knowledge. The straight-collar and obstinate majorities are of course resistant to such radical concepts of change and manages to cast well-spread discrimination against the 'colored' people.

Nominated for multiple Oscars, this movie will undoubtedly give you a run for your money. Tobey (The Ice Storm) is well chosen as the geeky fan of the TV series Pleasantville while Reese (Fear) is just as convincing as the school slut turned girl-next-door. William H. Macy (A Civil Action) and Joan Allen (The Ice Storm and The Crucible) play the Parker parents. With literally half the movie in black and white and the other in colour, the introduction of the latter is so delicate and thoughtful colours have never looked more refreshing and precious. Besides the impressive visual effects of blending b/w images with coloured ones seemlessly, Pleasantville is beautiful in its thought-provoking themes and suggestive implications. Conformity over change and 'continuity over alteration'? Touchy issues of bigotry and acceptance, passion and exploration have never been more interestingly tackled. Tobey scores as the bookworm who found the leader and man in him and later learns to lead and influence the entire town while Reese wins as well, transforming into a likeable chick with a heart.

Pleasantville is everything the attractive trailer suggests and more. Despite a casual pace and a length of 2 hours, it manages to compensate with a talented stellar cast, apt soundtrack, awesome visuals and a bold theme. Recommended to the cynics and mules amongst others. Click on the images to visit the cute official website.


LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

This year's best foreign language winner at the academy awards sure deserves its recognition and hype. Italy's versatile talent Roberto Benigni received another accolade at the Oscars for his performance as the cheerful father and husband who helped his loving wife and young son cope with the 2nd world war holocaust with humour and optimism. With dozens of international film awards, La Vita e Bella shows that life is indeed beautiful amidst the dark times of terror and fear. Roberto radiates a keen sense of warmth and hope as he creates a make-belief game scenario in the prison camp for his son while they were separated from his wife. This touching tale is more dramatic than perceived through the light-hearted trailer despite the jovial comedian doing Charlie Chaplins and ocassionally Jim Carrey stunts. This unprecedented style of using humour in conveying a war story surprisingly heightens the emotions and deepens the tragedy. Rest assure though that there isn't a hint of black comedy as this best picture nominee spends its 1st hour showing Guido's (Roberto) courtship of his wife and the 2nd half telling the story of their lives in the concentration camp.

Clear and concise subtitles along with the winning soundtrack more than express the simple but amazing account from Joshua, the son of Guido. Although little or no bloodshed and abuse is visually shot, the anguish of the Orefices of just being separated from each other cuts deep. A little slow in picking up initially, the story will flow like a moving documentary in no time. Don't let the foreign language discourage you. Such messages and theme transcends barriers. Spare a little time to share the wonderful story of Joshua Orefice.


THE MATRIX

This is how reality goes... The world we live in (cities, work, jobs, malls etc.) is a realm created by A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) to keep the human beings thriving and 'happy' while they serve as potent forms of fuel for these robots. Men have been sown ever since the end of the 20th century for about a hundred years now and all but a lucky few are ignorant of this horrid truth. This artificial realm is known as the Matrix where logical rules of gravity and space are nothing more than part of an intricately woven web of illusion. A hackers team have been fighting for their lives upon this discovery and lead by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne of Event Horizon), they believe that Neo is the chosen one to alter the present state of mankind.

Keanu Reeves plays Neo to perfection with his waif-model shaped body and exotic look. He revives the Jack (Speed) after years of countless disappointing roles. With a futuristic feel reminiscent of Harrison Ford's Bladerunner, this sci-fi action adventure is original and almost clever. A cool theme and interesting concept for a movie which seemed to only be offering high-quality special effects and stylish choreography as seen in the trailer. Coming to that, the limited but well rehearsed fighting scenes are truly impressive with an Eastern influence. The martial arts combining state-of-the-art visual effects make them look 21th centuric and very much like a virtual fighting game. With flawless moves and kicks, Keanu obviously prepared well covering all of them without the help of a body-double. Laurence did an equally impressive job as the teacher and servant of Neo, with cool power punches and wispy agilic steps seen only on virtual reality arcade games. Gothic Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss of the late Models Inc.) plays a cold and collected femme fatale who first introduced the power of the Matrix to us with her opening escape scene. A role one will think only Uma Thurman (The Avengers) can pull off, Carrie-Ann and her jet black hair proves otherwise. She and Keanu with those black leather coats and pants put the MIB to shame with their Ray-Ban look.

This guy movie is not action-packed standing at over 2 hours. Much of it is dialogue about the matrix : its discovery and the ways to conquer it. The well spaced out action sequences will compensate for its apparent lack as will the beauty of the story as the mystery and doubts unrevel slowly but surely. If you're considering this, go for it but do not overhype yourself as the cool fights seen in the trailer are not what all this picture is about. It's nice to finally see Keanu Reeves back in form (way cool!), kind of like when you see Julia Roberts in My Best Friend's Wedding. Will these stars stop ditching their trademark roles already!


A SIMPLE PLAN

A Simple Plan was what it started out to be for 3 ordinary guys to keep the $4 400 000 dollars they found in a plane crash with a dead pilot. When fate works against them and carelessness creeps in, cover-ups and more mistakes entail. Murders and betrayals, doubting and questioning, the 2 brothers (Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton) and their old friend get themselves into a mess beyond their imagination. These films always start out a certain way and most of the time we can expect them to go through a certain stage of 'mess' but what thrills is probably the unpredictable outcome. These characters always never go scot free without a catch or two. This Oscar nominated screenplay recognises the realism and digestible plot without any out-of-the-world twists or improbable turns. This movie is serious and almost scary as it very convincing illustrates how normal human beings like you and me will reaction to extraordinary circumstances. This predicament Hank (Bill Paxton of Mighty Joe Young) and wife (Bridget Fonda of Jackie Brown) are in unleashes aspects of them they're never seen of each other or themselves. Shallow Grave without its offbeat attitude set in Fargo is close to what you'll get in A Simple Plan. Billy Bob Thornton displays another effortless performance as a loyal but slow brother caught in this bloody trail which was suppose to lead to happiness. The irony of it all and the full circle of the film gives this picture a beautiful and satisfying closure at the end. For those in search of Ravenous manslaughter or action cop-chases, try this not. Plan is subtle and biting, right till the end.


ENTRAPMENT

Set around the world, this sensual thriller is more corny than sexy and unfortunately as 'thrilling' as expected. Exotic Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a crafty thief under a government bureau investigation cloak who needs the help of the world's finest art-stealing crook to accomplish 2 of her most dangerous illegal endeavours ever. Suave Sean Connery plays this debonair crook stylishly and effortlessly whose heart is courted by the feline The Mask Of Zorro beauty and struggles to maintain a professional relationship. Obviously mission impossible when the 28 year old spends half the time in spandex and the other half in skin-cladded dresses while still managing to find time sleeping in her birthday suit.

Grossly mismatched and eekly incestuous to some, this odd couple manages to not turn stomachs until they start bantering like love-struck adolescents towards the end. The action's there but clearly out-dated and so is the 'been-there-done-that' load of high-tech bulls**t jargon that is suppose to provide a glaze of ingenuity and intelligence to the thieves' plans. With little to stay attentive towards except for Cat's wardrobe, Entrapment (a euphermism of the cops for blackmail, well, at least according to the show) falls way short of a clever thief film with its 2-D characters and way-too-corny script. Sadly, a miss is in this case is perhaps a gain.


FORCES OF NATURE