Issue #11/66, June 3 - 17, 1999  

Boy, I couldn't have predicted this one. Go, Doug Liman's follow-up to the impossibly (given the subject matter) good Swingers, is a great big tedious disappointment. That I was prepared to handle.

But worse than being just a poorly written, lazily directed Pulp Fiction for

Posterchildren of the Nu Earnestness!

kids, this movie is apparently a representative of this whole Nu Earnestness genre of teen pulp culture, which I had previously experienced only indirectly through cheeky webzines, as well as about half an episode of the genre's flagship, Dawson's Creek (it was the episode after the "bitchy slut" died and all the earnest high schoolers were getting in touch with and expressing their feelings about the tragedy--for those familiar with the show). I can't claim to be an expert on the genre by any means, but for our purposes I think it's safe to describe it succinctly as dim, affluent teens mistaking melodramatic complaints and selfish rationalization for meaningful insights and self-knowledge. And now that I've finally experienced it firsthand, I can say that it's every bit as bad as it sounds.

One can only hope that the inevitable Neo-Nihilism backlash will be around soon, after which we may finally get that Noo Ernestness (i.e., a brand new batch of those "Hey Vern" Ernest movies) I've been secretly dreaming of since like 1995. Wishful thinking, probably, but like fuck it, ya know?

Only the drug dealer (played by Timothy Olyphant--nice stage name!) carries echoes of the magic of Swingers, although even this character is spoiled somewhat with one of those obligatory last-minute surprise twists that always seem to pop up in these mobius-strip PulpFictionabee flicks.

Other than that, it seems like just about all the young cast members are either television actors (including even Nu Ernest youth brigader Katie Holmes of Dawson's Creek), Canadian, or both. And having recently read up on the appallingly lax child labor laws the Canadian film lobby has managed to pass in order to lure an ever greater number of Hollywood productions north of the border, it sickens me to think that these Canuck monsters are taking precious roles away from worthy American thespians. To paraphrase Slayer, when you live by the profit margin, you die by the profit margin. When are NATO bombs going to take out these Anglophile fucks, that's what I'd like to know.

The film's also chock full of wonderful messages for today's earnest youngsters. For instance, hard drugs always get you into big, big trouble, while smoking pot is healthy, progressive, and possibly even socially acceptable. Homosexuals are always about five seconds away from accidentally murdering some unsuspecting hetero, often simply by virtue of their gaiety (this movie stereotype has survived for so long in PC Hollywood that I'm starting to suspect it might be true). You can be as stupid as you like while fucking with bad dude criminal types' action; everything will turn out just super so long as you're not an evil person. Furthermore, Jay Mohr is to be considered hip, apparently. This is clearly a problem.

Add to this a setting deep in the heart of rave culture, black-talking suburban whities who remind me of annoying dipshits who never graduated from my junior high school, and a discussion of tantric sex, and you've got a foolproof recipe for a movie that no one will ever want to see more than once.

In this day and age, you can pretty much judge how bad a movie is going to be by the number of unimaginative online fansites and unfunny parodies it engenders. This appears to be especially true when the sites are simply repeats of the movie's official site, minus any banner ads (although these new media Joseph Bidens usually leave all the copyright notices in place--that always kills me). Pleasantville has literally dozens of these little barely literate, gush propaganda sites to its credit.

Sure enough, this is a very mediocre movie, one which--like most mediocre movies these days--is about 63% longer than it needs to be. If anyone's

Welcome to Blundyville!

counting, this is at least the third "life is a television show" flick in the last year. Although less successful than The Truman Show, Pleasantville has nevertheless garnered an equally alarming number of positive reviews. (The hapless EdTV, meanwhile, plods along a distant third with that curly-haired freak Matthew McConnaughey in the saddle, making it the Moscow Tribune of "media-invasion" movies. Fittingly, I thus find myself occasionally wondering whether EdTV actually exists at all, despite having seen a few seemingly genuine commercials for the thing.)

Perhaps the surest sign of Pleasantville's mediocrity is the name of the writer and director, Gary Ross. This name probably won't mean too much to most of you, but suffice it to say that he also had a hand in writing (often on an uncredited basis) movies such as Big, Dave, The Flintstones, and even some version or another of Lassie. In other words, this is a man who has finger firmly on the pulse of middlebrow America, and who can always be counted on to forge an unmemorable comedic moment from the misfortunes of a mean person, an adult, or a domesticated beast that's not deemed sufficiently cute by American viewing standards.

And Ross has certainly outdone himself here (if it's possible to say that about a first-time director), combining his unique brand of middle-of-the-road pseudo-intellectualism with a raw talent for sub-creative rehash that must be the envy of his Brentwood apartment block. In just one insignificant film

How's that Sierra workin' out for ya?

that's apparently all about the transformation of the American dream over the last fifty years, Ross manages to fit in edgeless replay performances by Jeff Daniels and William H. Macy (knocking off their own work in The Purple Rose of Cairo and Fargo, respectively), effectively associates this whole bowling craze with a vaguely fascistic reactionary political movement (spooky echoes of the Columbine shootings), gives me at least three new reasons to deeply despise Vanity Fair's latest crop of hot young actors, and even finds something for the apparently still-sucking-air Don Knotts to do (perhaps in anticipation of this upcoming Mr. Limpet movie I keep hearing is on its way--Phantom Menace, look out!).

It all sounds fairly schizophrenic, and that's because it is. In those (not infrequent) moments when the movie does create some dramatic tension, it's usually squandered pointlessly as the characters are sent off to putter in some new, unpromising direction by the restless director. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for aimlessness when it's called for, but someone on the set should have been yelling "Digression!" in Ross's ear every time he got off track. They could've had two or three assistants working in shift so as to avoid laryngitis and the potential lawsuits this would almost certainly have entailed.

Sooner or later, at least a few people with some brains left will force themselves to admit that this movie--and many others like it--is not particularly good. I have absolutely no confidence that I'll still be among the living by that point in time.

Until then, I recommend spending your free time rereading the works of our own Stuart Pratt. Something tells me they'll come in handy.