TS: Pleasantville vs. Dark City vs. The Matrix!

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Ideologically, now! We already know what Ebert thinks!

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

Pleasantville. Shagging is a force for good.

― Taste the Blood of Scrovula (noodle vague), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

Vs. http://www.dacre.org/flash/www/gbq04440.jpg

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

I fucking love those first two films. The Matrix is pretty cool. Can we include The Truman Show too?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:42 (twenty years ago)

I've seen all these. Dark City I can't remember much about but I remember liking it a lot (especially considering that I wasn't expecting much from it) and I want to watch it again. Pleasantville I liked. I don't think I could watch The Matrix now (well, not unless I think about it in the sense that Baudrillard would, but then again he felt that his ideas presented in the film were misinterpreted). I'll go for Pleasantville if only for Joan Allen pleasuring herself in a bathtub with running water warping my then 13-year-old mind about female masturbation.

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:43 (twenty years ago)

Dark City had a cooler training montage, but the first Matrix flick was much more gnosticy.

― kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

I think I'm gonna have to go for Pleasantville cos it seems a much more rounded epiphany that people have, plus they're not forced into it by brain-eating aliens or giant robots but rather gently coerced by the joy of cultural and sexual and emotional discovery.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:51 (twenty years ago)

Pleasantville.
It's a beautiful film, and particularly underrated.

― jellybean (jellybean), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:54 (twenty years ago)

Truman Show is good, but I don't think it's on the same spiritual tip. Really if you distill it down Truman Show has more in common with EdTV, the protagonist is only freeing himself from a single enemy, not saving the world.

They should have made it so that when Bud punches Whitey in Pleasantville, Whitey flies back fifteen feet and shatters a brick wall.

Other than that I think Pleasantville probably wins, but Kiefer's fucked-up paranoid scientist gimmick is way better than either Don Knotts or Lawrence Fishburne.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

Eternal Sunshine, dood.

― Tigerstyle Shamanic Vision Quester (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

Yeah but TOMBOT there is the idea that Truman's existential emancipation will help to free the viewers from the drudgery of their own lives - why have they been so obsessed with his life, and now that he has stepped outside his life (as Neo and Rufus and Bud and Reese do) will he enable them to step outside of their lives too?

I once had an odd chat with a friend and we concluded that Being There is almost like a What Happened Next to The Truman Show.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:00 (twenty years ago)

I almost confused Pleasantville w/ Mumford and posted something about Hope Davis.

― David R. (popshots75`), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

If there had never been Matrices 2 & 3, then I would choose The Matrix.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

i find pleasantville dull

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:05 (twenty years ago)

Dark City, mostly for the SLEEEEEEEP thing.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

Who said Eternal Sunshine? Stay in left field, you!
Matrix Reloaded was the best of the three!

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

I agree with both your sentiments.

― Tigerstyle Shamanic Vision Quester (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:45 (twenty years ago)

I mean, I took the thread title to imply "Philip K Dick Movies not based on Philip K Dick"

― Tigerstyle Shamanic Vision Quester (sexyDancer), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:47 (twenty years ago)

Okay so I thought about it and decided ANOTHER strike against Truman in this thread is that everything going on there is presented as completely ho-hum par-lamps and painted clouds on a giant soundstage. There's nothing supernatural about Truman's world or anything that goes on it, unless you want to count Ed Harris wearing that fucking beret.

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 16:48 (twenty years ago)

Ok so maybe that strikes Truman out on a technicality but I'd argue that the lack of supernatural / hypertehcnological elements actually makes it even more scary and profound.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Thursday, 7 July 2005 06:58 (twenty years ago)

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