Pleasantville/YMMV

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• Anvilicious: A frequent complaint is that the movie isn't exactly subtle. Of course, there are plenty who argue that this is the whole point, and it needs to be done.
  • Pretty much every non-white movie critic was extremely displeased by the movie having the nerve to use "No Colored" signs.
    • Because using symbols of racism in the fifties to show how it's bad and something that must be opposed are apparently a horrible thing to include in a movie that's largely about racism in the fifties and how it was a bad thing that needed to be opposed.
• Bellisario's Maxim: It's probably best not to think too deeply into the (most likely intentional) plot holes of the Pleasantville (the TV series) universe.
• Crowning Music of Awesome: Dave Brubeck's "Take Five", then Miles Davis' "So What" playing as David explains that there is a world outside of Pleasantville.
  • Excuse me? What about Etta James' "At Last"?
  • Two words: Buddy. Holly. That is all.
  • Fiona Apple's cover of Across The Universe was particularly good ending music.
• Fridge Horror: The TV repairman doesn't seem surprised at all that David and Jennifer ended up in Pleasantville, does he? And he never acts to try and get them out either, despite offering to consider it once or twice if they asked nicely. Toward the end, the repairman wants Bud to leave so he can "make everybody happy again". How many other kids have ended up in Pleasantville and been the subject or cause of incomplete revolutions? Where are they now? Did the town do a hard reset each time?
  • Have you ever thought about how the husbands see the situation? Imagine two folks from the world of Idiocracy coming to the Nineties of Bud and Jennifer and teaching the teenagers and wives to do.. just see the movie's page. Imagine the visitors saying that all of this is a part of Character Development. You will understand the authorities' situation better.
• Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: One of the main messages of this movie is that while the world today may be a scary place and things have worsened in some aspects (as exemplified by the class montage in the beginning of the film); one should focus on how many more things improved, instead of wallowing in the "Good 'Ol" past. To quote Roger Ebert's review:

"Pleasantville is the kind of parable that encourages us to re-evaluate the good old days and take a fresh look at the new world we so easily dismiss as decadent. Yes, we have more problems. But also more solutions, more opportunities and more freedom. I grew up in the '50s. It was a lot more like the world of 'Pleasantville' than you might imagine. Yes, my house had a picket fence, and dinner was always on the table at a quarter to six, but things were wrong that I didn't even know the words for."

• Strangled by the Red String: Averted. The points of the love triangle muse cheerfully at the end that they don't know what will happen.
• Tear Jerker: The scene where Betty turns color, and looks absolutely scared to death.
• Unfortunate Implications: Some critics wondered why the monochrome motif was even necessary, and why the same effect couldn't be achieved by replacing Bud and Mary Sue with teenagers of different, non-white races in the real world.
  • Because it would have destroyed most of the basic premises of the movie? It's rather like asking why Star Wars needed all that space travel.... it could have been done differently, but then it's not even the same movie.
• The Woobie: Bill. Especially when the B&W Mob destroys his diner and art.
  • Also, George after Betty leaves him. William H. Macy could turn Stalin into a Woobie.