Tobey Maguire

The Cider House Rules (Miramax Collector's Series)
$14.99
The Cider House Rules has nice cinematography and good acting, but it lacks a coherent plot and focus. Some things explored include the "grey" areas of life and how you can't always live by the rules; abortion; incest; coming of age; a romance between Charlize Theron's character and Tobey Maguire's character; the father/son-type relationship between Tobey Maguire and Michael Caine's character; and creating a family atmosphere in an orphanage. But it was unclear which of these themes was the main focus and how exactly they all connected.

Tobey Maguire's character leaves the orphanage he grew up in in rural Maine to find himself and explore the world. But he only gets as far as an apple farm in Maine, and apparently learns all he needs to know about life from some migrant apple pickers there. This just seems ridiculous to me, as his character barely gets out of his back yard when he's supposed to be striking out on his own and seeing the world.

The film really glorifies abortion as a positive thing, which is a turn-off. Michael Caine's character indicates repeatedly that he thinks the orphans he cares for and supposedly loves would have been better off aborted, which doesn't make sense to me. Charlize Theron's character is not the slightest bit shaken after undergoing her abortion, which again did not ring true. Erykah Badu's character, who was impregnated by her father, also undergoes an abortion, a relatively late-term one. We are supposed to sympathize with abortion in this case, but because it is late-term and her character is so flippant about it, I found myself disgusted.

Although the movie aims to celebrate moral relativism, I think it inadvertently shows the need to live by some rules...

Pleasantville (New Line Platinum Series)
$14.98
This movie was one of the few films made in recent decades with a truly original plot (another one was The Truman Show). I admit that I went to see it, expecting another leftist political propaganda movie from Hollywood, full of the usual cliches. You can argue either way that it is and it is not, but like Dead Man Walking, it does a superb balancing act. It starts out portraying the grim statistics of the present day and the contemporary characters are nothing if not contemptible (the mother is chasing after a single guy, leaving the kids alone; the sister is a cheap whore). The teenage boy takes refuge in overdosing on a 50s black and white TV show where you have a nuclear family and the horrors of contemporary life are absent, and then he is catapulted there. Once there, however, things are bland, too bland. Once he starts introducing books into the kids's lives and once the slut starts screwing around anything with pants, color begins to come into the picture. Unfortunately, things start to break down and some people suddenly start to act in a decidedly nasty way and the parents break up.
Definitely an original film. It is surprising that Hollywood produced it.

Superhero Spiderman Muscle Adult S3 Peter Parker Tobey Maguire Halloween
$114.99

Spider-Man muscle costume includes zipper back jumpsuit with muscles in legs and torso and character hood. Adult Size 42-46. Spiderman Columbia Pictures All Rights Reserved

Joyride
$2.99
I GUESS IF YOU ARE A FILM STUDENT/FAN OF ADAM WEST/HOT FOR TOBEY MAGUIRE/AMY HATHAWAY/HAVE SEEN EVERY OTHER MOVIE OUT THERE/ETC/ETC/ETC...THEN JUST MAYBE YOU COULD GIVE THIS MOVIE ANY MORE THAN 3 STARS. I DON'T THINK THE MOVIE WAS BAD - THERE WAS 20 MIN OR SO OF MILDLY ENTERTAINING CLIPS ALTOGETHER - BUT THE WAY SOME OF YOU (REVIEWERS) MAKE SOME OF THESE MEDIOCRE FILMS SEEM LIKE THIS "INTERESTING JOURNEY THROUGH THE EARLY CAREER OR SO AND SO, BLAH BLAH BLAH". . . PLEASE. HAVE SOME BALLS AND TRY TO BE A BIT MORE HONEST. SOME OF US ACTUALLY LIKE TO READ THE REVIEWS AND IT SEEMS LIKE SOME OF YOU ARE AFRAID TO BE HONEST ABOUT A FILM BEING BOOOOORING - OR MAYBE YOU COULD AT LEAST GIVE A HINT ABOUT HOW THE MOVIE IS SLOW OR HOW INCONSISTENT THE ACTING IS. YOU WOULD THINK SOME OF YOU WORKED ON THESE FILMS THAT YOU'RE REVIEWING, AS IF BEING CRITICAL ABOUT ENTERTAINMENT IS EVIL.