Rating: 
Summary: The worst Best Picture Oscar winner.
Review: I'm sorry, but "American Beauty" is yet another overrated Best Picture Oscar winner. It protrays suburban midlife-crisis in a very smug, ridiculous, and pretentious manner. The characters have about as much depth and substance as those in a TV sitcom. They're shallow, smug, and superficial charicatures. The music, cinematography, and Wes Bentley's performance as the boy-next-door are the only redeeming qualities of this movie. If you want a more honest portrayal of a American suburban family in midlife-crisis, rent Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" from 1980. "American Beauty" is really just American trash.
Rating: 
Summary: Sometimes there's so much beauty.. I feel I can't take it...
Review: This movie was without question the most brilliant, moving, deep, inspiring, and honest movie I have ever seen. It's meaning and lesson goes so deep that sadly, many people (esp. those who gave it a bad review) were lost as to what it's meaning is. While I'll state again that this movie is amazing and my all time favorite, I have to warn that if you are interested in watching a movie simply for thoughtless enjoyment- this is not your type of movie. While it does have a lot of humor, it is more intellectual and far from the slap-stick comedy commonly presented today. This is a truly enlightening film and brilliantly done, but it is not for everyone, though I recommend you see it before you rule it out as "over rated" or "not your type of movie". I think that this movie also can not be fully comprehended with just one viewing, so I suggest that if you didn't get it the first time and are not completely turned off, watch it again. It is well worth the time spent!
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite movies of all time
Review: I rank this movie among my top five in the 1990s. It presents a wonderful introspection into the thoughts and actions of what life has become for much of the american people... A middle aged man, unfulfilled by his job and desperate for something new, exiciting, and different, a woman who tries so deperately to achieve perfection and exude a (false) image of perfection and self-confidence, an insecure teenager that hides her confusion and emotions behind her beauty and her friend who struggles to realize her beauty and identity, a dictatorial homophobe military man that turns out to be gay himself, and much more...What I love about this movie is that is points out significant contradictions in the value system of american society. Keven Spacey's wife in the movie is so obsessed with exuding perfection, confidence, and success - none of which are consistant with reality - that she practically drives herself mad... and in the end the man she idolizes - "The Real Estate King" - turns out to have a disfunctional relationship and is imperfect himself. Kevin Spacey toils in an unfulfilling, degrading job for years and never discovers the happiness of his youth until he quits and works at the burger joint... The most "normal" and grounded of the characters is the "psycho" boy next door that deals drugs. The movie is just wonderful and is a must own!
Rating:
Summary: Ignore the ignorami.
Review: Anyone who gave this film a bad review is a close-minded, dim-witted fool. This is the greatest film I've ever seen in my life. It speaks directly to your soul, and those who disagree did not do as the film suggested; LOOK CLOSER!!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful.
Review: Some of my thoughts whilst viewing this superb film stem from the fact that being from another culture I judge many things about the movie to be "so typically American"... and yet, I admit that the "American life" is only a symbol of modern life in all the western civilization. A civilization that does not come out so nicely from this portrayal.
An example of this would be one of the movie's strongest parts when Annette Bening obsessingly scrubs the house she intends to sell, telling herself "I will sell this house today" over and over again as a mantra and then breaking apart at the end of the day.. Crying and slapping her face for crying... What I mean is that I judge this behavior to be very American in the sense that Americans are great believers of the self power to change one's self and the reality surrounding him, and yet, this scene can also be viewed as a cosmopolite statement about loneliness - the fact that by the end of the day all you have is yourself only, and the ways people find to make themselves miserable.... all on their struggle to what they see as happiness (money? .... Success?) I loved Kevin Spacey in this movie. I think his character is what gives this movie its charm. This could have been a totally depressing movie and is a little less so as his character somehow manages to give some comic relief - to be funny and heartbreaking at the same time. Lester has something about him that totally appeals to all of us - the courage to throw everything away - sort of achieving every one secret wish. He manages to be a total loser and a hero at the same time. This character is so human - and such a contrast to the phony uptight wife. I found the scene where he reaches out for her to be very touching... however she is more interested in the sofa. And yet, life can be beautiful and this too comes out from the movie. There can be so many good things and Lester does not need to work in a "real" job to be happy. The other characters seem all to be in a search of happiness - Ricki can see beauty only through his camera so it seems and when he is behind the camera he can become one with nature and with his surrounding. There is so much contrast between his "art" - and the beauty he can find in filming a plastic bag moving in the wind and the kind of life he leads, full of lies and deceit. He has found his way of "surviving" and in a way so did the other characters. The problem starts when these survival methods are shattered such as with Angela, Jane's friend, or when Carolyn's pretenses and fake up world is exposed. Lester is the only one who did not have pretenses (he had one secret re Angela but I feel that at least towards himself he did not lie about it) and thus I see him as a tragic hero. He did not "pretend" or lie, and yet paid the price for the others dishonesties.
Rating: 
Summary: Father Knows Best
Review: With the video release of American Beauty, now you, too, can rent or own this subversive satire of the hypocrisy, Nazism, and homophobia lurking among the freshly cut lawns and orderly subdivisions of suburban civilization. In American Beauty, an expert Hollywood eye shows an American neighborhood for what it really is: the miserable businesswoman putting on a phony, cheery face; the degraded husband who, suffering a midlife crisis, fantasizes about his daughter's girlfriend; the girlfriend, who brags of seducing older men; and best of all, the new neighbors, a retired Marine Corps colonel and his family. The homophobic colonel is of course a neo-Nazi and closet homosexual. Meanwhile, the one gay couple on the block is as sweet, decent, and tolerant as everyone else is screwed up, mean-spirited, and phony. Bad enough, that director Sam Mendes and screenwriter/co-producer Alan Ball, presume to be telling "the truth" about suburbia, but they think they're doing director-screenwriter-producer Billy Wilder [alive in 2000, at the time of original publication] proud! They said so at the Oscars. This is clear, as well, through the gimmick, copied from Wilder's 1950 masterpiece, Sunset Boulevard, of the dead protagonist's (William Holden's Joe Gillis) opening and closing narration. Mendes and Ball aren't fit to carry Billy Wilder's director's chair. Indeed, today a young Billy Wilder would be satirizing them and their ilk. Billy Wilder has never shown hatred toward the land that not only made him rich, but which saved the Viennese refugee from being turned into soap by his fellow Austrian, Hitler. And in contrast to the retired Marine Corps colonel on whom Mendes and Ball focus their hatred, see Wilder's affectionate portrait of America's fighting men in his Oscar-winning, 1953 movie, Stalag 17. Wilder -- considered anything but subtle in his day -- wore silk gloves, in contrast to the hamhanded doings here. And though cynical, he didn't ooze superiority over his characters. In Sunset Boulevard, for instance, Wilder depicted faded silent screen legend "Norma Desmond" (played by Gloria Swanson, herself a faded silent screen giant in a career-capping performance dripping in irony) as a monster, and yet, she was a monster for whom he clearly felt affection. Wilder, as screenwriter, gave Desmond the best line in the picture, which indicted the Hollywood of his time. When a police detective asks Desmond, "Didn't you used to be big in pictures?," she responds, "I AM big. It's the pictures that got small." They sure did. Mendes and Ball confuse glibness and smugness with irony, with every character a mere prop in their anti-morality tale. They promote the adolescent notion that people are good, only to the degree that they do whatever they feel like at any given moment.
And yet, the picture does have its funny moments, most of which involve Spacey, one of only two characters for whom Mendes and Ball feel any sympathy. The other character is a young, drug-dealing, peeping Tom -- but he's authentic! (The gay couple can't be counted: Their brief, superficial presence exists only to emphasize the evil of the homophobic colonel.) Much technical skill is in evidence. And the cast does marvelous work. Kevin Spacey, in particular, gives a performance for the ages, in this otherwise conventionally PC, Hollywood concoction. American Beauty has two basic attitudes, each of which is anathema to Billy Wilder's work. 1. Political correctness. Wilder made a living skewering the sort of simple-minded notions that Mendes and Ball prize. 2. Authenticity: Younger fans of this film have said things like, "It'll change your life!" They saw the film as saying that most people walk around already dead, but don't know it yet. When protagonist Lester Burnham (Spacey) has an awakening, his life can never be the same. But of course! In an Intro to Psychology lecture in 1978, wide-eyed with wonder, I heard about the philosophy that swept across America, after The War. The brainchild of the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger (1889-1977), existentialism teaches the ethics of "authenticity," of consciously living under the shadow of death, without religious evasions or "bad faith." Existentialism's impassioned attack on hypocrisy, has always made it attractive to young people. And yet, its premise -- that life is led only in the face of mortality -- is philosophy's point of departure, not its destination.
Had Ball and Mendes known anything about existentialism, they would have known that it is inseparable from ... Nazism!
Martin Heidegger's philosophy of life was of a piece with his politics. Like other Nazis, he was disgusted by the hypocrisy of bourgeois life. And then there is American Beauty's embrace of homosexuality, and insistence on an unholy trinity of Nazism, homophobia, and closet homosexuality. One of the obscenities of revisionist, pc history is the assertion that the Nazis persecuted homosexuals, just as they did Jews. In fact, the second most powerful man in the Nazi Party, Ernst Roehm, was an open homosexual, as were all of his lieutenant/lovers. Roehm headed the Storm Troopers, who openly brutalized Jews and leftists. Among many Party members, Ernst Roehm was even more popular than the Fuehrer. That's why Hitler, in an infamous "night of the long knives," had Roehm and his lieutenants murdered. It is understandable that gay activists would want to grind the history of Nazi homosexuality, and those who would tell it, under their jackboots. But Billy Wilder knew all about Roehm and Heidegger. Having grown up in suburbia, I know its problems all too well. And as a Jew who lived for five years in West Germany (1980-85), and once got his nose bashed in by an old Nazi, I know something about the problem of authenticity, too. But Mendes and Ball are strangers to such problems, their jaundiced movie a self-righteous exercise in bigotry and ignorance. In a just world, suburbanites would be able to make movies mocking Hollywood hypocrisy, say, "I Spend My Free Time and Influence Getting Murderers Paroled ... So They Can Kill Again!" Oops! That's not a movie; that's real life in Hollywood.
Rating:
Summary: A mesmerizing experience for both mind and soul
Review: American Beauty is not one of those movies you simply watch and quickly forget, and it's awfully hard to review. Only once have I walked away in mid-review, feeling quite unable to do a subject justice, but I am ready now to start again and offer my own thoughts on this extraordinary film. You know a film is something special when you wonder so many people could possibly like it. I think American Beauty can justifiably be called quite weird, and the treatment of subjects such as a relationship between a forty-two-year-old man and a seventeen-year-old girl, complete family dysfunctionality, and murder most foul doesn't normally result in critical as well as box office success, not to mention such honors as Best Picture awards. One thing this movie certainly has going for it is its shockingly original nature; no one had made a movie quite like this before. What strikes me as really quite amazing is the fact that, despite all the buzz about this movie, I still had little idea of what to expect once I finally watched it for myself. Then there is the talented cast; I can take or leave Kevin Spacey, and I do not like Annette Bening, but I can't deny their talents; I will admit that Mena Suvari was a prime motivator in my own initial attraction to this movie, though. All told, each member of the cast gave a brilliant performance. Then there is the incredible musical score, as well as the mesmerizing cinematography. Of course, the heart of American Beauty is its story. The characters in this film are all living lives of quiet (sometimes not so quiet) desperation, and that is the source of the appeal to so many people. Today's reality is unreality. Some individuals might think they want nothing more than a normal life, but I believe that, deep down, no one wants to be ordinary. Everyone wants to find a meaning for his/her life, even those who convince themselves otherwise. Who of us is really happy? American Beauty helps us acknowledge our own dreams of meaning and understanding, while at the same time it offers a level of comfort to those of us conscious of our unfulfilling lives. The characters in this film come off as quite real, albeit a surreal form of real, and they are screwed up more than we are. Lester Burnham even succeeds in finding a part of what he has been missing all his life, although that incredibly victorious moment is cut short at the end. No one is whom they claim to be here, each character hiding secrets that are ultimately brought to light in the hypnotizing final moments; there are some significant revelations that many viewers may not anticipate. These characters aren't truly fake, however; they are just unhappy. While all of this intense emotional drama could well afflict the viewer with something akin to depression, American Beauty somehow manages to deliver a message of, if not hope then at least understanding and mutual sympathy, supporting us with many moments of dark comedy along the way, holding our hands down the long passage to the ultimate door of revelation. And it is the most troubled individual of all who shows us that there is beauty in even the ugliest of circumstances, if we will just stop and look for it.
Rating:
Summary: PHENOMENAL!!!!!!!!!
Review: THIS MOVIE ROCKED! I LOVED IT! IT WAS GREAT! I ENJOYED IT ALL! I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT A FIRST-TIMER DIRECTED IT! WOW WOW WOW WOW! COULD THERE BE A GREATER DRAMA THAN THIS?! IT WAS A SUPERB FILM WITH FANTASTIC THEMATIC ELEMENTS THAT MADE IT STAND OUT ABOVE THE REST OF THE NOMINEES AT THE OSCARS!! I FOUND IT TO BE VERY POWERFUL AND IT MADE ME TEAR-UP A LITTLE AT THE END!! WHAT CAN YOU SAY ABOUT ANNETTE BENING? SHE WAS GREAT AND I FELT FOR HER AS HER HUSBAND WAS FANTACISING ABOUT AN 18 YEAR OLD GIRL! AND KEVIN SPACEY! HE WAS AS GOOD AS ANYONE COULD BE! HE DESERVED TO WIN THE OSCAR! AND SO DID ANNETTE! I LOVED THIS FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: a religious experience for me
Review: I think this is one of the most life-affirming movies I have ever seen. Wonderful message that beauty is all around us even when we are in despair, and that beauty can help us find our way. Others have raved about the performances of everyone in this movie. Phenomenal ensemble cast. I'll just add that the pivotal scene between Kevin Spacey and Chris Cooper should be shown in all classes on acting technique as an example of mastery of the craft.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid performances all around
Review: CAST: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, Mena Suvari, Peter Gallagher, Allison Janney, Scott Bakula, and Sam Robards. DIRECTED BY: Sam Mendes MPAA RATING: R for strong sexuality, language, violence, and drug use. Winning several Academy Awards, including best picture, this film showcases a great cast along with outstanding filmmakers. Director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball, while both new to the screen, make it seem like they've been doing this for years. Titled a black comedy, American Beauty focuses on a middle-aged man going through a mid-life crisis in the middle of his boring life and tries to reinvent himself, so to speak, by setting his eyes on his daughter's best friend. Kevin Spacey, who plays Lester Burnham, is showcased in one of his best roles I have seen him in. Annette Bening, who plays his wife, Carolyn in the film, is also good, but not nearly as good as Spacey's character, who takes the stage throughout the film. Wes Bentley plays Ricky, a character who takes pleasure in Spacey's daughter in the film often by videotaping her. Thora Birch plays Jane, Spacey's daughter in the film with somewhat of a strong performance, as well as Mena Suvari who plays Angela, the girl that Lester lusts over in the film. Chris Cooper plays Colonel Frank Fitts, an ex-marine father who is rigid and harsh throughout. The film flows in a manner that keeps you interested, even though you know right from the beginning how it's going to end. Still, a great film that contains great performances, both on screen and off.
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