Rating: 
Summary: I know Billy Wilder ... and You're No Billy Wilder!
Review: An American neighborhood, shown for what it really is, by an expert Hollywood eye: the miserable businesswoman putting on a phony, cheery face; the "successful" businessman whose life is collapsing; the degraded husband suffering an extreme midlife crisis, who fantasizes about his daughter's girlfriends; the girlfriend, a nymphet who likes to seduce older men; and best of all, the new neighbors, the family of a retired Marine Corps colonel. Since the colonel moralizes endlessly about the abominations he sees around him, he's of course a neo-Nazi, his homophobia a front for his closet homosexuality. Oh yeah, there are good guys -- the one gay couple on the block are as sweet, virtuous, decent, tolerant and well-adjusted as everyone else is screwed up, mean-spirited, and phony.Bad enough, that Hollywood ignorance and arrogance presumes, in the persons of director Sam Mendes and screenwiter/co-producer Alan Ball to be telling "the truth" about suburbia, but they think they're doing Billy Wilder proud. They said so openly at the Oscars. This is clear, as well, through the gimmick, copied from Sunset Boulevard, of the dead protagonist's opening and closing narration. Mendes and Ball aren't fit to carry Billy Wilder's director's chair. For one thing, Wilder -- considered anything but subtle in his day -- wore silk gloves, in contrast to the hamhanded doings here. More importantly, as cynical as he often was, he didn't constantly remind you how superior he (thought he) was to his characters. Well, at least we know that this picture's creators have healthy self-esteem. Every character in American Beauty is one-dimensional, a prop in the filmmakers' anti-morality tale. The latter apparently have an adolescent notion that people are good, only to the degree that they do whatever they feel like at any given moment. And yet, the screenplay does have its funny moments, most of which involve Spacey, the one character (the gay couple can't be counted: their brief, superficial presence exists only to emphasize the homophobic colonel's wickedness) for whom Mendes and Ball feel any sympathy. 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. Having spent my entire childhood in suburbia, I know its problems all too well. But Mendes and Ball don't. Their movie is jaundiced, without the clear-eyed view typical of Wilder in his prime. American Beauty is an ignorant, self-righteous exercise in bigotry. In a just world, suburbanites would be able to make movies mocking Hollywood hypocrisy, something like, "Hey, I Spend My Free Time and Influence Getting Murderers Paroled ... So They Can Kill Again!" Oops, I forgot. That's not a movie; that's real life in Hollywood.
Rating: 
Summary: Best movie of 1999.
Review: American Beauty is a film that summed up everything about suburbia, teenage life, midlife crisises, homosexual attitudes, and marital distress and bottled it up into a perfect 2-hour movie. I've seen it twice already, and I could watch it once a week. It truly deserved all of the praise and awards it received (execpt Spacey's Oscar should have gone to Denzel). I can't wait for the DVD to be released (as long as it is not widescreen [I HATE THAT]).Watch it, you won't regret it.
Rating: 
Summary: Didn't live up to expectations
Review: Although the movie was at times beautiful, and the characters all nice and quirky, it somehow seemed shallow and flat. I expected so much more... perhaps as the writer below suggested, it's much much better on DVD, but then perhaps the movie studios should have released the DVD at the same time as the movie. It was a good movie, but I did not think it was great.
Rating:
Summary: This got best picture...?
Review: ... and best director? Best original screenplay? Something tells me the votes were stolen at the same time as the Oscars. American Beauty is a long way from the worst movie of last year, but it's even further from the best. This satire purports to hold a candle up to the hidden underbelly of suburban America. It doesn't. While the story premise isn't bad, the characterization turns out to be almost uniformly one-dimensional (only Mena Suvari has any fun with her role). You pretty much know what to expect from each character within forty or fifty frames of meeting them. Where's the beef? American Beauty is beautifully filmed, but anyone who thinks this work reveals anything whatsoever about America probably believes everyone in France wears a beret and eats frogs......
Rating:
Summary: American Beauty DVD review
Review: I am one of those who has been lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of the DVD screener of American Beauty. This format really allows the movie to flourish. I watched the Pan and Scan VHS version and the difference is unvelievable. The picture quality of the transfer is unbelievable. Crisp, clear, sharp images, and the colors are spectacular (especially the ever-present and crucial Red's). Even though this movie did not have many surround sound effects, the ambient noise that was produced made for a very nice field of sound in my viewing room. The movie was presented in widescreen, exactly the same as in the theaters. This was a great film transfer. There were very few (if any) artifacts in the film, and there was minimal cases of "shimmering" in the movie. All in all this DVD gets a 5/5. (The only things i didn't like, but i expected since it is a screener, is that the entire movie is on a single chapter that is 2 hours long. And periodically during the movie a notice comes up about illegal sale, copywrite, public presentation, sales.. yadda yadda yadda). I have been borrowing this DVD from an old friend of mine for two weeks now, and I have watched it at least 12 times. Each time i watch it, I fear for the day when i must return it to him.
Rating: 
Summary: Take the Jump
Review: Peel back the facade of "Leave It To Beaver" America and what do you find? "American Beauty." This film, as one of my friends accused, portrays only dysfunctional families and individuals. Am I missing something? Aren't we all, in some way, functioning outside the parameters of our factory specs? Or are "things," such as $4000 sofas and illicit relationships, what our Designer had in mind for us to pursue? This movie, through brilliant and understated acting, takes us into the lives of people who are dealing with these questions in drastically different ways. The film's haunting, slow-paced honesty sits down beside you and casually drapes an arm over your shoulder. The question is whispered in your ear as you stare straight ahead: "Do you see yourself in any of these people?" And, as the plot twists tighter toward the end with surprising energy, you realize that you've been suckered into jumping aboard a hurtling train that's headed toward a ravine with the bridge washed out. Washed out by the power of small, but deadly choices--choices we all face at some point in our family histories. Just as Kevin Spacey's character begins to turn from the brink and see the beauty of his own wife and daughter, the dark honesty of his choices catches up with him. We are left to decide for ourselves which is more dangerous--to jump off the train or to jump on as it hurtles toward the danger of "American Beauty." Either way you jump, the impact of the landing will leave you stunned at the end of the film.
Rating:
Summary: Emotional Breakdown, Follow through sappy
Review: The beginning of the film remains great. An unhappy man, Lester Burnham (played nicely by Kevin Spacey) trapped in an ordinary and pathetic existence. His equally unhappy wife, Carolyn (played Robotically by Annette Benning), and daughter Jane, feel their own personal pain but can't seem to express their feelings to each other. The set up of the film is brilliant. It's a shame it's follow through isn't. Instead, it goes down a one way course of adolescent, trivial nonesense where Lester tries to find some sort of meaning to life by quiting his job, smoking pot and lusting after his daughter's friend, Angela. Too bad Lester doesn't do something significant and daring, the film isn't set up that way. It's takes cliche's one after another, but works out fairly well. The charm of the film relies on Kevin Spacey's humor, which won't disappoint. But the film also takes a downside when trying to delve into Carolyn's life. She has the cliche affair with another man, which doesn't ever seem to pan out. We're left with a robotic image and characature of an unhappy housewife, not a human being.
And then there's the teenage aspect. With Jane, everything seems at odds. But then again, that's what being a teenager is all about. With her new love interest, who can't stop filming stuff, it seems interesting. And then the ending, which seems so poetic, so lyrical, it's beautiful. This movie had so much potential to be great. Too bad it wasn't.
Rating:
Summary: Just an ordinary man with nothing to lose
Review: I couldn't get enough of this movie! I watched it 3 times in a row and I must own it! I offers a view of how life is preceived by each main character. Things are not always as they seem. I love Kevin Spacey, he's so honest and real! And Annette has never been one of my favorite actors, but she was GREAT! I felt as though I got a feel for what life was like for each of them. It reminded me of Pulp Fiction as far as the ending makes it all come clear.
Rating:
Summary: American Truth
Review: In the beginning of the movie I was expecting a grim, unrealistic, and "typical" view of teenagers, family life, and American culture. I was wrong. American Beauty stirred me and made me feel sympathy for characters I would normally feel unsympathetic towards. The acting was exceptional by all characters, and although the cinematography was different, it fit the edgy film perfectly!(Roses were just perfect, and the bag scene was divine) This film examines nearly all aspects of society and yet maintains cohesion and universiality without overdoing it. I love Lester Burnham! This is a great film, powerful in its message, powerful in its delivery.
Rating:
Summary: "American Beauty" the American family the way it is.
Review: "American Beauty" is the directoral debut for Sam Mendes, and it stars Academy Award winners Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening as seemingly normal people until you get to take a good look under the surface. That's the beauty of it, when you see into Lester Burnham's thought's you realize that you yourself are flawed and that is why you can sympatize with his character. Annette Bening screams, kicks, and cries through a marriage going nowhere and finds solace in another man. You are looking at people that at first glance are regular but you are not meant to judge them, you are meant to look under the surface and see a bit of yourself. This is a refreshing work because it digs under the outside of one's persona and exposes the intracatces of life.
|
