Rating: 
Summary: American Beauty=American Classic
Review: This Film is outstanding! There is something that anyone can appreciate in this film. It's hard to discuss this film without spoiling a lot of it, which is also what makes this film so great. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a true American hero. He's not stunningly handsome, overly rich, or possessive of a will to make the world a better place. In fact, he seems to be the anti-thesis of the term. But his spirit is what has made him one of my personal fictional idols. After he realizes that his life is pointless, he ventures down the road of enlightenment. To him, this means blackmailing his company, lifting weights, fantasizing about his daughter's best friend, and smoking pot like he did in his better years. It is the outrageousness of his new hobbies that make this film so hilarious. It seems to be more of a drama, but you will definitely fall over at points. It seems that the point of the film is that freedom is not the successes of responsibility, but freedom of doing whatever it takes to be happy. To some, this may mean becoming a serial killer or a degenerate, but to Lester Burnham, it's all about listening to rock n roll, smoking pot, cruising his vintage Firebird, and causing domestic havoc with his family. It couldn't paint a more accurate picture of what American suburbia has become to many of its citizens.
The acting is superb, and it offers real humor along with a solid plot with a good moral. Watch it once and it will be only the first time of many.
Rating:
Summary: Pictures speak louder then words
Review: This movie unfolds much like a documentary on everything that is wrong with America. The story begins with Kevin Spacey's narrative that this is his story of the last year or so of his life. So we start out already knowing that his character, Lester, has died for some reason. It is based on the lives of 2 families, and I think alot of personalities are represented. The over-bearing, prudish wife who is concerned only with appearances and what people think of her. She is repressing her true feelings to fool everyone, and herself, that she is happy with her life. She has forgotten how to laugh. Lester is the husband that needs to regain his self respect and stop living just to survive. Their daughter, Janie, is trying to deal with being different, fitting in and trying to find out who she is. Her friend, Angela, awakens something in Lester and makes him realize that there is more to life then trying to please everyone else. The next-door neighbors has the ex-army, homophobic man, who is more of an abusive drill sargent then a husband and father. He is a hateful person and clearly fears his own true feelings. His son is the one who helps awake Janie and show her the true beauty in life. I think this movie shows how destructive conformity and lack of self-expression is. We live with a great deal of this in this country. We are taught through religion or other means to feel guilt for natural feelings and to conform to what people think of as "acceptable". At the ending of the movie, we witness that society's violence begins at the place where creativity and self-expression is controlled. The surreal vibe of the movie is brought to life with a haunting musical score and sprinkled with dark and witty humor. Of coarse Kevin Spacey gives a spectacular performance. I am sure people will get different meanings from this movie, but this is what I got out of it. Learn to accept yourself and enjoy finding your beauty.
Rating:
Summary: An American Beauty of a Movie
Review: To me this movie is a classic. Don't let anyone spoil anything for you if you haven't seen it. This movie is both a comedy and a drama. The movie is thoughtful with twists, humor, and storyline. The acting is superb. The movie is about a man that is 42 years old with a wife and daughter. They pretty much hate each other and are all pretty much miserable. The main character Lester Burnham(Kevin Spacey) narrates to you that he will die in less than a year. He doesn't know it, and he doesn't tell you how he does. From this point on, he pretty much tries to turn his life around from being miserable into being happy. In the process, he makes everyone else miserable and everyone hates him then. The movie is quite hilarious and is very enertaining.
Rating:
Summary: If I could give it more stars . . I would
Review: This is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life. The character interaction between the Burnham family is spectacular. The entire cast is absolutly wonderful.Kevin Spacey did what all people wish they could do. . . Take back their life and reclaim their youth from the soul-sucking monotony that is everyday suberbia, and a lousy job. Trade in the Camry for a '69 Camaro, it'll save your soul. Ditracters of this film only dislike it because their lives are too much like it. They realize that they are stuck in a job and life that they do not want and see themselves unable to do what Spacey does in the film. This movie makes you want to live life in the moment, I cannot think of any other movie that has that kind of effect.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: This is the greatest movie out
it's about a man with a useless life who sets out to change his life forever ... and quits his highly paid job to work at a fast food outlet. This is a move for anyone who wonders if their is any depth behind your average family seeing thi you'll definetly think so.
Rating:
Summary: True Beauty
Review: first off- I think the title is great. It is ironic, it is compelling, it sounds like Academy Award material. Then there is the cast. I thought Thora Birch and Kevin Spacey were simply magnificent. They were in complete control of their roles and tagged each scene perfectly. They possesed the camera. Sure, Wes Bentley, Annete Benning and Chris Cooper really hit their marks- but again, Spacey and Brich stood out the most to me, personally.
I must admit, the movie depressed me and brought me to tears at moments- I don't want to say why, becasue it would give away major plot lines. Honestly, I was not allowed to see this at first, and I now understand. This movie is one of the deepest, most perplexing and saddening storyies I have ever seen brought to the Silver Screen. This movie deals with everything considered coming of age or teenager. And surprisingly, alot of this is partrayed best and most through Kevin Spacey's middle aged, mid-life crisis suffering character.
Sure Thora Birch and her counter part played by Wes Bentley are teen enough. But hey, Kevin Spacey was everything rolled into one. And the thing with the Colonel, that was very teenager/coming of age/ deciding which path you must take-esque.
I can really elate with some of the feelings portrayed in this film and I give it seven-stars. I very thoroughly enjoyed this true gem of cinematic excellence.
Rating: 
Summary: see it for the performances
Review: I actually enjoyed this movie, but also felt it thought too highly of its shock-power. The producers think it's shocking that the charm of American suburbia (gasp) conceals an existence of crass materialism, self loathing and the destruction of the American Family, not to mention a fair amount of sexual tension and not just a bit of homophobia. Forgetting that PBS charted the destruction of the Loud family about 20 years ago, there still can't be anybody left alive harboring such blithe adoration for the american nuclear family as this film supposes there must be. Homosexuality, marijuana abuse, teen sex, pedophilia and ambition probably would have terrified a generation of Americans raised on "Father Knows Best", but comes as little shock to the "Married with Children" era. The film centers on Kevin Spacey's character, Lester Burnham (which I assumed aptly played on the words "let's just burn him" - which gives you an idea of what the world thought Lester was good for). Lester is trapped in a dead end existence. He's stuck in a dead-end job (soon to be lost); his wife (Benning) alternates between frigid and shrewish (She's a real estate agent whose concern with maintaining an appearance of success has turned her into a walking façade); Jane (Birch) the less pretty or sociable half of any pair of girls, is distant throughout the film. A cheeleader, Jane's closest friend is Angela (Suvari) a prettier girl whose sexual bragging and promiscuity mask a fear of being ordinary. Though for many years a dead man only apparently alive, something resuscitates Lester - whether it's an infatuation with Angela or the friendship he strikes up with Ricky Fitts, Jane's boyfriend and the son of their next door neighbor - the film never decides. (Annoyingly, the film doesn't even seem to realize that Lester's motivations are unclear, assuming that they naturally stem from some fantasy shared by middle-aged white-males across America, but inexplicably realized only by Lester). Becoming one of Ricky's steady customers (Ricky's an amateur filmmaker, though he's a professional pot dealer) Lester is emboldened to quit his job, but not before he blackmails his boss for a generous severance package. Out of job, Lester begins remaking himself as a teenager - taking up bodybuilding, marijuana and a job at a nearby fast food drive-through, buying a GTO and seriously campaigning for Angela. Complicating things are Lester's wife (whose existence depends on maintaining appearances of stable success), his daughter (who isn't ready to share friends with her father) and Mr. Fitts himself - a former marine whose homophobic rants, patriotism devotion and love for WWII movies are meant to remind us that the plot is about the delusions of a uniquely American suburb, rather than one set anywhere in the western world (.... This movie got plenty of notice, a lot of it unearned. Though the film taunts us to "look closer" - as if we're going to see something that will challenge us - much of the film is devoted to showing us what a great guy Lester is, and how we should envy his existence which has become an endless summer. Complicating things for the film is Ricky's character - who is both Jane's lover and Lester's role model - yet never manages to be the same person at the same time (you get the sense that his role as one should muck up his relationship with the other). Nothing else here is bound to really scare you - Jane and Ricky have sex, but they also talk; Angela's boats about sex seem to be all talk. If the movie succeeds at anything, it's only because of the performances - Annette Benning who brings a fair amount of sympathy to a largely unsympathetic role, Kevin Spacey who gets us to root for his rootless existence and both Bentley and Birch whose relationship could have made the whole thing come off like an episode of "Dawson's Creek".
Rating: 
Summary: Disgusted
Review: This film makes me feel disgusted and angry.It is all about a grown man trying to get it on with his daughters highschool friend,a real winner.This movie will encourage paedophiles to think it's OK to look at school girls in a sexual light instead of as kids.I'm surprised anyone loved this movie.It should never have been made.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful satire
Review: This is a brilliant satire on middle America and an exhilarating exploration of what is "normal" and "ordinary". The central character (Spacey) embarks on an odyssey of self-discovery and liberates himself from a pointless marriage, a pointless job, and a pointless lust for a Lolita-type schoolgirl --...The only jarring element here is the parodistic military man next door. Spacey is superb and the direction is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: A must see movie
Review: American Beauty is one of the most amazing movies I have ever seen. Kevin Spacy offers his best performance ever. In a way the movie portrays a "difunctional family" that deals with issues we seem to forget about. Annette Benning's character wants the happy home life, but is to caught up in material possesions and social stature. Lester (Spacy) is the average working father who has nothing to lose. Lester's outlook on life is amazing. The movie is absolutly incredible. It well deserved an Academy Award. Everything, the soundtrack, dialect, actors and plot, was in perfect unison with each other. How could anyone not love this movie.
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