Rating: 
Summary: Is there any question?
Review: ...about the greatness of this film?
It's an incredible movie, one of the most incisive and insightful of our time. Decades from now, we'll remember this as one of the finest films of its time, a defining feature of the turn of the millenium period in America.
Only problem: seems odd that this is described as a "dark comedy," though it has humor, the humor is overshadowed by the "dark."
Rating:
Summary: For Those that Hate the Movie
Review: "Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope."
-Oscar Wilde
Rating: 
Summary: Hollywood Hideous
Review: Once again, a film depicts the boredom and shallowness of suburban America. But this one had overly stereotypical characters and little originality. One of the worst examples of this was the white middle class houswife/real estate agent trying unsuccessfully sell a house. She over acted the part of the phony, foolish salesperson who did not connect with the customers. To maximize her white suburban foolishness, her skeptical customers included an Hispanic couple, a black couple, and what appears to be lesbian couple. The scene of her with the difficult lesbian couple was stolen right from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, when Judge Reinhold's character was waiting on two difficult gay customers in the fish joint, while wearing that ridiculous pirate uniform. The difference is, Ridgemont was funny. American beauty was stupid. I guess the Academy in Hollywood liked the message. They sure are easy to fool.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful satirical comedy/drama:
Review: american beauty is about lester and carolyn burnham, who marraige is slowly falling apart and his daughter janie who hates her dad. lester quits his job and blackmails his boss.
carolyn has an affair with a realistate king, buddy kane.
jane falls in love with rick, the boy next door who films and is obsessed with beauty. lester lusts after one of jane's friends who is over sexed. this movie has a satireical comedic theme but also makes you appreciate the beautiful and good things in life. I own the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Visually Artistic, Well Acted
Review: 'American Beauty' is an artistic film that uses a great deal of cinematic skill to underscore the ironies in one man's life, with the ultimate irony being that regardless of temptation, each person will be true to their ideals when faced with ultimate threats to those ideals. Kevin Spacey plays Lester Burnham, who is fired very early in the film. Annette Bening plays his wife Carolyn. Very quickly, the stereotypes begin. One sub-theme throughout the movie is Kevin's desire for a pretty high school cheerleader. However, the real sub-theme is wanting what you can't really ever have. This same theme is repeated for each of the major characters, from Carolyn to their next-door neighbor Colonel Frank Fitts to Ricky Fitts, Frank's son, played by Wes Bentley, to Jane Burnham, Lester and Carolyn's daughter, played by Thora Birch. Each wants something they do not have. To varying degrees, each gets what they think they want, but, and this is the real moral of the movie and the story, what you think you want isn't truly what you wanted, because when you get what you want, it doesn't give you the happiness you thought you were going to get. Kevin spends much of the movie working out, buying his dream muscle car, and lusting after Angela Hayes, played by Mena Suvari. It certainly seems as though his purchases are providing him happiness. However, he is looking for the relationship he once had with his wife. In a pivotal scene in the movie, Lester and Carolyn are in the immaculate living room of their house. Lester has a beer, and begins to get somewhat amorous. Just as it looks as though something might spark, Kevin spills his beer, which causes Carolyn to be more concerned about the expensive couch than their relationship. Is this shallowness a cliche? Yes it is. However, there is more to the story than just cliches. As the story unfolds and each character seems to be making progress toward getting what they want, in many cases the scenes are set up as fantasies, which are beautifully and artfully done. I find one of the most intriguing characters to be Ricky Fitts. Ricky wants his father's unconditional love, and loves his father, but somehow you sense that he knows he'll never get it. Further, I felt that Ricky knew that eventually something bad would happen between his father and him. The sense of impending disaster that Ricky anticipates through his actions and his attitude infects the rest of the movie with the same feeling. Almost as though you were in quicksand and knew a bad end was coming, but it comes so slowly that you don't realize it until it is too late. The real beauty in the movie is at the end. While I will not reveal all the details, I will reveal important details, so if you do not want to know, I'll tell you quickly that this movie is very artsy and well-acted. If those types of movies appeal to you, you will love this one. Near the end of the movie, Lester finally has an opportunity to be with Angela. It is the very last thing Lester has wanted throughout the entire movie, that he has, up to now, been unable to get, and here he has his chance. However, there is a small problem. After Angela's top has been removed, she asks Lester to be gentle because it's her first time. What? Hasn't Angela been telling Jane Burnham throughout the movie about her sexual exploits? Yes. Here's part of the sub-theme once again. Angela in fact has wanted to have the experiences to match her bragging. Now that she has the real opportunity to have it happen, she is fearful. Lester realizes that he cannot take away Angela's innocence, and tells her to get dressed. Both realize continuing would be a mistake for both. An incredible, but very correct decision for each. The movie brilliantly puts a most incredible temptation to two people, and they both realize that getting what they thought they wanted would make neither happy. I'm not going to reveal what happens next. I admit I was surprised that Lester would resist temptation, but proud of him too. He was tested, if by no one else then by himself, and he passed. He proved that he was stronger than nearly all the other characters in the movie. Of course, this scene sets up the final irony. A brief word on symbolism. The rose is used as a part of Lester's fantasies throughout the entire movie. Remember that the rose is a symbol of many things, love and purity being only one of them. The visual beauty of this movie is used to drive home the theme. The movie is not only ironic in the way the characters and the scenes are played out; the movie is visually ironic as well. To explain that irony would require giving the ending away more than I have. One other thing: This movie does not condone 40+ men having sex with under 18 girls any more than 'Pretty Woman' romanticizes and fosters prostitution. If you believe that this movie is all about one man's fantasy with a young girl, you missed the point. Try once more and hang in there, the meaning is deeper, and subtler. However, you have to watch to the very last scene and think about the symbolism of everything you saw. This movie is truly beautiful, very well done, and an instant, very artistic classic. I would rate this movie more than 5 stars if I could.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: A beautiful movie that explains how not every family is what it seems. I love all kinds of movies but especially the deep ones where a person changes and discovers their place in the world. This is a beautiful movie.
Rating:
Summary: An uncommon film that will provoke thought
Review: I just watched "American beauty" on DVD, and I still draw the same conclusions about this film as I did when I first saw it, three years ago. The supreme talent of screenwriter Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes is evident at every turn. Kevin Spacey is perfect in the role of Lester Burnham, as are Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley and Chris Cooper in their respective roles. The situations, actions and misunderstandings may seem lightweight and even far-fetched by some standards, but they never seem contrived, and the film offers a distinct look at life within modern American suburbia. The strangest things can happen in the most mundane places, to the most ordinary-looking people, even on a street that you might find anywhere in America. That the film remains dramatic and yet humorous is one of its strengths. The characters may be angry and miserable, but seeing them get the better of each other, their bosses, and others gives the film a satiric quality. But the message is more important than mere satire. Only after you consider the characters, their actions, how they wrestle deep-held apathy and begin to piece together some sort of meaning, do you begin to understand the full consequence of the film's tagline, "Look closer". "American Beauty" is difficult to classify into one genre because it encompasses so many. There's mystery, dark comedy, film noir, and even romance, all set within a cynical, but heartfelt, story. You will also notice the plethora of similarities between this movie and Alan Ball's TV series "Six Feet Under," including Thora Birch's character, the mothers played by Bening and Allison Janney, the Thomas Newman score, and the general mood. If anything, "American Beauty" seems like a prequel, or a companion piece, to the HBO series. The DVD itself offers a behind-the-scenes "making of" featurette which is too short and, frankly, one of the most unexciting I've seen. I would have preferred to see more interviews of the cast members and the production team, talking about their experiences of making the film. However, this minor drawback does not detract from the overall worth of the DVD; the film's presentation is excellent and on the same level as other, similar disks for movies released in 1999. Like other Oscar-winning films, you might watch this one and wonder, why don't they make more movies like this. "American Beauty" is an American classic, with equal moments of delight and tragedy. It evokes thoughtfulness, because it forces you to question your definition of beauty, and what you consider beautiful in life. Beauty, and the interpretation of it, is of key importance in nearly every scene. Watch especially for the reaction of a teenage boy, toward the end of the film, as he directly witnesses the result of a bizarre and gruesome murder. As the denouement of the film demonstrates, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Rating:
Summary: Why was this critically acclaimed?
Review: I did not enjoy this movie at all. The acting was bad, the characters one-dimensional and the central message (that American suburbia is not the paradise it appears to be on the surface) was also not news to me. And some of the plot developments, especially towards the end of the movie, were desperately contrived, especially the ex-Marine officer turning out to be a closet homosexual. I was particularly disappointed with the performances by Kevin Spacey (his worst I have seen) and Anette Bening, who was so good in Grifters. Admittedly the two younger actors who portrayed their daughter and her love interest were extremely good, and did not fall into the trap of over-acting like their two better-known colleagues. I cannot understand how this movie won the critical acclaim it did.
Rating: 
Summary: misunderstood
Review: I'd like to address some of the criticisms made in earlier reviews about this film and offer my interpretation. The main criticism seems to be twofold: firstly, the film uses cliched characters rather than realistic portraits, secondly, the film offers a simplistic message about breaking out of mundane everyday life. To begin with, yes the film does use cliches. It's deliberate. At no time does American Beauty claim to be a realistic portrayal of suburban life. It uses extremes and saturated emotions, as well as saturated colours in the cinematography, to offer an incisive, sarcastic, and over the top criticism of Western Culture. (Althought the film is set in suburban America I think it could have been set in the affluent suburbs of many Western nations and still have been apt.) The characters are consciously and obviously stereotyped - the middle aged man in the throws of a mid life crisis, the shallow and ambitious real estate agent, the beautiful cheerleader, the latently homosexual marine - but we are encouraged to recognise these as stereotypes and to focus on the way in which these figures struggle with the details, desires, and fears of their world. It is a hypereality that is being presented, and is which is used to mock and criticise the actual. Some have seen the film as little more than a saccharine message about being true to yourself in the face of mediocrity. I think it is a film about the impossibility of just that. There is no happy ending, no comfortable resolution, Lester ends up dead, and those around him frustrated, imprisoned, and weary. It's a film about the way in which society succeeds in alienating us from ourselves and each other, not about trite attempts to break out. Lester's job quitting and his buffing up don't succeed in bringing him happiness. Nor does Caroline's affair or rifle range education. It is the small, temporal moments that give us pleasure: small, fleeting visions of beauty in a cold and frustrating world. Overall, the film ends on a sour note (gorgeously contradicted by the score) and argues that simply refusing to cooperate doesn't stop the machine from turning.
Rating:
Summary: Very Good Movie, Often Overrated
Review: American Beauty is what it is; a beautifully shot, well crafted movie blessed with some great performances. It presents satire, humor, cynical insight and a somber critique of American life. It does these things very well, and it probably did deserve best picture. However, I shudder, absolutely shudder when I hear people put it on a pedestal of absolute greatness. I'll get back to this point later.. American Beauty is the story of the American nightmare. A suburban facade that hides a tortured existance. Kevin Spacey plays the harried husband, a worker writing drone at some magazine. Spacey is the engine behind this movie, his performance is breath taking. While he suffers at his job, his family is falling apart. His wife, an overachieving real estate psychopath played by Annette Benning, is having an affair, among other things. His daughter is distant, and Spacey has fallen in love with her school friend. The best part of the movie is when Spacey decides to go on a campaign of self improvement. Quits his job, begins to exercise, and stands up to his domineering wife. Oh yeah, smoking pot and hanging with the cool philosophical kid next door. The rest of the plot is very interesting and takes some very unexpected twists. It's a nice, hypothetical look at an American neighborhood gone wild. I say hypothetical because that's what it is. It's not some shocking expose of materialism and the American way of life, as many in intellectual circles have deemed it. There are so many usual counter culture cliches, (Dad only finds happiness through drugs, rabidly homophobic military neighbor is, GASP!, gay himself!) that it should not be taken as some serious movie. That sets it up way to high. On a side note, rookie director Sam Mendes gives a big hint at his future greatness. Watch American Beauty and The Road to Perdition and you'll discover what great cinematography really means.
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