Rating: 
Summary: It's ....
Review: This is suburban life? How many books do you see in the Burnham household? The mother and the father have absolutely no interest in anything outside their jobs, i can hear people saying 'well isn't that what suburban life is like?' no, it isn't, oh well, Hollywood has misrepresented every other group in society over the years i guess we can't expect them to do any better with the middle classes. The only moment where Spacey's character touches reality is when he bemoans having to miss the James Bond marathon on tv because of his daughter's cheerleading. Come on, the mother listens to South Pacific at the dinner table, we're off in Hollywood lala land...The screenplay is one of the laziest most hackneyed pieces of writing i've ever come across, veering between shallow and predictable teen soap opera and something akin to american pie. The 'at least i'm not ugly' 'yes you are, you're ugly on the inside' moment is as cheap as they come, it even brought a celebratory roar out of the audience and a few springeresque whoops. Also, the screaming of ridiculous things at the point of orgasm is as tired a joke as they come, it got the biggest laugh in the cinema. And of course the [friend] is really a virgin, and when he finds out Lester Burnham decides not to do her right there on the sofa. The film could prbably get away with it if it did just declare itself to be american pie lite, but it doesn't, it makes sure you don't leave the cinema believing it to be anything other than an 'art' film by slowing the pace and holding sterile (but beautifully composed!) images for an eternity. It reminded me a bit of Zabriskie Point in that respect. Irony of this movie is that the shell shocked wife and the homophobic husband next door are more endearing than the central family, that is until he turns out to be an abusive repressed self hating homosexual homocidal nazi fantasist (doh). Can't Alan Ball write an oppressive and domineering father without adding these ridiculous traits? What kind of idiocy is this? I always thought that the mindsets mocked in Woody Allen films were a myth, turns out they exist! They belong to Hollywood writers. Kids, if your father is strict PLEASE take heed of this film, check under his bed for the copy of the protocols of the elders of zion and examine your shower unit because the moment he hits you when he finds out you're involved in drugs he's not far from shooting someone dead. I'm only being as immature as the script. You can argue that the scripts childish exaggerations are necesary to make the film's points hit home (what points?) and create some kind of violent dramatic finale where the protagonist is gunned down (even good american films like Affliction will resort to this, fine, because in that film it is justified) and life affirming realisations and epihanies occur. But really it's an awful lot easier to write such ridiculous characters than actually writing anything genuine and of substance. One can entertain the notion that it is a witty subversion, or a parody of sorts but the truth is its just a very weak piece of self adoring (without any concievable justification) satire with ideas above its station. it's a smug, facile mediocre comedy that believes itself to be important, its not 'art' (or even very entertaining its so torturously slow and self impressed), it's not anything approaching the 'truth' and it sure isn't a 'wake up call' to any nation. And as for the plastic bag in the breeze... Dude, deep, metaphorical. 'Look Closer', tried, nothing to see here, move along. And they reckon foreign language films are pretentious. The thanking of the plastic bag (apprarently without irony) upon the award of the oscar was truly hilarious. There was gushing, crying and hugging that somehow avoided the mockery that Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow and other embarassing blubberers provoked. Only the 'Life is beautiful' 'director' and his academy award winning performance (and no i am not talking about his acting in the film) have nauseated me more, and to be honest i suspect that was more to do with the film than his live antics. Nice to see quite a few positive reviews of this film on this page resort to abusing (sometimes with name calling! oooh! others with Oscar Wilde) those that didn't find it to be the masterpiece they maintain. And as for the drug dealing teen, i'm sure all of you suburbanites out there knew drug dealers when you were younger, were any of them like this guy? Did they have everything together? Were they competent and business like? Not the ones i knew, they were walking a tightrope most of the time, totally disorganized in all aspects of their life. He's been in a Psychiatric institution for a couple of years and as a result he's totally at ease with himself (?) Really if it weren't for a couple of excellent comic performances this film would be utterly worthless. Mendes next film 'The Road To Perdition' with its reverent self importance, silent gun battles in torrential rain and 'carry on dillinger' second half was pretty awful too, but he's young, handsome and british with a theatrical background who pened his film career with a massive success, so he's a big talent who will be around for a long time doubtless continuing to receive mindboggling comparisons to Orson Welles for as long as his critical stock lasts (hm, apart form anything else i thought Citizen Kane was a box office flop?). Kevin Spacey has since made one of the worst films of its decade 'Ordinary Decent Criminal' and some of us have sat through the excruciating 'Pay it Forward' on vhs, does this guy need a wake up call or what? He's fast dissappearing up his own oscar. But he is critically untouchable it seems, these films didn't even register. And remember... Keep watching the plastic bags!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Dumbstruck
Review: That word could sum up my first experience of this movie. I remember that for the first time in my cinephile life, I was litterally floored, unable to stand up from my seat. Everything in this movie was perfect, from the soundtrack, to the actor's play (Kevin Spacey offers his best in this moving drama of a not so normal, not so static life), but what really stuck me was twofold. First, the director had evidently the exact same vision of beauty that I had, everything visual in there was an artful masterpiece of color and beauty. Second, this vision of beauty was also the same poetically. The scene with the flying bag, and the memorable ending monologue are scenes that brought tears to my dumbstruck eyes. This movie profoundly affected me, and I know I had been changed when I exited the theatre for the first (but far from last) time. The DVD captures this masterpiece as best as a not-viewed-in-theatres support can, and this is a movie that should be in everyone's DVDtheque.
Rating:
Summary: Simples need not apply
Review: Ok, quiz time. Everyone who understands what a metaphor is, raise your hand. Enough said. The rest of you, go home. The Olsen Twins show is almost on.
Rating:
Summary: American Beauty 101
Review: Take notes. There WILL be a test. American Beauty is perhaps the most controversial film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture. To understand why it won, and why its triumph was so disagreeable to a large segment of the American public, I offer the following observations as a public service: American Beauty is a satire of middle America that exposes its hypocrisy comedically while massaging those parts of the American psyche (mostly big city sophisticates or well to do suburbanites) who feel superior to the bourgeois mind. As such it makes those members of the audience who had expected to see a sort of Titanic of Suburbia uncomfortable while greatly pleasing fans of, say, Pulp Fiction or Blue Velvet. Another way to look at American Beauty is as an exercise in fantasy wish-fulfillment. As such it delights those whose fantasies are realized and offends those who had different fantasies or whose fantasies remain repressed. Annette Bening's character gets her unspoken fantasy fulfilled as she is sexually liberated by "the King," a real estate salesman "clearly superior" to her mediocre husband, Lester, played by Kevin Spacey. Lester of course gets to live out his fantasy, that of telling the boss to shove it while winning the heart of the teen queen of his adolescent dreams. And Ricky Fitts, the boy next door, who might be your standard loser who eats his sack lunch behind where the drama geeks hang out, is in fact a smooth operator who deals dope discreetly (and successfully), gets the other beautiful girl and goes one or two up on his fascist dad. He is a sort of Homer Simpson denizen turned into a Humphrey Bogart for the new millennium. Note too that the gay guys down the street (except for their...uh, persuasion) are indistinguishable from any other over-socialized adorable yuppie couple just joining the community church. This is a little joke on the heartland, and a sly, oblique wish-fulfillment for some Hollywood homosexuals. Since about half the audience really did expect to see Titanic or its equivalent, and instead got satire (something they can never really understand) you've got to expect some outrage. After all this was an Academy Award winning film entitled "American Beauty." What we should have here is an "America the Beautiful" kind of opulent production (perhaps with the "Heartland of America" feel of a Chevy truck commercial) done with the usual duplicity and an assuaging mentality. Any picture the Academy votes as best picture of the year ought to make us feel good about ourselves, don't you think? If we wanted "art" or liberal propaganda we'd have gone Off Broadway. Instead we are made uncomfortable about our secret desires and our hypocritical life style and the little lies we tell ourselves and friends. As for those who merely think American Beauty was over-rated: you get a B+ because you're right, it was. If you also pointed out that Hollywood beat a few already very dead horses here (the war lover who is a closet gay or the straitlaced frigid wife who really just needs some vigorous sex) you get extra credit. And for those who think this was a great movie, it can be said you might be right. But any contemporary work of art, especially one that has as its subject matter the contemporary scene, can only be judged "great" some years down the road since we have, as yet, no real objectivity about ourselves or our culture.
Rating:
Summary: One must project an image of success at all times
Review: The Burnhams are a typical, upwardly mobile family: a father with a well-paid job in advertising, a mother who is a driven real estate sales agent, an angst-ridden teen age daughter who is at an age to despise her parents. They live in a lovely home with a white picket fence, lovely roses, and a red door. Everything about them projects an image of success. And yet-- Lester (Kevin Spacey) hates his advertising job, which makes him feel like a prostitute selling second rate wares to stupid johns. Caroline (Annette Benning) is frustrated at being second-best in the real estate business. Daughter Jane (Thorah Birch) finds both of her parents vapid and doubts her own validity as a person--particularly when compared with her beautiful, sexed-up best friend Angela (Mena Suvari.) Their lives, like the lives of so many others rushing "to get ahead in the world," have become less about actually living than about maintaining and improving upon the appearance of success so prized by society. What is most astonishing about the film is its complete believability. Speaking as one who has worked a great deal in advertising and sales, I was amazed with the accuracy with which Ball's powerful and darkly funny script captured the lives of those whose values rest exclusively upon external achievement--Lester's growing and barely concealed hatred for advertising and Caroline's constant use of self-help tapes and personal success mantras are truly commonplace in the business world. Now, if AMERICAN BEAUTY were merely this and nothing more, it would still be an astonishing film. But it goes considerably further than that--for Lester, suddenly motived by a lust for his daughter's friend Angela, realizes how completely unenjoyable "keeping up appearances" has become. And he explodes the status quo in such a way as to bring every one's petty materialism and mask-like personaes into a sharp, very funny, and pitch-black focus as the shallow and meaningless things they are. And in the process he both finds and destroys himself forever. The cast is astonishing throughout, with Kevin Spacey the ultimate "I Can't Take It Any More" man and wife Annette Benning the ultimate vision of every hard-core sales representative it has ever been my misfortune to meet, a woman determined to "project an image of success at all times" even if it kills her. Thora Birch is a remarkable young performer, as is her boyfriend Wes Bentley, and Mena Suvari is perfectly cast as the youthful beauty for whom Spacey develops an unexpected passion. Mendes' direction is flawless here, and he navagates the both the complicated appearances of success and the personal shallowness it conceals with tremendous clarity, never overplaying his hand in either direction. Perhaps the most telling bits of the film are among the most subtle, as when the film posits the tiresomely yuppie but nonetheless considerably more honest gay couple next door as more genuine than the Burhams, Caroline's eternal efforts at ego building through motivational tapes, and the way in which Angela (in time honored teenage fashion) niavely attempts to use sex as a weapon to conceal her own insecurities. The film is extremely funny, but it is also ultimately devastating. A great many people--particularly those who equate "an image of success" with successful lives, will despise the film. But like it or not, AMERICAN BEAUTY's take on the failure on the failure of the American dream is easily the most successful and deadly accurate satire on life in these United States since the equally wicked NETWORK. This is the real thing, people--and it may be too close to home for many. Watch it at your own risk. Strongly, strongly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: the final days of Lester Burnham
Review: American Beauty is truly a fine movie. In vision, insight and execution--few movies can compare with it. Visually stunning, and with an exceptional cast, there is little wonder that it received both critical acclaim and a wide audience. Yet to my mind, this movie is a showcase from the first to the last for the wonderful talent of Kevin Spacey--possibly the greatest actor of our time. Spacey plays the doomed protagonist/anti-hero: Lester Burnham. Check that--Spacey BECOMES Burnham. In this film, more than any of his others, the impact of Spacey's friendship with the great Jack Lemmon is very palpably felt. Not only are there echoes of Lemmon in Spacey's portrayal of Burnham, but one might argue that Spacey's courage in taking on the role of Lester was inspired by Lemmon's own courage in role selection. Spacey's transformation from the beginning to the end of this movie is nothing short of remarkable. Lester becomes a person reborn...spiritually and physically. The supporting cast is also exceptional. Bening, Birch, Bentley and especially Cooper contribute performances that may well prove to be the greatest of their careers. Cooper in particular is chilling, and almost unrecognizable, in a role unlike any other that he has ever played. All that said, what I admire most about American Beauty is its timely message. We live in a world of intense business and illusion. How tempting it is to forget that all of life, no matter how painful or mundane, is a gift. This is the lesson that Lester finally learns. If we stop to look deeper, beyond mere appearances (like Ricky and, ultimately, Lester), Beauty is there to greet us.
Rating: 
Summary: Yet Another Banal Tale Bemoaning American Life
Review: I "get" this movie. In fact, I "get" it so good, it hurts and I am beyond it. This can't really be what movie viewers want to see? The dark side of every-day American life? Are we all that shallow and self-absored that we crave more salt for our poor pathetic wounds? What is so original about the theme of this story and do we really need to see more of the ordinary, desperate, pointless, droll complaining of a regular, everyday American life? This movie offers Lester's point of view of his life, a pompus bemoaning of a man in mid-life crisis, his marriage to an infidel-woman who has no original thoughts which he has grown apart from, his daughter who is too self-absored to care about her parents and instead is interested in the boy-next-door who happens to be (surprise) yet another drug dealer, and of course the boys militant, homophobic father and brain-dead, lackluster mother, and last but not least--the beautiful friend of Lester's daughter which gives Lester the usual, routine fantasies and takes us back to poor Lester's story. 'Round and 'round we go. All sounds familiar, doesn't it? Movie producers must think we don't get enough of it in our own lives! They are certain that although we live it everyday, we want to pay to see more! Been there, seen it, done it. Moving on. We can all say that, can't we? Do we really want to see another movie about it? Come on! I challenge you to try to image what other cultures think when they view this movie...look at those righteous Americans, who have so much prosperity, blessings, and everyday comforts, becrying another banal tale of sad, woe-is-me American lives! If you believe this movie deserves the awards it received, then you really DON'T "get" it! How ridiculous we are to create one story after another, constantly crying about our truthfully small problems, and then to create so much praise and bravado for them! Wouldn't it be so much more "taking-the-high-road" to care about something else besides our selfish selves? OK, there are tons of movies out there, both great ones and garbage. But watch out for the ones that win for political reasons and not truly for the pure quality of the movie. Yes, Look Closer! There are hundreds of quality movies worth viewing with thoughtful messages worthy of great praise and a closer look! We are surrounded by a whole world which knows true desperation and genuine suffering. Those are the stories which make great "brain food" and have genuine potential for certain entertainment worthy of many great awards--truly holding meaning this time--or don't you "get" it?
Rating:
Summary: Definitely Not A Feel Good Movie, But Worth Checking Out
Review: This movie starts off in a depressing vain as Lester Burnham comes to the realization that he is unsatisfied with the way his life has turned out. This epiphany is the beginning of his midlife crisis. He realizes that his wife cares more about her job and material things than about him. In fact, he can't remember the last time they made love. He hates his job. And he doesn't know anything about his teenage daughter. Worse - he finds himself attracted to his daughter's best friend. He is determined to make some changes. But is it too late?
Although Lester's story is the main theme of the movie, I found the lives of the other characters to be even more intriguing. The wannabe-nympho Angela, the neurotic wife Carolyn, the rebellious, confused teen Jane, the supressed, dangerous, and strange Ricky and his overbearing father. They are all great substories with hidden surprises.
Excellent acting by Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning, Thora Birch, and the rest of the cast.
It's definitely not a feel good movie as it continues in its depressing vain all the way through to the end. However, you will get a chuckle or two here and there. All-in-all worth checking out.
Rating:
Summary: Really Good
Review: The first time I saw this movie I thought it was weird. After I thought about it for awhile I wanted to see it again so I bought it. It is really good. The music is really good and the story is great. I can see why this won. It deserved it. Kevin Spacey is a good actor.
Rating:
Summary: Beauty is not what it seems: look closer
Review: Everything is not what it seems--right? Well, surely there are some exceptions. Comfortable middleclass white Anglo-Saxon Protestant suburban America, for instance. Well, let's zoom in on this nice representative street and test that hypothesis. Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes do not live in this neighbourhood. Their kids do not go to school with these kids. Surely, noone here is in Bruce Willis's Color Of Night psycho self-help group. Squad cars do not patrol this street. They and all other nasties and challenges to normalcy are out of sight beyond an invisible hermetic barrier. Sure enough, as we zoom in for a closer look, here is a nice normal couple, Lester and Carolyn Burnham (Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening). Lester is in advertising, and in mid-life crisis. Carolyn is a real estate agent dedicated to living by appearances, playing self-improvement tapes in the car, and swapping lifestyle and gardening tips with the homosexual couple next door. We know Lester and Carolyn once had sex, because they have an only child, Jane (Thora Birch). She hates her weird parents and wants only to live in a normal healthy environment like the Addams Family, or a remake of The Exorcist. The conjugally challenged, burnt-out Lester has the hots for his daughter's Lolita-esque best friend (Mena Suvari). Fantasies about her embellish his day. The climax of the film occurs at the moment of Lester's achievement of a level of serene enlightenment such as is sought through lifetimes of effort by Hindu mystics. American Beauty is a very fine film, in a high quality DVD release.
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