Rating: 
Summary: Most quoted line: You are SO busted.
Review: Yep, one of my most vivid memories is that Latina with the great lips leaning out the drive-thru window and saying to Annette Bening, "You are SO busted." Great, great, great, and so was the rest of the movie (except the ending kind of sucked, but it's hard to see how it could have ended any other way, and besides, from the very beginning you know he's telling us his story from beyond the grave).
It's the angst of suburban life, domestic tragedy, and social commentary played with biting sarcasm that drives this picture, with Kevin Spacey coming unglued with a case of delayed adolescent lust for a very pretty cheerleader, played by Mena Suvari). Annette Bening plays his uptight materialistic, real-estate agent wife to absolute perfection; you just LOVE to hate her. And then there's their teenage daughter going through more than the usual teenage girl stuff and playing her utter contempt for both parents to a tee. It feels like she's not even acting, especially in the excruciatingly tense dining room scene.
And then there's the really creepy neighbor...and there wouldn't have been a movie without him.
Wow, what a coup. See it now, if you haven't already.
Rating:
Summary: "...And in a way, I am dead already."
Review: "American Beauty" is a pure cinematic triumph that is both funny and sad. It's disturbing... and yet, it's extremely provocative and deep. The film is an extraordinary achievement that reveals a tragic and realistic story about a family that is anything but ordinary. It's a film with so many layers that it is almost impossible to dissect them all in one single thought.Meet Lester Burnham; a man who feels like he's completely dead inside. His wife and daughter despise him and do not show him any signs of respect. On the surface, the family seems like a picture-perfect family that everybody dreams about--but inside is a completely different matter. His wife is obsessed with material possessions and doesn't care for "petty" things like love or life, while his daughter resents herself because she isn't "perfect." Lester's mental coma is rudely interrupted when he meets his daughter's friend and starts fantasizing about her. The awakening might be due to a disturbing thought or feeling, but the wake-up call changes Lester and allows him to realize that there's always time to erase his "forced-image" and be the person he really is. This is all a set-up for a funny, disturbing and tragic movie. I don't know about everybody else, but my mind was literally racing around when this movie was playing before my eyes. It's one of those films that allows you to pick up on something different upon each viewing. As I said in the beginning of the review, this film has a number of layers to it. There's so many different meanings and points to the film that it is nearly impossible to describe them all in one little review. Besides, the fun part of the movie is discovering these meanings and points for yourself. You know a film is successful when you totally lose yourself to it and allow it to challenge you in every way. The film is crafted flawlessly and doesn't have a wasted minute in it. The acting from Kevin Spacey is really a sight to see. He gives his character all of the right needs and feelings that is necessary for the authenticity of his role. You don't even look at him as an actor--but as the real person he portrays. It is certainly a milestone in his acting career that will continue to be remembered throughout all cinematic history. Annette Bening is also superb in her role and brings life to her character, as well. Everybody in the film should be applauded, as they all make the film what it is. The DVD has some neat features to offer. The picture quality is fantastic and the sound is more than great. You have the option of watching the movie in DTS if your system is able to play it. Extras included are commentary from the director and writer, a behind-the-scenes featurette, cast and crew biographies, trailers and more. While I wouldn't had mind a Two-Disc edition of the movie, this is a pretty impressive package overall. "American Beauty" is a breath-taking masterpiece with a very high replay value. It's a terrific film on every front and does not disappoint for a single second. While it's not a movie that everybody will like, it's most certainly one to check out if you are a lover of films. If you're looking for something that isn't so ordinary, then this may be the chance that you are seeking. I feel that it is a unique and superb film that is very hard to express in words--you'll just have to experience it for yourself. -Michael Crane
Rating:
Summary: Dark Comedy
Review: Sorry, but you can't judge this movie without having first seen it. First of all, it's not just a whodunit. It's a movie about life, and how we all live in cages that society has made for us. It's about Lester (Kevin Spacey) breaking free of society, and his failure. It's about how his life slowly unravels,, and his ultimate death. It truly is drama; it makes you laugh sometimes (quotes "You are SO busted, and f**k me your majesty!), but at the end it's really sad. It's not just a whodunit, and by the way, it wasn't the daughter.
Rating:
Summary: Even Red Roses Cannot Disguise The Truth...
Review: I first watched American Beauty a few nights ago after putting it off for years. I instantly wanted to see this film after it scooped all those Oscars back in 2000, but I never got around to doing so. To cut a long story short, I watched it the other night, after forgetting about it. My expectations, admittedly, were rather low. How wrong I was. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is your average, middle-aged family man. He works a $60,000 per annum job and lives as home with his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) who is a straight-laced, worry wart who sells real estate and is obsessed with looking her best and being successful. They both have a daughter, Jane (Thora Birch) who is your typical rebellious teenage girl, unsatisfied with her figure, despises her parents and longs for someone who will love her. Living next door we have the 18-year-old Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) who lives with his father Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts and his rather catatonic wife. What we have appears to be two typical American families, living through the trials and tribulations of family life, and living the American dream. However, things are certainly not as they seem, and director Sam Mendes cleverly unravels this as the film progresses. Lester instantly falls for his daughter's best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) at a game. His marriage is currently in a rut, his wife hates him and they haven't made love in a long, long time. Her beauty transforms him, and some of the greatest moments of this movie are where he detaches from reality and slips into a fantasy world where it is just him and her together - the most famous being the nude rose petals scene. He is soon working out and building himself up to impress her. Jane is 'friends' with this vixen character Angela, but at times the latter's beauty depresses Jane, who is already insecure about her appearance. Angela can't understand why Ricky isn't interested in her, just because every other guy is. Ricky, however, is more interested in Jane. She hides it at first, but deep down, she's touched that someone is interested in her. What blossoms is a sweet and beautiful relationship, despite the insane parents they both have. Some of the film's best moments are the intimate connections of loneliness that these two angst-ridden teenagers share. Ricky's father is one of the most striking and memorable characters from the film, and all for the wrong reasons. He's a homophobic and straight-laced man who lives his life by rules. When he bursts into Ricky's room and beats him for entering his secret room, not only are we shocked by what is happening, but by Ricky's lack of resistance. Suddenly we realise why he spends so much time filming floating paper bags, dead birds and Jane - he believe in the hope of escapism from his horrific father ("Yes Sir. Thank you Sir."). We also realise why Ricky's mother is slightly catatonic - she has obviously been beaten into submission by the evil man. This is the point in the film, in my opinion, in which the film's dark and violent side breaks through. American life is not as shiny and happy as it seems. Carolyn starts an affair with her real estate competition, and it's truly funny to see her try and act all sophisticated around Lester. She is so materialistic, it's unreal. It's more important to her than living, and it's a sad state of affairs when we witness this. The finale to the film is superb. By the end she's a self-help sad case and a gun-toting loony who realises everything she's lost. Lester takes more control of his life, dropping his $60,000 a year job to take up a job in a fast-food restaurant (I love his line, "I'm looking for the least possible amount of responsibility!"). He lets go of his whole life and responsibilities. He decides to look after himself and perfecting his goal on bedding Angela. By the end of the film he almost succeeds, until she confesses it's her first time. All the blabbing about the action she's been getting is all rubbish. Lester realises too late how immature he has been, and he can't go back and change it. The conclusion of Lester's final state comes from someone who cannot face up to who he is, because he lives by society's expectations. He can't face up to being something he is so against, and this serves as a stark reminder to us all. The whole film is superbly filmed and brilliantly acted. Kevin Spacey is superb, as is Annette Bening. Thora Birch is simply gorgeous as Jane, and her angst-ridden teenage role of rebellion is incredibly believable. Wes Bentley shines amazingly, and Mena Suvari is very convincing as that feisty vixen. This really is one of the best-assembled casts I have ever seen from a movie. Sam Mendes pulled off an amazing feat in directing this movie, and for once, the Academy got it right in making this Best Picture Of The Year. There are moments in this film that I can relate to more than any other film, and some moments make me want to cry because of the intense emotion on display. OVERALL GRADE: 10/10 I watched this film with my mum the other day - she didn't like it much because of the swearing, but that's to be expected, but to dismiss it as a poor film as she did stunned me. This was by far one of the best movies I have ever seen, and a few obscenities isn't going to change that! The soundtrack to this film is equally stunning - the quiet music in these intimate moments is fantastic and completely draws you into the film with the characters. All in all, this is a must see movie for anyone who is a fan of social satires. A masterpiece of the biggest standards.
Rating: 
Summary: Give Me a Break
Review: Boy, am I getting tired of this kind of movie. Every few years a film comes along designed to skewer the supposed "complacency" of middle America. You know, we're all a bunch of shallow, crass, materialistic, out-of-touch, hypocritical phonies who've failed to connect with the "beauty" of everyday life. A few years ago, it was "The Ice Storm." Bored American suburbanite couples contemplating adultery. An alienated teen-age daughter who romances the misfit/social outcast boy next door. Recreational drug use to underscore the general sense of ennui. Then, at the end, somebody dies, and that tragedy is supposed to imbue the movie with resonance and meaning. Or did I just describe "American Beauty"? Oh, well, doesn't matter. In another few years, another filmmaker will crank out another cinematic screed along the same lines, and no doubt that film will wow critics and win multiple awards as well. The real tragedy of "American Beauty" is that the script had real potential. If you ever had the opportunity to read Alan Ball's screenplay (available on the Internet), you're in for what they call in Hollywood "a good read." Ball is an exceptionally gifted writer and has a real ear for dialogue. My problem is with the film's direction. Others have raved about Sam Mendes. Kindly include me out on that score: his direction reeks to high heaven. Rather than working to flesh out his characters, he portrays his characters as unsympathetic cartoons. Spacey, Bening (lord, especially Bening) and several other, ahem, "actors" give screeching, eye-bulging, over-the-top, look-ma-I'm-in-a-movie type performances. Mena Suvari's turn as the would-be high school nympho wouldn't get past the first round of a casting call for the TV version of "Clueless." Only Thora Birch (a long underrated actress) and newcomer Wes Bentley manage to give sympathetic, humanistic performances. The rest of the cast seems to think it's in an episode of "Hogan's Heroes." And therein lies the problem. This is one of those movies that isn't funny enough to rate as a good comedy yet doesn't take itself seriously enough to work as drama. Spacey gets a few funny lines (okay, he gets all the funny lines) but that's essentially it. By contrast, Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" back in 1980 (written by Alvin Sargent) also tackled the subjects of loveless marriage, alienated youth, angst in suburbia, and so forth, but it did so with a great sense of compassion for its lead characters. Deep down, "American Beauty" has contempt for its characters, and for that reason the film never really connects. It would be like having the makers of "Amos & Andy" direct "Roots". The filmmakers were so blinded by their desire to give suburbia the cinematic finger that they missed the opportunity to explore real human emotions. Maybe they should have looked closer.
Rating:
Summary: Middle-aged crazy
Review: Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is your usual well-behaved 42-year-old dreg of an American dad until he spots his teenaged daughter's girl friend, Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) whose beauty transforms him. Part of the fun of this very funny and enjoyable movie is watching Lester break out of his self-imposed shell and blossom with the rose petals as he tells everybody what he really thinks as though he had nothing to lose. His daughter Jane is a brooding raven-haired beauty who likes to put on a white-powdered face and red Betty Boop lips to go with her full figure. Thora Birch, who plays Jane, has a face that can mesmerize, and Director Sam Mendes puts her to work mesmerizing us. Annette Bening, in a comedic tour de force, plays Lester's wife Carolyn, a straitlaced, uptight, worry wart who sells real estate. Next door we have, just moving in, 18-year-old Ricky Fitts, played with sly self-assurance by Wes Bentley, the dope-dealing, Bible-suit wearing, photog son of Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts and his mostly catatonic wife. Two houses down there's Jim and Jim, your smiling yuppie fruit loops and all-around neighborhood sweet guys. They are however an embarrassment to Colonel Fitts who is living in the deep, dark corner of a very large denial closet, paranoid to the teeth that his only son has inherited the same shameful desires and will act them out. In an effort to keep Ricky disciplined and on the straight and narrow, the good Colonel practices various forms of child abuse ranging from bare-knuckle beatings to medicated imprisonment. In other words what we have here is your typical American suburban street. What makes American Beauty a great success is a witty script with a deep and beautiful lesson for our age by Alan Ball, superb direction by Sam Mendes and outstanding performances from just about everybody in the cast. Bening is brilliant with her silly finger gestures and her one foot sideways stance, like a fawn just learning to walk, and her squinty little eyes full of merriment, and that raised and then downward pointing index finger of indignant reproof. (But she really needs to keep her pretty shins off the bedposts or at least off the wall.) Mena Suvari is perhaps no more beautiful than any number of other screen darlings, but she has a litany of sexy expressions and poses that inspire delight. Her portrayal of a fast lane teen siren whose talk is bigger than her experience is just perfect. She might be a budding star. But more than anything this is an uplifting and satisfying tale of an unappreciated, unloved and mostly ignored man who is inspired to transform his life by the beauty of a girl. For many people (and for most women, I would wager) falling in love at first sight with a teenaged girl just because she is beautiful is shallow and beside the point, inappropriate and not fair. But women love men for their power and their strength and their standing in society. Is that fair to those men who have none? Lester's love for Angela was so great that it transcended carnality, but he didn't know that until he began to take off her clothes and then he realized something very beautiful. He could love her without making love to her. If he took advantage of her youth and inexperience, it would cheapen his love for her and possibly destroy it. Maybe some people in the audience felt he wasn't a real man because he stopped, but I tend to feel the opposite. Not that I think there is anything wrong with making love to 18-year-old girls (on the contrary); but if the girl is incapable of experiencing that love, then perhaps it is better to love her from afar without a sexual expression, even at the risk of disappointing her, especially if you're old enough to be her father, and especially if you really do love her. Notice that in the next scene she is bored and for her the magic of sexuality is gone. He might as well be her father. So much of what we are presented through the media is a focus on those males who would only be able to express themselves in some sexually-exploitive manner. So much of what we read insists that this is the only way men are. I'm happy to say that American Beauty presents another point of view, and presents it beautifully. The point made by the surprising ending (and the reason for the presence of the Marine colonel and the two gay guys) is that our contemporary "enlightened" society may recognize the legitimacy of homosexual love, but continues to hypocritically condemn the love of a man for a young girl.
Rating:
Summary: What A Movie!!
Review: I was blown away the first time I saw this film and have not been able to turn away from it since. The characters portrayed by the extremely talented cast in this movie were so real life that I was captivated by this movie until the end. A must see for any movie fan!
Rating:
Summary: looked closer, not much to see...
Review: Nearly every year there is one film that has a lot of good qualities, but critics seem to over-praise and over-hype it to the level of a Citizen Kane or a Casablanca. In 1999, that film was American Beauty. It is contains lots of morally charged themes and tangents, but not really that much to say. The story itself starts out in the narrative-from-beyond-the-grave style like Sunset Boulevard, in which Lester (played masterfully by Kevin Spacey) describes his shallow and hopeless existence. He is stuck in a dead-end job that he hates, his wife is an endlessly perky on the surface (but a vicious gold digger/adulteress beneath) suburban professional mom, his daughter is a sullen loner and he can only find solace from these suburban ills in masturbation. Lester decides that he is "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" and rebels against his shallow and oppresive suburban existence by: quitting his job and blackmailing his boss into giving him a year's pay, smoking pot, lusting after a girl more than half his age (and working out to impress her), buying a fast car without consulting the wife, and taking a fast food job (because it requires the least amount of responsibility). In other words, he escapes a shallow and oppressive suburban adult existence by reverting to a shallow suburban adolesence. If the quandry that Lester is in doesn't look all that oppresive to people, the writers ratchet up the oppresive quotient by introducing the Marine Corps neighbor: Colonel Fitts. Fitts is a caricature straight from Hollywood's neurotic suburbia playbook. (...) Col. Fitts, along with Lester's wife, are the least satisfying and most stereotypical in the picture. Out of the entire cast Jane (Thora Birch) seems to be the only one who recognizes the symptoms and the correct cure. She knows that she desperately needs structure in her life and won't find it from her father or her mother (and most likely not her "beauty" obssessed boyfriend). Among the muck described above, there are a few bright spots in the film. Kevin Spacey is frankly riveting as Lester. Even though the character is essentially a riff on the character he played in The Ref, he still acts with such verve as to truly deserve the academy award that he won for this role. In fact, I think its primarily because of Spacey's greatness in this role that so many people have given the entire film such effusive praise. The cinematography and the score are both excellent as well. In conclusion, while I found some of the film to be excellent and beyond compare of most cinematic releases; taken as a whole, I found it to be less-than-satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: Love it
Review: I've yet to meet a middle-aged woman who liked this movie. That's a shame because this movie has more to say about the state of marital relationships in America than any movie I've seen in years Watch it. It's hypnotic and exaggerated but true.
Rating:
Summary: CINE 285k- IMOS- American Beauty
Review: *AMERICAN BEAUTY Lester Burnham: Kevin Spacey
Carolyn Burnham: Annette Bening
Jane Burnham: Thora Birch
Ricky Fitts: Wes Bentley
Angela Hayes: Mena Suvari Directed by Sam Mendes/ Written by Alan Ball/ 120 minutes (Rated R) BY ANDREW KOCH
Beauty: The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality. Although, society has put this definite and limited meaning into beauty, realistically beauty is indefinable. The simple fact that something is beautiful to one person yet ugly and ordinary to another makes it such an abstract concept. Yet, what is finite about is beauty is the idea that society tends to make a mold of beauty. This cast that is produced is the cause of much "shaping" towards an ideological goal and is the cause of much internal and external conflict between people, institutions and entities of all sorts.
In, "American Beauty" the theme of beauty is deeply rooted throughout the movie. The scenes switch frequently from character to character, through which we are introduced to and dig deep within each character's conflict in beauty. Angela, who represents superficial and exterior beauty, directly strives for her society's ideological
concept of beauty. To her, beauty is what everyone else tells her and what she sees on the cover of Maxim Magazine. Conversely, Jane Burnham represents the inner beauty within the characters of the movie. Genuine, open, loving, independent and not ready to follow society's guidelines on beauty. She does and wears what she feels comfortable in. Her personality and behavior represent this inner and innocent beauty not found often in "American Beauty". To Carolyn Burnham, beauty lies in the way she seems to all others whom view her (society or her friends and family). The illusion of "happiness, a successful job and being a perfect wife/ mother type" makes her feel comfortable that people view her as a beautiful person. As society shapes, views and impresses upon the character's beauty and concept of beauty, there exists one character independent of this obligation. He watches and judges beauty, of the women in particular, because it brings him a sense of inner peace. Ricky is independent of the judgmental societal panoptican (all seeing and always watching). He becomes a significant silent and panoptical entity himself in the movie. Whenever shown in the movie, he has his camera and is taping/ observing the beauty of women to things like the wind-carrying bag through the air.
The movie "American Beauty" is more than just another "black comedy" or typical Hollywood film. It moves past the portrayal of beauty through images, actions and looks. It explores and critiques the modern stereotype of what beauty is in women of today. It also explores the interactions and conflicts that arise within the clashing of different ideas of beauty between characters. More importantly, it forces the viewers to reflect upon the idea of inner/ physical beauty and how others view it, themselves and society as a whole.
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