Rating: 
Summary: An over-hyped, only okay movie...And I'm being REALLY nice
Review: why does eveyone love this waste of time? The characters are one-sided, never delope at all, and are completely un-likable. The movie's storyline is mearly 3 seperate, run-of-the-mill plots edited together in hopes of creating a worthwhile movie. I could've cared less when Kevin Spacey died.This movie is the only one I have EVER watched that left me completely unaffected. i never leave movies to use the bathroom (even ones I am not enjoying) but I took my time going to the bathroom with this one...because I was sure that I wasn't missing anything important. Oh yeah, the movie does make a point about drugs and drug dealing to be the only thing that saves the daughter from the normal life that she hates for some unknown reason. I could go on forever, but I won't.
Rating: 
Summary: AMERICAN BEAUTY REVIEW
Review: American Beauty was a good movie, if you're thinking that it's supposed to be a sick movie. I mean, people say that it was terrible because everyone in the movie was messed up, but, the movie was supposed to be like that. I liked it except for the fact that a 40 year-old wanted a 16 year-old girl. That was a little awkward. So, was him masturbating in two scenes of the movie. All and all, the movie was good and I think it deserved Best Picture........kinda.
Rating: 
Summary: A Rose Called American Beauty
Review: What first seems a classic story of American dysfunction develops into a celebration of beauty in all things. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are the stereotypical representation of American suburbia, and on the outside, they appear perfect. The false perfection that masks the deadness in their lives is symbolized by the rose motif. Roses, although beautiful, have thorns, they wilt, and they can be eaten by bugs. But they appear perfect. The Burnam family revolves around possessions and status, until Lester Burnam (Spacey) decides that he will no longer walk through his life a spectator. What follows is a human spirit bursting through, an independent thinker making himself known, and the rotten core of the family is exposed. In sync with this main plot, a subplot develops. A teenager named Ricky Fitts moves next door. Carrying a camera, he films random objects in every day life, and all the while, speaks to his new friend Jane Burnam about the beauty in the world. "Sometimes, there is so much beauty that I don't think I can take it." In this sentence, the theme of the movie is revealed. There is beauty in all things. If we would just stop and look at the beauty of a leaf, a sunray, a blade of grass, a door...Lester Burnam discovered this beauty and realized that there was nothing in his life that he needed to hate or complain about because there is so much beauty surrounding him that he should be bored or dissatisfied with his life. This movie is a masterpiece, the rose motif, the sharp screenplay, the vivid imagery, the excellent characterizations--all of these things contribute to its oscar for best picture. Although the some of the graphic content may turn away some of the shallower viewers, the deeper meaning will appeal to your intellect and this is a movie to be enjoyed by everyone. It is one of the best movies that I have every seen.
Rating:
Summary: A Real "Beauty"
Review: An absolutely stunning film in every sense of the world. Top notch acting, writing, direction, cinematography. A very deserved Academy Award Winning film. Subject matter is not for every taste but if you indeed "look closer" you will see the "Beauty" leading character, Lester Burnham, references in his closing remarks of the film. Congratulations to everyone involved!
Rating:
Summary: This is the most important thing I have ever written.
Review: Although I was -also- trying to get your attention with the title of this review, I also feel that it is completely true; this movie is incredibly important to me. On my celebrity-related website I have written "rants" in the past about other movies, each for a different reason: The Blair Witch Project was a great, bold artistic achievement that changed the way many things were seen in Hollywood. Being John Malkovich was the most original and enjoyable movie I have seen in a long time. American Beauty is many things, but above all it is an -important- film. This isn't your average review; I don't wish to go into too much detail, except to say that it goes beneath the sometimes inescapably pessimistic surface of American life and asks us to look far deeper, and it opens our eyes with both optimism and pessimism--for they are two sides of the same coin--and tries, tries, TRIES to show us the beauty of our existence and life and Earth until it is aching from the cellulose of the film it is printed on. "Look closer" indeed. Look until your eyes hurt and your heart aches and feels as if it is about to burst with gut-level, abstract understandings of those unreachable truths behind everything that always seem to be just beyond our understanding and the true intrigue, beauty and overwhelming...**(insert the indescribable feeling many of you will/did experience after watching American Beauty here)** of the Universe around you that our minds can only begin to piece together. This is something I look for in many things, and it is absolutely wonderful to see a movie that seems to share and delve into that feeling.
On a slightly more concrete level American Beauty does something that has needed to happen for a very, very long time. This IS the tale of the world in which everyone has and strives for their money, their new car, their platinum credit cards, their bigger, newer, faster everything. They strive for the appearance of success and believe that makes everything good. But they don't have happiness. Yes, that has been done many times in many ways. But this movie rises above and goes beyond the cynicism of movies about "real life" of the last several decades and shows us that although so many of us, SO many of us are living lives of convenience--cardboard marriages, with our fake jobs and our fake attitudes about them, with our fake talk to everyone at work and our fake talk to our fake friends, and our keeping up with a life that we don't WANT because we think it's how we ought to want it or we're forced into it--it reminds us that we are -still- here, we are -individuals- and DAMN IT, we don't have to LIVE that way, we can DO something about it if we want to, we are in a WORLD with possibilities and beauty and there IS life here around us and within us and it's been there all along, and if we start being honest with ourselves we might see all of that. There ARE no walls around us, we can forgive ourselves for not being perfect and instead see how wonderful we are and damn it just about EVERYONE is beautiful and interesting and...-real-. Many things depend on how you look at your world. (Including your view of American Beauty; many, many people see this movie and simply come looking for entertainment or whether or not the movie agrees with their pet issues or whether they think the characters are good and right and simply do not begin to see it on the level that many others are.) I hope many of you have come away from this movie or from this page with a slightly, even a slightly different view of things, a little burning fire in your soul that makes you want to do...something, I don't know what that something is for you, or even, or even just look at the world around you a little -differently-.
William Otis, Administrator
The Rare Celebrity Nexus
Rating: 
Summary: The Glamour of Suffering
Review: As hyped this year as La Vita e Bella and Shakespeare in Love were last, American Beauty is not without its wry moments and twisted charm; much of it, however, is a simplification of cliches about suburbia: i.e., mindless affluence, spiritual malaise, and the lust for status. No one seems to have pointed out the obvious irony--the fact that Hollywood, a community known for its mindless affluence, spiritual malaise, and lust for status, has heaped awards all over this movie. This movie is hip in its condescension to the suburbs and yet the swank interiors are chilly approved of as in a Merchant Ivory film. And when the big moments of revelation come, they either feel fake (the young cheerleader's insecurity and self-doubt), smugly juvenile (the young couple's assertion of their moral superiority over their parents and suburbia, which they are desperate to escape [to New York--not exactly an original choice]), or like stale Freudianisms (the martinet ex-marine neighbor's sexual repression). The filmmakers congratulate themselves for rising above all this gross materialism and wealth, and yet have themselves reaped as their reward for this expose of the empty lives of the bourgeois classes wealth and notoriety. The movie does have its moments of visual poetry and some sharply written scenes, but the overall effect is limp, barren. This is, of course, the theme of the movie. It only partially works thanks to Kevin Spacey, who fills his role with humor and a hangdog, loser charm. He's playing a baby-boomer fantasy of thumbing one's nose at the system and retreating into adolescent irresponsibility. The movie asks us to see him as wiser, as hip in his way as the disaffected young kids are (although their hipness is of a rather glacial, castigating variety). But the conflicts in this movie are simplified: Annette Bening's caricature of a materialistic, power-hungry harpy makes Spacey's choice less than heroic, for who wouldn't want to leave her and to reject all that she stands for? Do the English director and his New York cohorts think that this movie represents the dirty truth of American suburban life? That we're all mindless automatons serving the system, and that only the young and a man of Spacey's courage to walk away from it all are fully, respectably human? Aren't they basically perpetuating the cliche that the artistic, sensitive youths--representatives of the bohemian, alternative culture the filmmakers themselves presumably came from--this movie ennobles are somehow superior to their crass, small-minded environment? Does no one recognize the distastefulness of a European director coming to America and basically revealing the empty core at the heart of American life and then receiving all sorts of recognition and awards for it?
Rating:
Summary: American Beauty
Review: A work of art. One of the finest American films of the decade. This story of a dysfunctional suburban family is one of the funniest, yet touching films. Kevin Spacey's performance as Lester is one of the finest characterizations in years. We see him change from a bumbling wimp to a free spirit. Annette Beining is also very good as his wife. Although in many ways her character is somewhat of a parody of Mary Tyler Moore's in "Ordinary People." There's also fine support from Chris Cooper as the homophobic neighbor. Alan Ball's script is full of twists and turns and newcomer Sam Mendes direction gives the film flair. In the end, though this film is a celebration of life. Do what you want, whatever makes you happy and don't worry about what other people think
Rating:
Summary: Married With Children
Review: He hates his job. He hates his life. He hasn't made love to his wife in years. His dysfunctional family are always arguing, and he lusts after beautiful young women he will never have. Meet America's newest hero...Stoner Al Bundy!
Rating:
Summary: It has won Best Picture!
Review: This is an awesome movie. Awesome acting. Awesomecinematography. Awesome score (a little strange). Awesomecharacterizations. And Awesome story. This film won 5 out of I think its eight nominations and I am glad that the Academy really gave the Best Picture to the Best picture. This film is shocking and probabally for not all tastes do to its horrowing description of mid-life crisis and suburbia.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This movie was more than worthy of it's Oscar triumphs! Kevin Spacey is magnificent as the suburban father in the midst of a mid-life crisis. This is one of those unique films that draws you in and keeps you riveted to the screen. A wonderful piece of writing turned into a great movie!
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