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| American Beauty |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 121 |
| Public Rating: 8.32 (170 votes) |
Director: Sam Mendes |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 1999 |
| Writer(s): Alan Ball |
| Distributor: 1 |
| Reviewed by: Matthew Coats |
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Right now, "American Beauty" is my favorite movie, for right now that is. My "favorite movie" changes every couple of days. I think the longest time any movie remained as my favorite movie was 2 months, and that was Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures." Not to say that when a movie stops being "my favorite movie" I hate it, it's still a great movie.
Sam Mendes, who directed this masterpiece, had previously directed a revival of "Cabaret" on Broadway, which I happened to see when I was living in New York. It was a great production if you could get over the sight of Alan Cumming wearing practically nothing and singing in German. "American Beauty" is such a radical change for that director, I doubted he would be able to pull it off, but he did it wonderfully. It's full of interesting and thought provoking subject matter and hilarious dark humor and situations.
In my opinion, Kevin Spacey is one of the coolest actors in the world. From "The Usual Suspects" on, everything he's done has been remarkable (yet everything before that, with the exception of "Glengary Glen Ross" wasn't as good... like "Outbreak"). I don't think anybody could have played the part of Lester Burnham as well as he did. He gets all the best lines in the movie. "Will somebody please pass the fucking aspargus," or "I didn't 'lose' my job. It's not like 'oops where did my job go,' I quit!" An exceptional role for an exceptional actor.
My favorite character in this is their voyeristic neighbor, Ricky Fitts (Wes Bently) because it's someone exactly like me. I know saying that you can relate to a character in a movie is probably the most cliche thing anyone can say, but that's not the case. I can't relate to him, but I'm like him. I don't deal drugs or have some evil Marine Corps colonel as a father. But I videotape everthing and find beauty in something as simple as a bag blowing in the wind. I even tape all the high school girls walking home from school, just as he tapes Jane Burnham (Thora Birch) a lot. I'm probably the kind of person that would burn a girl's name in fire on their front lawn as a sign of affection like he does in the movie.
Mena Suvari is beautiful in this movie. I don't mean her acting was beautiful, but SHE was. In every other movie she's been in, from her debut in Gregg Araki's "Nowhere" to "American Beauty." She's always played a cute innocent girl who would never do anything bad. Finally she gets to put her good looks to use and be sexy for once, of course it's all in Lester Burnham's fantasies that she dances sexily or lies naked in a bath of rose petals. But to hear someone as cute as her talking about giving blowjobs, it's like a wet dream put to life!
Out of 10 stars I give this movie a full ten! It's completly amazing! Unlike every other movie that wins a Best Picture oscar, this one DESERVED it! I highly recommend it, as the movie's tagline says ...look closer.
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