american beauty is not that good. period.

So. Somewhere in the middle of really wanting to write a fairly preachy post about why people should shut up and give up, I decided not to and instead, to go with this short article about the film american beauty. I recently saved a copy of this later 90's Kevin Spacey film from a 9.99 rack at Best Buy becuase

1-I'm not very macho and

2-I support well done retail merchandising (for more on this, see the ELO's greatest hits knockoff asian version in my glovebox from my recent trip to a gas station somewhere in Henry County, IL. to cheer up after a bullshit speeding ticket.)

So then, American Beauty. I've seen it through bits and pieces of wasted high school friday nights and dorm room wine binging, but never had a thorough, sitaloneinthedarkwithyouririshwhiskey viewing, which is what is usually takes for me to develop a useful opinon/condescendingly encyclopedic knowledge of the film/hangover.

Now I don't want to go through the film frame by frame, but if you've seen it at all, you will remember my references here. American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes (briton) and written by a gay nobody (who also wrote Revolutionary Road, a movie I could not watch past an hour into) is overrated. Fact. There are plenty of cool moments, every time Kevin Spacey speaks while he is inside his own home, for instance (asparagus, his job, his new car, I rule!, etc) but the voiceovers and pacing absolutely kill the movie and the themes it could have gone for. Instead of completing the drama within the family (by not resolving anything and leaving us with the realization that we all do terrible things to each other everyday), the film relies far too much on the creepy film-making, pot-selling pseudo boyfriend/stalker next door to be our 'eyes' through the 'window' into their family. Then, we can see how beautiful they really are and how much he would like to be a part of them somehow. How much more obvious would you like these metaphors to be to make this a Bond film where they bring back Pussy Galore?

Christ, the fact that this won best film mean that Awards mean nothing (surprise!) and that Hollywood doesn't expect Suburban mcmansion america to grasp a metaphor unless it comes with a free jack in the box that pops out to hit you in the head when you need to pay attention. The kicker here is the closing to the film and the closing of my rant. The creepy pothead boyfriend has what is ramped up to be a very sincere moment, abstract sound and music, slow pan in on his face with steadicam, and we see tears well up as he's talking about how beautiful a plastic bag blowing around can be. There's so much beauty in the world, let's use beauty in the title of our film and have Spacey's voice over repeat this whole line at the end of the movie using the same suburban neighborhood flyover! Except one thing, this film is completely about how things of beauty on the outside are so delicately corruptible on the inside. Right? Someone's not telling the truth here and it's either the kid or the bag. Keep it up America.