American Beauty [BLU-RAY]

...with the propensity of having root rot. Gorgeous, but LOOK CLOSER means to do just that. The breed of the roses are literally American Beauty.The lyrics to The Seeker (by The Who) are: " I'm a really desperate man I wont get to get what I'm after Till the day I die." Kinda like Lester finally being able to nail Angela.Now that this is all cleared up vs a long winded hot air summary...One of the best movies I've seen in my life, which has been longer than Lester's by a good 15yrs. The acting is fantastic, and my favorite thing about Amazon Prime is the X-Ray, complete with music and trivia. One of the first things I look at, truth be told. The cover of Castles Burning by Annie Lennox was one of the best things to come out of this flick, what a wonderful discovery.It is crazy how they are all living in separate realities, it seems. One (wo)man's treasure is another one's trash. Ultra crazy.Very thankful that they ended the story the way they did, not with Ricky and Jane taking the blame for the murder...but I am a little sad for poor desperate Lester, and his choice regarding Angela. Brad would say Poor Loser.The humor threaded throughout: Nothing short of GENIUS.

*American Beauty* follows the lives of characters each looking for what they consider authenticity in their lives. Each character seeks a real life by in his or her own way by questing for beauty. *American Beauty,* explores ways that a group of people behold each other at a distance and how in eventually coming closer, they lose that once driving force of an objectifying sense of beauty and gain a more real relationship. While at a distance they engage in objectifying each other, up-close they face their true honest intersubjectivity--an I-and-Thou relationship. It is interesting to watch the film's trailer (which you can do on Amazon Instant Video), because the trailer repeatedly flashes the message, "Look closer." The beauty that from a distance is exaggerated and therefore extraordinary, becomes when lived close up at the same time ordinary but more meaningful and more real. The film plays with this question about these two kinds of beauty in a number of ways.In *American Beauty,* protagonist and narrator Lester Burnham invites into his own life review. And we are left with the question of having looked closer did he find beauty. The film seems to play with the idea of idealized objectified beauty fading in the presence of honest up-close beauty with its complexities. The film's title is almost ironic: the "America" of *American Beauty* is suburbia; the "beauty" of *American Beauty* is the fantasy of love at a distance. But when the superficial shell of American suburbia breaks, true beauty is revealed.I see this film as presenting beauty as if it might be an inalienable right, as if one might say "life, liberty, and the pursuit of...beauty." But what of happiness? None of the characters in the movie seem happy, except maybe in the way Lester does in that he is the only "free" character in the film, the only character who answers to no higher authority than himself. Beauty for most of the characters in this film is their experience of spirituality and liberation from the ordinary rounds of life.In all the film's characters' quests each only fulfill themselves after he or she fails to get what they think they want. Lester in a sense renounces the world. He quits his job at a media magazine and pursues weightlifting. One night at the dinner table he exposes the banality of the suburban life his wife strives to maintain. Lester embarks on a weight-lifting program because the teenage girl to whom he is sexually attracted, a friend of his daughter Jane named Angela--a girl who boasts of her many acts of sexual promiscuity--comments to Jane that she would like to see Lester naked and Lester overhears this. But in the end Lester finds that he really does not want what he dreams of. Lester gives up being a "luster."Each of the characters sees beauty from a distance and when they come close to the object of their beauty it becomes elusive. Finally Lester's nobility of restraint becomes his beauty. Beauty emerges here when everyone lets go of their pretenses. Nonetheless Lester had experienced the beauty of the young Angela and that beauty drove his quest. Teenage next-door neighbor Ricky, a classmate of Jane and Angela, finds and speaks of a beauty so intense that he could almost burst but, he pursues beauty through the lens of his video camera. Just as Lester is looking and listening into Angela's life, so too is Ricky looking into Jane's life by videotaping her as often as possible.In a sense *American Beauty* is a tragedy in that no one gets what they want, and for those who do, they find it unrewarding and disappointing. Although as many reviewers complained, the characters lack depth, the question of their pursuits and quests invites us to contemplate how and where we each find beauty in our own lives. *American Beauty* raises the questions of what is a life beautifully lived and where and how do we find beauty when we look closer. What is beauty when we "look closer?"(As an addendum to this review I wish to mention that I am intrigued that at 1:23 the soundtrack samples the Who's "Seeker." At one level this of course identifies Lester as a "seeker." But also noticed that the trailer samples the Who's "Baba O'Reilly." And the film's credits give "Special thanks to Pete Townshend," who is of course, the guitarist and songwriter for the Who. What intrigues me is that as many of the famous songs of the Who touch on Avatar Meher Baba, I am led to wonder about this connection between director Alan Ball's intentions and the spiritual messages of Pete Townshend's music.)

The movie is, at one level, a satire on the American Dream with Lester Burnham playing a slightly younger modern day Willy Loman. Both are advertising men that are trapped in meaningless work and empty marriages while being emasculated by their families. In both situations their deaths are not so much tragic as they are inevitable. But this isn't "Death of a Salesman II", it is "American Beauty", it's tag line of "look closely" foreshadows the difference.At first, it might seem like Alan Ball started and ended with Lester Burnham as a pot-smoking Willy Loman. But Arthur Miller's doomed salesman protagonist was on the opposite trajectory of Ball's hero, Lester. Kevin Spacey brilliantly plays a man that is completely involved in his own fantasy of life. Both the explicit dream of bedding the young Angela Hayes and the implied fantasy of his own success. But the difference is that Lester becomes the anti-Willy Loman when he makes the decision to pursue his dream. As Loman's fantasies served to separate him from reality and his life became even more tragic, Lester changes himself and really discovers his own meaning. When he finally achieves his fantasy, it is through his rejection of his old life. He ultimately recognizes that his fantasy is not what he needs and he finds his peace not in fulfilling his dream but in surrendering it. Willy Loman's character ridicules empty materialism by endlessly perusing it leading to his death as a shattered man. Lester Burnham rejects superficiality and that is his path to redemption. In his own words, he "wants to look good naked!"Both movies are titles are inspired by story of the leading characters. Willy Loman's story is the Death of a Salesman just as Lester Burnham becomes an American Beauty.Other characters play their own parts in the tragic irony. The most blatant is Angela Hayes, the virgin slut who declares that "I don't think there's anything worse than being ordinary" and yet ruthlessly pursues being normal. Colonel Frank Fitts, the control addict that has lost all control and hates himself. Carolyn Burnham, the empty shell of a human that measures success by how successful you look. She can turn the cement hole of a pool into a "lagoon" with some tiki torches. Each of them are angry and lost.But the most interesting supporting character is Ricky Fritts. He is a conundrum of young wisdom and dispassionate separation. At one point, he is Lester's role model when he quits his job and he seems to understand and capture the world around him. But on a second look, he is an observer of life with a room full of video tapes and soul empty of experience. "Video is a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me to remember." Ricky's lack of involvement in life makes it hard to remember. He doesn't experience, he just sees.Ricky is fascinated by the image of an empty plastic bag blowing aimlessly in the wind because it is like his soul. His phony introspection is a warning against giving in to purposelessness. The real truth is that Ricky's soul is just as empty as Carolyn's.This movie is an absolute must see! You will rarely see such intelligent dialog so brilliantly cast and executed in a brilliant story that can make you look at your own values.

What can you say about a masterpiece like this film. The casting is perfect. Human complexity and eternity are a tall order when you write a tragic comedy of errors. Allen Ball calls the game and Sam Mendes hits it out of the park. The only thing I would say is desired is the interesting story about what happens to all the characters after the irrevocable die is cast. Worthy of another movie. Perhaps that can happen now that we can create artificial actors. Benning and Spacey are two of our most honest and complex artists. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

This film released was a living contraddiction: very well received, oscar-winning, a big box office success, but people did not realized the real beauty of it (and I guess most critics either).In fact the real value of the film is not in its most apparent and visible elements: it is not in the father-son friction, or in the middle-aged man crisis, or in the usual clichè of the fascinatin young guy who feels different, or in some "poetical" and "lyrical" moments (the flying bag, the bed of roses, etc...).The beauty of this film is in the sense of solitude, death, emptyness and stiffness conveyed by acting, photography, direction and where maybe only music helps feel something still alive and metaphysical laying underneath.Spacey and Benning are fabulous and yes, the voice over sounds sometimes clichè and not as deep as it means to be but all in all this is a very bold film because it forces us to slow down and go with this unusual flow, considering it is mainly a mainstream film with independent cinema elements (or maybe is an independent film that just adopted a mainstream look to get through to the audience and vehicle an unusual (at least for american audience) point of view about life

Peeking through the cracked veneer of suburban America, and all is not well. This was easily to be 1999's best movie. The debut feature from director Sam Mendes, still stands firmly as one of his greatest achievements, it was also to bring him an immediate oscar for best director. Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are the driving forces in a movie that was also to take the crown for best picture. Spacey' s character 'Lester Burnham', and his midlife crisis are central to the plot. It's a kind of drama of suburban dysfunction, with an added stirring of Noir and Lolita. Thomas Newman music is also hauntingly beautiful.

I am neither inclined nor qualified to do a film review, but I can say that the audio and video quality is great (especially on Blu-Ray) as is the acting from the entire cast.As an Indian, I had great fun laughing at the "antics" of the Americans. As a human being acutely aware of my own shortcomings and peculiarities, I identified with the characters and their individual stories in the movie and lived their lives vicariously.In my opinion there is not a poor shot or a loose end in the film. The tying together of all the sub-plots is superb. I have always believed that the director makes or breaks a movie - so hats off to Sam Mendes. American Beauty is as far away from "formula films" as possible but he manages to pull it off with elan.The movie stays with you long after it is over. You will be left wondering about the reactions and the future fates of the various people around Lester Burnham.I have seen this film before and I can say that I will watch it again in future.

In one year Lester Burnham (Spacey) will be dead. See his final year unfold as he finally finds himself and breaks out of his mundane lifestyle, ruining his marriage and becoming a man who lives in the moment rather than living with regrets.See the lives of his neighbourhood evolve around him and ultimately answer the question of who killed Lester Burnham.A superb commentary of middle class American life with plenty of drama, comedy and thrilling moments that will have you hooked to the screen.

Kevin Spacey gives an Oscar winning performance as a suburban husband going though a mid life crisis. Lester (Spacey) is an ad journalist with a teenage daughter who hates him and a career wife who no longer sees him. With the arrival of the Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) and his family next door, Lester starts to strip away his conservative lifestyle and reconnect with the joys of his past, while lusting after his daughters best friend. As Lester become more free he begins to learn that his life as it was, was not as bad as he first thought.