American Beauty - I'm a fucking dumbass

american beauty isn't as good as its reviews or as bad as its rep. there'll be some kind of rediscovery at some point where people decide it was significant somehow. i don't trust my opinion on it at all because i saw it with a woman who loved it and at the time i was hitting on her so i liked it too. (the kind of disclaimer that should really be on movie reviews.) i don't remember having a strong reaction to it either way. it seemed of its moment.

i do remember being charmed by the plastic bag. reminded me of the red balloon.

(btw that relationship didn't end well.)

you got married?

j/k

i don't trust my opinion on it at all because i saw it with a woman who loved it and at the time i was hitting on her so i liked it too. (the kind of disclaimer that should really be on movie reviews.)

^

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2y0WebFULM

It's a good enough film. Not epochal, but certainly enjoyable to watch, if you are not the kind of person who hates things.

Most of what I liked about AB were the scenes with him first having his whole rediscovery thing after he quits is job. I would have liked this movie a LOT better if it had ditched the convenient blackmail thing and just been about a dude quitting his job, getting dumped by his wife, etc.

When I first saw this I liked it, but the whole repressed gay neighbor thing really left a bad taste in my mouth. It seemed so tacked on, and to have so little to do with what I thought was the main theme of the movie. I still like the music and the vaguely surreal atmosphere. The scene where he smokes the pot with the unibrow caterer was my favorite.

The bag scene was good because it's a total stoner scene. I never watched it stoned, but I bet if I did I would totally get into that scene and the expression on my face would probably be just like the one Bentley wore throughout the movie.

also I saw Magnolia a few weeks later. Another movie I loved at the time and despise now.

Ha, I hated "Magnolia" from the get-go!

Magnolia is good too. I also have that on VHS.

This movie had a really bad influence on film scores.

This = American Beauty

fuckin' a

On the second viewing, it occurred to me that EVERYONE WAS A SUSPECKK

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/103/364746582_27244604e9.jpg

https://www.instagram.com/p/B1fFJFFlt95/

the worm has turned in the Zeitgeist

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/american-beauty-legacy-20-years-later_n_5d5c344fe4b0d1e1136902be

Interesting piece--the backlash has fascinated me for years.

i love the backlash.

this movie was always bad and I hated it when it came out

Otm

my buddy dave and i railed against the dumbness of the plastic bag scene in the school playground back in 1999 and we were dumb kids

but we were right

AB seemed impressive in a few very superficial ways, primarily pacing and editing and some acting here and there (Thora Birch was probably the best one here and it was always good to see Scottie Bakula pop up) but now it feels like a condensed version of a low midrange quality premium cable show that lasts one season.

I subjected my poor friend to a full-on, top of my voice, 20 minute power rant on the many ways i hated it as we walked to the train station after the movie. god i hated it so much.

such a smug film, too; it's basically a dumb Facebook artist meme stretched out to 122 minutes.

This doesn't quite apply to thew critical backlash, but I feel part of the general backlash is with people my age who saw it in High School when we were first getting our feet wet with important films, and didn't have easy access to the classics (DVD was still pretty new, Criterion only had about 50-60 titles out etc.). In that context, it's quite profound...until you see other stuff.*

Omar's also OTM about the TV influence. Thanks to this and 6FU, Ball became a huge touchstone on 'Quality Television' from cable on down in the '00s. Desperate Houseswives was such a PG-13 AB knock-off.

*Similar case w/Fight Club (note it's not included in the '99 list in the linked article), except many didn't let go to it, and ergo it's had a much more poisonous legacy.

I hated Fight Club too. saw both movies as essentially reactionary and regressive, both feature cop-outs masquerading as critiques.

both undergirded by gay panic as well

yet weirdly imo/ime actors and theatre people LOVED this movie.

Fight Club has aged just as poorly, what with it's lionizing of toxic men and 9/11 ending.

Theatre people also think Moulin Rouge (Luhrman) was the peak of modern cinema

I feel part of the general backlash is with people my age who saw it in High School when we were first getting our feet wet with important films, and didn't have easy access to the classics (DVD was still pretty new, Criterion only had about 50-60 titles out etc.). In that context, it's quite profound...until you see other stuff.

this mirrors my exact experience. blew my mind in high school and then i watched like five movies with fewer rocks in their heads and forgot about it. on revisit the glow had diminished heavily and i preferred magnolia anyway (i know).

i still think fight club is a good movie though. fincher makes the best of a bad book. i don't think it lionizes toxic men, the point is that the toxicity ends in nihilism?

A surprising amount of people still ride hard for Dogma too.

the movie presents the gay couple as this very sexless friendly duo and the closeted guy as this sweaty and desperate murderer. i still lol when thinking about the phantom blowjob he "witnessed" which leads to his breakdown. and Spacey being this gentle benevolent understanding guy in a very unctuous actorly not-spontaneous manner when Cooper tries to kiss him is basically foreshadowing the former's move into being a schmaltz king for a few years after. His career after AB is Travolta levels of weird.

in the early days of movie message boards basically Dogma and Fight Club and American Beauty and Blair Witch were some of the new classics of cinema everyone rode for.

blair witch absolutely kicks ass though

i don't think it lionizes toxic men, the point is that the toxicity ends in nihilism?

the nihilism looks cool, is the problem.

I do think Fight Club is decent, it looks good and the performances are fun, but it's surprisingly a bit boring for me, it doesn't really have much of a narrative pull.

the nihilism looks cool, is the problem.

― Οὖτις, Monday, September 9, 2019 3:57 PM (thirty-five seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

... it really do not think it does

Dogma and Fight Club and American Beauty and Blair Witch

burn this canon

of these four Fight Club is far and away the best because Fincher manages to have some fun with it, but that's as far as I'll go

Blair Witch is interesting stuff imo, i think as a document of its time even after casting aside the decent scares and concept it's vv fascinating.

the last ten minutes or so of blair witch still fuck me up. whole thing is executed so well

the biggest joke of the film and unfortunately a prescient one is a smug dork thinking he's the most awesome and attractive guy in the world but losing his mind because it's so not true he has to create a separate persona he presents to the world.

might as well take this over here
1999 in film

or here lol
1999's Best Movies: 20 Years Later

...“Pleasantville,” “The Ice Storm” and “The Truman Show.”

man, college flashbacks. only ditch weed and a nearby blockbuster for entertainment when i was broke. i think i remember liking Ice Storm(?)

this movie was always bad and I hated it when it came out

― Οὖτις, Monday, September 9, 2019 4:52 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink