American Beauty - I'm a fucking dumbass

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

The Ice Storm is the best movie mentioned in the last 50 posts.

^yes. that seems to have fallen in favor somewhat too, but I thought it was great

Truman Show i actually saw in the theater. went to see Office Space, was one of two people in the entire theater and laughed my ass off. i had brought in a half pint of evan williams and polished it off by the end. then got the bright idea to hide out and sneak into a later showing of Truman. theater was absolutely packed. it sucked p bad iirc.

Fight Club still best gay film of '99

(novel written by a homo too)

if you think it "lionizes toxic men" I think you missed the last 30 mins

morbs otm

relishing this tbh

Love American Beauty (then and now), love The Ice Storm (took two or three viewings), hate Fight Club (then and now).

undergirded by gay panic

this is where I remind Shakeybrain AGAIN that one of Pitt's first lines (to Norton) is "do I give you the ass or the crotch?"

can't remember anything about that film, but that does sound like a homophobic straight guy thing to say

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.

― omar little, Monday, September 9, 2019

What's fascinating about American Beauty is that Ball and Mendes still thought they could get away with Network-indebted cartoons in 1999 and still entertain. By the last third it has contempt for everyone except Spacey's pure desire to bed a teenaged girl even if unrealized and Chris Cooper's desire to shoot him and himself for his thwarted homosexual passions. It strikes me as very much a late '90s movie in which a liberal suburban enclave could greet the gay couple next door but still think honoring their lusts is gross, and accept a career woman but still make fun of her as a corporate drone.

It's constantly hedging yet congratulating itself for showing representations of liberal America.

not enough hatred of Alan Ball itt

also presenting her affair w/another man her own age as a pathetic clownish thing while Lester lusting for a high schooler is a hero's journey of self realization.

if you think it "lionizes toxic men" I think you missed the last 30 mins

I strongly dislike the ending of Fight Club. At best, the film is queasily ambivalent about its overall stance. To me, the reveal that Tyler Durden is just a mental construct only serves as way to let the audience off the hook in their over-identification with the fight club and their shitty antics.

The nihilistic 'actions' are often made to look silly or gross, as in the globs of human fat scene.

There was an epic AB thread on the Salon forums back in the day. Largely critical.

Yeah, I saw it more as trying to be grossly transgressive and mischievous in a "cool" way, but ymmv.

xp

also Spacey's scenes in AB might've made more sense with a few frames of cock spliced in

Length or duration

uh

Among the movies many other sins, I always (fairly or not) considered the American Beauty score to be ground zero for the annoyingly twee marimba/celeste/xylophone musical sounds that took over commercials and documentary soundtracks in the 2000s.

now I want to see it again

The part where Narrator/Durden still looks cool as hell and winds up with the hot girl while a great, anthemic Pixies song rolls over them watching explosions did a great job of undermining toxic masculinity.