American Beauty

Part of the mission of going to Roger's on thursday involved renting a movie. I though of American Beauty, but it turned out that they only had it for sale. I ended up buying both "American Beauty" and "Forrest Gump" on DVD. Two academy award winners. I had never seen AB before so it was a gamble, but usually the best picture is at least half good. (ie. Braveheart, Gladiator, Sound of Music, Forrest Gump, LOTR: ROTK, Rain Man. just to name a few good'uns).

Anyways, I watched American Beauty this evening and I loved it. I thought it was an awesome movie, if not random. No, not random like Constantine. It was random in a touching way. There was a wide variety of characters played very convincingly. In fact, a couple of the characters would have seemed cheesy, had they not been cast or acted out well. It was set relatively close to home, in a metaphorical sense. The plot wasn't predictable and usually the characters acted as one would expect them to in real life.

It was a really influential movie. I can see it making people examine their life. Out of the 10 or so main characters, most people could find one to relate to. I highly recommend the movie to people and if you make fun of it, then you missed the point. There are parts where it almost turns corny, but on the flipside, the part that seems corny is quite serious and pertinent to the movie. All in all, the backbone of that movie is virtually identical to the backbone of my philosophy and if I could die the way Kevin Spacey did, then I would be one happy man.

5 Stars