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American Beauty [Region 2]
Price: $28.99 Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0678149096422
Format: PAL
Languages: German (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Region Code: 2
Theatrical Release Date: October 01, 1999
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Editorial Review:
From its first gliding aerial shot of a generic suburban street, American Beauty moves with a mesmerizing confidence and acuity epitomized by Kevin Spacey's calm narration. Spacey is Lester Burnham, a harried Everyman whose midlife awakening is the spine of the story, and his very first lines hook us with their teasing fatalism--like Sunset Boulevard's Joe Gillis, Burnham tells us his story from beyond the grave.
It's an audacious start for a film that justifies that audacity. Weaving social satire, domestic tragedy, and whodunit into a single package, Alan Ball's first theatrical script dares to blur generic lines and keep us off balance, winking seamlessly from dark, scabrous comedy to deeply moving drama. The Burnham family joins the cinematic short list of great dysfunctional American families, as Lester is pitted against his manic, materialistic realtor wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening, making the most of a mostly unsympathetic role) and his sullen, contemptuous teenaged daughter, Jane (Thora Birch, utterly convincing in her edgy balance of self-absorption and wistful longing). Into their lives come two catalytic outsiders. A young cheerleader (Mena Suvari) jolts Lester into a sexual epiphany that blooms into a second adolescence. And an eerily calm young neighbor (Wes Bentley) transforms both Lester and Jane with his canny influence.
Credit another big-screen newcomer, English theatrical director Sam Mendes, with expertly juggling these potentially disjunctive elements into a superb ensemble piece that achieves a stylized pace without lapsing into transparent self-indulgence. Mendes has shrewdly insured his success with a solid crew of stage veterans, yet he's also made an inspired discovery in Bentley, whose Ricky Fitts becomes a fulcrum for both plot and theme. Cinematographer Conrad Hall's sumptuous visual design further elevates the film, infusing the beige interiors of the Burnhams' lives with vivid bursts of deep crimson, the color of roses--and of blood. --Sam Sutherland
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Even though it's a bit old by now, still a great overall film
My mom had this dvd lying around the living room so I decided to watch it today since I was bored with nothing else to do. I knew a little bit about it from watching the oscars back in 1999 and from word-of-mouth. It is a pretty good movie story wise, though a little predictable at times. All the characters can be relatable. Kevin Spacey delivers a dramatic and comendable performance and Anette Bening is great too. The acting in this movie was top notch. I would have give it 5 stars it if werent ... Read More
Rating:  - An outstanding accomplishment
Drama in which a middle-class suburban family begins to fall apart when husband and father Kevin Spacey starts going through a mid-life crisis, quitting his job as a magazine writer, befriending his teenage daughter Thora Birch's boyfriend Wes Bentley, starting to smoke marijuana and beginning an obsession with his daughter's best friend Mena Suvari, all in an attempt to dispel the deadness that he feels inside and regain the happiness that he feels that he has not had since he was a young man. Spacey's ... Read More
Rating: - American Reality
This is a great, satirical, passionate, sensual, and disturbing movie. You will love the character development and find yourself on the side of different characters as time goes on. The characters are so diverse and dissimilar from one another that it is realistic, in that they are not cookie-cutters of one another. Complexity of characters is what really makes this movie.
Kevin Spacey and Annette Benning give performances that are so convincing that you feel like you've just witnessed the ... Read More
Rating:  - technically beautiful ... morally crap
It should take more than technical perfection to deserve recognition by the Academy.
The plot is expertly crafted. The direction is superb. The acting immaculate. The photography and editing exemplify the highest standards of film making.
We learn nothing useful from this film. In this case the senseless death of the hero character is an insult. This film was a waste of good cellulose. What would have been useful is the way back ... teaching us how to turn desperate and deteriorating ... Read More
Rating: - Enough has been said but....
There have been so many reviews of this movie I will limit my comment to state my sheer amazement after reading the 1 STAR reviews ...
It is beyond comprehension this brilliant piece of artistry can be rated below 3 STARS by anyone.... In my mind it is one of the most socio-realistic screen plays that have ever come out of Hollywood - not due to the (perhaps overly) tragicomic characterizations but because each character represents something real in all of us... But maybe that does not resonate with those ... Read More
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