Movie #1!!!!

Wow, we're finally here at the end of the semester. I'd just like to take this time to thank anybody who has read the Top 25 movie series and I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. So without further ado, I'm going to confirm the worst kept secret in the world and reveal what I consider to be the number one movie of all time!

1: American Beauty

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is suffering a mid-life crisis that affects the lives of his family which is made up of his super bitch of a wife Carolyn and rebelling daughter Jane who hates him. Carolyn is a real estate agent a little too wrapped up in her job who takes on an affair with business rival Buddy Kane. Meanwhile Jane seems to fall in love with Ricky Fitts, the strange boy next door who is a drug dealer/documentarian who lives under a roof governed by a very strict marine father and a speechless mother. Lester's mid-life crisis causes him to drastically change his life around when he quits his job and works at a fast food restaurant. He starts working out to gain the attention of Angela, a friend of Jane's who brags about her sexual exploits every weekend.

Okay, so like Sideways, we’re back on the whole mid-life crisis thing. This movie has been on the top of the list ever since the first time I watched, I didn’t even need to think twice about it. I think American Beauty represents cinematic perfection. The acting is solid and the screenplay is brilliant. To me, it represents breaking down the barricades you build for yourself as you go on through life and really challenging what you are capable of. There's a reassuring measure to all viewers that whenever you feel your life is out of your control because of your job, your family, or other circumstances, it's never too late to seize that control back. It does have the controversial 42-year-old trying to nail a 17-year-old subplot which turns quite a few people off on this movie, but that’s not even a major part of the plot (as the tagline for the movie says “Look Closer.”) Just an interesting little tidbit… Lester Burnham, a middle-aged man who develops an infatuation with an adolescent girl, is an update of Humbert Humbert from the classic novel Lolita. "Lester Burnham" is an anagram for "Humbert learns."

I disagree with the assessment by some of the people on internet movie database that “lives [of the characters] change, but not for the better.” Lester was doing “great” by the end of the film. He reflects on all the positive things that have happened in his life at the end of the film and finds that he actually doesn't have any regrets. Jane was “really happy” and Carolyn seemed to be doing great as well, but upset that she got caught…I doubt she had any regrets either. I think the point the film was trying to make is that good and bad times come and go and that you can find happiness in pretty odd places...you just need have the courage to actually go after it and lose your fears and inhibitions.

The theme about beauty is also a good one…the fact is, it’s all around us, and sometimes we have to take the time to “look closer” in order to appreciate it. Ricky's video recordings are all things that he believes are beautiful. The plastic bag scene does an excellent job of driving this point home. Apparently, Alan Ball got the idea for the movie when he was at the World Trade Center and saw a plastic bag blowing around. Wes Bentley acts the scene out perfectly, and apparently, the casting director felt that although she had read that scene numerous times, his reading was the first time she felt she understood the meaning of it.

This movie has also been called the “Death of a Salesman” for the nineties (Carolyn even refers to the “Lomans” just moving out of the house next door!) I think that Lester suffers through a lot of illusions about life and Carolyn is ultimately the realist. The angry dinner scene pretty well sums this all up:

Carolyn: Your father and I were just discussing his day at work. Why don't you tell our daughter about it, honey?
Lester: Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go fuck himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars! Pass the asparagus.
Carolyn: Your father seems to think this type of behavior is something to be proud of!
Lester: And your mother seems to prefer I go through life like a fucking prisoner while she keeps my dick in a mason jar under the sink.
Carolyn: How dare you speak to me that way in front of her. And I marvel that you can be so contemptuous of me, on the same day that you LOSE your job.
Lester: Lose it? I didn't lose it. It's not like, "Whoops! Where'd my job go?" I QUIT. Someone pass me the asparagus.

Of course, this also sums up the big contrast between Death of a Salesman and American Beauty...Willy desperately wants to leave a legacy for his family before he dies, and I think Lester also wanted that at some point, but now he's given up. But the similarity here is that both Willy and Lester want to be the number-one man...their definitions on what it means to be "number-one" are just slightly different. Lester only cares about what's best for himself and what it will take to get him to be happy in his own mind. Like Willy, Lester's life is a failure up to this point, and he has left nothing to be remembered by. There are plenty of other comparisons, but I won't go into them. And I didn't know this until recently, but writer Alan Ball seems to also have a fascination with death; he created the series “Six Feet Under.”

American Beauty was nominated for eight Oscars and won five, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Kevin Spacey.) It would have won the Big Five if Hilary Swank hadn't played some tranny in Boys Don't Cry and beat Annette Bening. Why does Hilary Swank keep screwing me over? As if Million Dollar Baby wasn't bad enough...Swank had to steal one from one of the best performances by an actress that I've ever seen? Give me a friggin' break!