♥♥♥♥♥
+ 3rd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Debut of the Year + Best Drama of the Year + Best Mega-Hit Movie of the Year + Biggest Moneymaker of the Year: 127.48 mil. $ range
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| The iconic poster for Sam Mendes' American Beauty with its ingeniously simple tagline, 'Look closer' |
Lester Burnham is a middle-aged father and husband, who is numbed to a zombie-like-state in an American suburb with his 9-5 job, his real estate-pushing wife and angry teenage daughter. just as some unpredicted things start to happen to him...
At first glance the characters of American Beauty might seem a bit psychologically sketchy, but then the plot takes them to new places: And although everything which takes place in some ways couldn't be more banal, yet they all still feels perfectly real and plausible.
American Beauty is written by Alan Ball (True Blood (2008-14), creator) and directed by debuting English master filmmaker Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road (2008)). It is Ball's thematically heavy script, above all, which has been studied over and over again since 1999. - What is the film saying exactly? And how does it say it? People obsess over American Beauty as few other films. And pairing it with Mendes' sensitive, keen direction is a perfect match.
Kevin Spacey (Margin Call (2011)) arguably has the role of his career here as Lester, SPOILER who liberates himself (and pays for it.) Spacey shines brightly here, and will always be remembered for his time as Lester, a great character that really strikes up the audiences' imagination. In other parts co-starring Annette Bening (The Siege (1998)) and supporting actors Mena Suvari (Psych (2010), TV-series), Thora Birch (Winter of Frozen Dreams (2009)) and Chris Cooper (Great Expectations (1998)) are all remarkable.
American Beauty is an incredibly powerful film, SPOILER and I wish I could believe in the final thoughts from Lester in the film, while instead it just makes me sad.To understand and make up your own mind, you will have to watch the film.
Related posts:
Sam Mendes: Spectre (2015) - Mendes' second Bond delivers
Skyfall (2012) - Overly celebrated third pout from Daniel Craig as Bond in slick production
Away We Go (2009) or, Where Do We Start This Family?
1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Box office: 356.2 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[American Beauty premiered 8 September (Los Angeles) and runs 122 minutes. Ball had developed his idea for the film as a play in the early 1990s. He sold the script as his first movie script in 1997 to DreamWorks for 250k $. Reportedly 20 big filmmakers were approached to direct, before Mendes was hired from the directing stage successes, working for scale, he reportedly finally only made about 38k $ on the job. Shooting lasted 50 days from December 1998 - February 1999 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #11 in 16 theaters to an impressive 816k $ first weekend (a 53k $ average). It spent 7 weeks in the top 5 in an unusual release that saw the film boom and decline, only to boom and enter the top 5 again for another 2 weeks months later following its Oscar wins: Its placements were #4-#3-#4-#5-#X-#4, followed in March with 2 weeks in #5. The film played a very long 38 weeks in North America, where it grossed 130 mil. $ ( 36.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 34.6 mil. $ (9.7 %) and Germany with 24.1 mil. $ (6.8 %). The film was nominated for 8 Oscars, winning 5: For Best Picture, Director, Leading Actor, Script and Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall (Divorce American Style (1967))). It lost Actress to Hillary Swank for Boys Don't Cry, Editing to The Wachowski Brothers' masterpiece The Matrix and Best Score (Thomas Newman (Skyfall (2012))) to John Corigliano for The Red Violin/Le Violon Rouge. It also won 3/6 Golden Globe noms, 6/14 BAFTAs, a Grammy, 3 National Board of Review awards and many other awards and honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to a notch better than this review. IMDb users have ranked it #65 on the site's Top 250 list, sitting between Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece Princess Mononoke/Mononoke-Hime (1997) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Mendes returned with the great Road to Perdition (2002). Spacey returned in The Big Kahuna (1999) and Bening in What Planet Are You From? (2000). American Beauty is certified fresh at 88 % with an 8.2/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of American Beauty?
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