Hey folks, Harry here. Just to let you know, the reviews have been flooding in from various AMERICAN BEAUTY screenings around the country and I am getting about 90% raves and about 10% negatives... and this is the harshest review and it isn't that bad... it's just a mix. But As always I try to give y'all both sides to the coin. I disagree and could go point for point for why I love each of these... but I'm gonna just let him go. His opinion is every bit as valid as mine. Beware of spoilers below...
I've wanted to add my two cents to your page for some time, but the right movie never seemed to come along. But I had to write something about American Beauty, which has been getting rave reviews on this site and in the press for some time now, so I wanted to write in with a more mixed take on this ambitious but flawed film, which I hope will inspire some debate. There is no question that this is a tour de force for Kevin Spacey. After playing second fiddle for much of his career, he is finally given a leading role and steals every single scene he is in. He is so good, that it's easy to overlook some of the more problematic aspects of the film, beginning, first and foremost, with his co-star Annette Bening, whose performance and character all too often borders on caricature. I understand that the film is trying to make the point that Carolyn has been forced to wear a mask for so long, that she no longer knows how to express her emotions honestly. The problem is, Bening is constantly overplaying the character. Even in her supposed "emotional" moments, when she berates herself after not selling the house or having to break up with her lover, I didn't believe her for a second. I think the fault also lies in the script, which never really gives the character a chance to be anything but one-dimensional. I think Bening is going to be the main topic of disagreement over this film, particularly with female critics. Several women in the audience at the screening I attended were royally pissed at the character and I can understand why. Working women are rarely given a lot of respect in American films. Remember the horrendous Mrs. Doubtfire, where Sally Field's character was basically labeled a bad mother because she wanted a career? The problem repeats itself here. Where Spacey is prized for casting off the shackles of adulthood and becoming juvenile again (only in the movies can escaping responsibility make you a hero) Bening is the villain of the piece because *gasp* she actually has ambition! I'm sorry, but there are plenty of working mothers out there who don't become zombies because they juggle career and family. This is a very male-centric view of working women, and, if I'm not mistaken, the screenwriter wrote this film after a messy divorce so I think that accounts for its decidedly less-than-enlightened depiction.
The other problem is the finale, which is effective, but illogical in the way Mendes has structured the movie. In a nod to Sunset Boulevard, the entire movie has been narrated by Spacey after his death. That's fine and it serves to parallel Spacey's character with his daughter's boyfriend Ricky (Wes Bentley), who is constantly recording life around him on his digital camcorder. So, what I think Mendes is doing, is having Spacey watch his life from beyond, just as Rickey does. I find that extremely sentimental and as an aetheist, don't believe it for a second, but let I it go. What I can't let go is that if Spacey is indeed watching his life from beyond, he would not be able to see, as the finale depicts, what each character is doing when he is shot. He would only know what he was doing, which was sitting in the kitchen looking at a picutre of his family. This seems like an extremely nitpicky detail, but I think its sloppy storytelling. In their eagerness for a grand, wrenching finale, Mendes violates the framing device he set up in the beginning of the film.
Having said all this, I still hope people go and see American Beauty, simply because it is a fairly good movie and will inspire discussion. Spacey is brilliant, as is Chris Cooper and the teen performers. Mendes is definitely a director to keep an eye on, but I think ultimately this film is not the revelation into suburban life everyone has been anticipating.
Thanks for letting me air my thoughts. Sign me Fielding Melish.
Ol Moriarty has hyped the hell out of me for this one, so I just hope it really delivers. The trailers have a strange sort of non-clicking feel to them... but... Hey... We've had a good history of bad trailers for good movies. No judging of books by the cover here.
Fielding Melish again. I meant to include these reviews in my previous message, but I got so into the American Beauty review, that I needed a break to re-arrange my thoughts. So without further ado:
THREE KINGS
Unlike American Beauty, this is a film where all the positive advanced buzz is completely true. I'm a rabid fan of David O. Russell and its great that he's finally been given a chance to take his twisted, darkly comic view of the world to the masses via a mainstream studio. Three Kings is easily as funny as his previous films, but what makes it great is that Russell goes beyond comedy and proves himself adept at handling drama and action with similar ease. There's a scene between Mark Wahlberg and an Arab captor that contains some of the finest writing and acting I've seen all this year. Russell pulls few punches in his treatment of the Gulf War as well. I remember watching the CNN newscasts and network specials all of which treated what was a joke of a war like the greatest drama to hit television screens since the Loude family. Even today, not many people have taken on that so-called war and revealed it as the hyped-up media event that it was. That's why Three Kings is such a timely film, and hopefully it will attract some controversey. It's a movie people should definitely see. Plus, if its a hit, Russell will be given even more freedom and money on his next film. That's the best part about Three Kings, Russell has moved to the mainstream but not lost any of his style or originality.
And here's the man's FOR LOVE OF THE GAME review. I'm really curious to see this one for myself, since some of the early word on A SIMPLE PLAN was negative coming from Raimi fans that have a hard time letting go of Sam's earlier career choices in terms of genre to work in. I talked to one of Sam's old Evil Dead producers when I was on THE MUMMY set last year and what I found out was originally Sam was approached to direct the Arnold film END OF DAYS, but Sam was more interested in FOR LOVE OF THE GAME because he is a Gigantic Baseball Fan... and this was his chance to do his tribute to the game he loves. As for Sam's career choices, his next film is based upon a BILLY BOB THORNTON script that gets... a bit supernatural I believe entitled THE GIFT.
FOR LOVE OF THE GAME
The exact opposite is true for Sam Raimi, who apparently has sold his soul to the devil (in this case Kevin Costner) in order to become a mainstream filmmaker. Some might say that there's nothing wrong with a director trying to do something new. After all, A Simple Plan was a change of pace for Raimi and that was still good. But that movie still has some classic Raimi touches. In this one, there's nothing to indicate that Raimi actually directed the film. It feels like it could have been made by anyone. And if there was ever a film that needed some inventive directing its this soap-opera reject. From the very beginning the story lacks any sort of energy. It doesn't help that the Costner and Kelly Preston have no chemistry whatsoever. The story of their romance is completely predictable and to be honest really boring. Its basically the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins girl, story re-told in as routine a manner as possible. The baseball scenes are injected supposedly to give the film some life, but they aren't very well directed. For such a simple set-up, the movie is riddled with implausibilities, the largest being that Costner, who is a Detroit Tiger, seems to spend most of his time in New York. Why didn't they just make him a Yankee? You certainly never see him in Detroit. If this is an indication of what Raimi's future career will be like in the mainstream, here's hoping he just goes ahead and does Evil Dead 4.
