Finally saw AMERICAN BEAUTY
le...@my-deja.com
taping it off Pay-Per-View. I was not at all surprised at how shallow,
simple-minded, and unoriginal it was. Everything in it was already said
in all those comedies of 30 years ago that used to star people like
George Segal and Elliott Gould. All the characters are outlandish
caricatures (just as they were in so many "counterculture" movies years
ago). It’s sitcom writing, without the laughs, by a writer-director
team that probably doesn’t have kids and probably never lived in the
suburbs. They act like they’re the first people to make these
observations about the malaise of modern American life. You’ve got to
be 13 years old to think this film had any depth.
If I was a right-wing conservative, I’d call the film a cynical,
condescending, manipulative attack on the nuclear family. (Notice how
the next-door gay couple marked the only stable relationship in the
film. Smells of heterophobia, doesn’t it?) Frankly, I don’t mind
attacks on the nuclear family as long as they get it right and critique
those aspects that deserve it. But this film didn’t get it right. I
personally have a lot in common with Kevin Spacey’s character in terms
of age, status, family situation, etc. Given that, I didn’t find a
single honest moment in the film (except, of course, for the shower
scene at the beginning!). People in real life are far more complex than
these people. It was all some middle-aged man’s fantasy about
rediscovering his lost youth. I don’t need to go to the movies to see
other middle-aged men’s fantasies. I have plenty of my own, thank you.
I’d like to see something honest and intelligent (and funny) about mid-
life crisis, something that implicates the hero in his own condition,
the way Woody Allen’s DECONSTRUCTING HARRY acknowledged Woody’s
character’s own self-destructiveness and immaturity and the role his
character flaws played in his art. Now THAT should have won Best
Picture that year (1997) and not that contrived romantic fantasy
TITANIC. But that's another story.
Thank you.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
H Rachel
>I’d like to see something honest and intelligent (and funny)
>about mid- life crisis, something that implicates the hero in
>his own condition, the way Woody Allen’s DECONSTRUCTING HARRY
>acknowledged Woody’s character’s own self-destructiveness and
>immaturity and the role his character flaws played in his art.
>Now THAT should have won Best Picture that year (1997) and not
>that contrived romantic fantasy TITANIC. But that's another
>story.
>Thank you.
>
DECONSTRUCTING HARRY was very good, but nah, THE SWEET HEREAFTER
should have won... but as if that would ever be an issue!
What on earth resisted you from seeing AB for so long? By no
means the very best film of last year, but not bad as far as BEST
PICTURE winners go.
>-s
Rachel
--<-@
GERAD DEPARDIEU anagram: "Dear, dear rude pig."
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
Up to 100 minutes free!
http://www.keen.com
TaTaToothy
about the film, it would have been a different experience. I suspect
you could have written your AB review before you even sat down to
watch it.
Why not just watch tapes of the Republican Convention? Sounds more
your speed.
>I’d like to see something honest and intelligent (and funny) about mid-
>life crisis, something that implicates the hero in his own condition,
>the way Woody Allen’s DECONSTRUCTING HARRY acknowledged Woody’s
>character’s own self-destructiveness and immaturity and the role his
>character flaws played in his art. Now THAT should have won Best
>Picture that year (1997) and not that contrived romantic fantasy
>TITANIC. But that's another story.
>Thank you.
>
>
>
damnfine
> I resisted AMERICAN BEAUTY up to now,
Then you obviously hated it before you saw it... rendering your comments
completely and utterly insignificant.
Sorry.
--
Damnfine,
"I'm quietly judging you."
le...@my-deja.com
TaTaToothy <horsetoothjackass@pinkand greensewer.com> wrote:
> Maybe if you hadn't already heard/read everything you wanted to know
> about the film, it would have been a different experience. I suspect
> you could have written your AB review before you even sat down to
> watch it.
>
to see it? How do you figure out what movies you're going to see if you
don't learn anything about them first?
> Why not just watch tapes of the Republican Convention? Sounds more
> your speed.
>
I did. There were just as many honest moments at the Republican
Convention as there were in AMERICAN BEAUTY: none.
le...@my-deja.com
"damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> <le...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > I resisted AMERICAN BEAUTY up to now,
>
> Then you obviously hated it before you saw it... rendering your
comments completely and utterly insignificant.
>
> Sorry.
>
didn't sound like something I would find interesting, but I eventually
felt I had to see it after it won the Best Picture Oscar. Why does this
render my comments "completely and utterly insignificant"? Are we not
supposed to form opinions about something before we see it? Given the
large number of movies that come out (especially here in NYC), how else
are we supposed to judge whether to see something or not? Do you only
go to see movies based on advertising/hype and not reviews, discussion,
word-of-mouth, etc.? That seems awfully time-consuming and money-
wasting.
I've been going to the movies on my own for 35 years now. I've seen
enough Hollywood hype to be able to judge for myself beforehand what
kind of movie is being made and what the quality will be. On rare
occasions I'm pleasantly surprised; most of the time I'm not.
nkle...@my-deja.com
You are absolutely right. Am I dreaming, or did just about everybody
else bought into this garbage?
For the record, I saw an advanced preview of the film, before the
press, before the awards, before the Oscar hoopla. American Beauty is
shallow, simpleminded, bigotted, and WORST OF ALL SINS, illogical.
Anybody who roots for Kevin Spacey's character for thinking that he has
gained his freedom by smoking dope, lusting after his daughter's friend
(but not going all the way--let's not endorse statutory rape), and
being totally irresponsible ought to see a shrink. It doesn't even
work as satire.
A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz. Nobody
saw it. Where were you all?
Nick.
damnfine
> On the basis of everything I'd heard and read about the movie, it
> didn't sound like something I would find interesting, but I eventually
> felt I had to see it after it won the Best Picture Oscar. Why does this
> render my comments "completely and utterly insignificant"?
BECAUSE YOU WERE NEVER GOING TO LIKE THE MOVIE, NO MATTER WHAT.
It's quite simple.
damnfine
> A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz. Nobody
> saw it.
I did.
It's an excellent film, though not as good as AB... and not as closely related
to it as you seem to think, either.
H Rachel
>Anybody who roots for Kevin Spacey's character for thinking that
he has
>gained his freedom by smoking dope, lusting after his daughter's
friend
>(but not going all the way--let's not endorse statutory rape),
and
>being totally irresponsible ought to see a shrink. It doesn't
even
>work as satire.
Spacey's performance was far and away the best thing about the
film. But Sean Penn deserved the Oscar for SWEET AND LOWDOWN.
He played a far more complex and internalised character with
nuance and skill.
>A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz.
Agreed. But THE ICE STORM was better than both of them.
>Nobody
>saw it. Where were you all?
>
>
Rachel
Jeremy Billones
some people haven't seen it :)
In article <8n0rp0$eom$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <nkle...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>You are absolutely right. Am I dreaming, or did just about everybody
>else bought into this garbage?
A lot of people "bought into it," yeah. It was well acted and directed,
and some people thing the writing was pretty good, too.
>For the record, I saw an advanced preview of the film, before the
>press, before the awards, before the Oscar hoopla. American Beauty is
>shallow, simpleminded, bigotted, and WORST OF ALL SINS, illogical.
Bigoted against who? Show your work.
Shallow and simpleminded are in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
"Illogical" is a complaint that simply baffles me, though.
>Anybody who roots for Kevin Spacey's character for thinking that he has
>gained his freedom by smoking dope, lusting after his daughter's friend
>(but not going all the way--let's not endorse statutory rape), and
>being totally irresponsible ought to see a shrink.
Absolutely. Who says you were supposed to?
>It doesn't even work as satire.
Who said it was a satire?
>A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz. Nobody
>saw it. Where were you all?
I need to find the DVD of that one one of these days.
--
Jeremy Billones
Donny: "We were on the original _Hollywood Squares_, you know."
Marie: "We *are* the original Hollywood Squares."
Thomas Andrews
>
>A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz. Nobody
>saw it. Where were you all?
>
I saw it and liked it, but what is the "same subject" between these two
movies? I don't see it. The *mileu* is rougly similar, but the subject
is not.
--
Thomas Andrews tho...@best.com http://www.best.com/~thomaso/
"What's a man like me supposed to do,
With all this extra savoir-faire?" - TMBG
j...@capebridge.net
the recognition this movie received. (BTW I thought Happiness got it
right.)
Mary
j...@capebridge.net
le...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <KSKk5.82802$N4.20...@ozemail.com.au>,
> "damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> comments completely and utterly insignificant.
> >
> > Sorry.
> >
> didn't sound like something I would find interesting, but I eventually
> felt I had to see it after it won the Best Picture Oscar. Why does
this
> supposed to form opinions about something before we see it?
Don't take it personally. Damnfine doesn't believe any opinion is
worth its salt unless it's his ;)
Mary
j...@capebridge.net
> else bought into this garbage?
>
> press, before the awards, before the Oscar hoopla. American Beauty is
> shallow, simpleminded, bigotted, and WORST OF ALL SINS, illogical.
has
> gained his freedom by smoking dope, lusting after his daughter's
friend
> (but not going all the way--let's not endorse statutory rape), and
> work as satire.
>
> A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz. Nobody
> saw it. Where were you all?
>
> Nick.
Hey! I was there!:)
j...@capebridge.net
"damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> <nkle...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz.
Nobody
> > saw it.
>
>
> It's an excellent film, though not as good as AB... and not as
closely related
> to it as you seem to think, either.
Yes it is. It's no mistake people have linked the two. I believe
Happiness achieved what AB tried in vain. I cared for the characters
in Happiness, no matter how degenerated they were. The characters in
AB I wish all joined a conga line and went over a cliff.
Mary
>
> --
> Damnfine,
> "I'm quietly judging you."
>
>
j...@capebridge.net
bill...@Radix.Net (Jeremy Billones) wrote:
> Spoilers, I suppose. (We're still in current-films, so I'm allowing
that
> some people haven't seen it :)
>
> >else bought into this garbage?
>
directed,
> and some people thing the writing was pretty good, too.
>
> >press, before the awards, before the Oscar hoopla. American Beauty
is
> >shallow, simpleminded, bigotted, and WORST OF ALL SINS, illogical.
>
>
> Shallow and simpleminded are in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
> "Illogical" is a complaint that simply baffles me, though.
>
has
> >gained his freedom by smoking dope, lusting after his daughter's
friend
> >(but not going all the way--let's not endorse statutory rape), and
> >being totally irresponsible ought to see a shrink.
>
>
>
He said it doesn't EVEN work as satire, not that it was one. And it
doesn't.
> >A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz.
Nobody
> >saw it. Where were you all?
>
> I need to find the DVD of that one one of these days.
>
Oh, just rent the video.
Mary
> --
> Jeremy Billones
> Donny: "We were on the original _Hollywood Squares_, you know."
> Marie: "We *are* the original Hollywood Squares."
>
j...@capebridge.net
tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
> In article <8n0rp0$eom$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <nkle...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
> >
Nobody
> >saw it. Where were you all?
> >
>
> I saw it and liked it, but what is the "same subject" between these
two movies? I don't see it. The *mileu* is rougly similar, but the
subject is not.
Sorry I don't know what a mileu is, but they share the general attempt
at creating characters who go against the "normalcy" of American life
while remaining "normal-looking" (until a point of course). Both
movies achieved this.
I believe deep feelings toward these characters was another important
goal. Happiness only achieved this IMO, unless you count annoyed and
bored as said feelings.
Mary
>
> --
> Thomas Andrews tho...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~thomaso/
> "What's a man like me supposed to do,
> With all this extra savoir-faire?" - TMBG
>
j...@capebridge.net
tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
> In article <8n0rp0$eom$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <nkle...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
> >
> >A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz.
Nobody
> >saw it. Where were you all?
> >
> >Nick.
>
> I saw it and liked it, but what is the "same subject" between these
two
> movies? I don't see it. The *mileu* is rougly similar, but the
subject
> is not.
>
> Thomas Andrews tho...@best.com
http://www.best.com/~thomaso/
> "What's a man like me supposed to do,
> With all this extra savoir-faire?" - TMBG
PS Love the sig line.
My fave: "Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful."
Lucian Marks
>Great post. Refreshing to see someone else scratching their head over
>the recognition this movie received. (BTW I thought Happiness got it
>right.)
>
>Mary
>
I saw AB after seeing Happiness (both not in the theater). AB seems
watered down by comparison.
s
p
o
i
l
e
r
why did the wife kill lester in AB? it seems arbitrary.
j...@capebridge.net
j...@capebridge.net
(Actually, it wasn't the wife it was the army guy. But again, why ask
why.)
vaze...@my-deja.com
Nicely put Leo 86. I had been urged to see it by a nutty old lady at
work who had seen it 17 times! Every day she told me how awesome it is.
Quel deception as they say in french, I was let down.
I too found the characters two dimensional. Like the Great Evil Army Man
had a swastika on his prized plate - ooooh, nasty -- Nazis are bad!!
And Kevin Spacey sings in his car for the first time. If he wanted to
sing in his damn car he would have done so a long time ago! The radical
rebirth notion was far too simplistic.
Besides, sorry to say, Kev Spacey let a few too many gay mannerisms slip
in. Not there's anything wrong with that - but it didn't play well for
the character in my eyes.
Rev. Evil Ed
n...@real.invalid (Lucian Marks) wrote:
> s
>
> p
>
> o
>
> i
>
> l
>
> e
>
> r
>
> why did the wife kill lester in AB? it seems arbitrary.
I thought you said you saw the movie.
--
Rev. Evil Ed (evi...@REMOVETHISTOREPLYwaste.org)
"Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred
in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery."
-Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions)
damnfine
> Yes it is. It's no mistake people have linked the two. I believe
> Happiness achieved what AB tried in vain.
Not at all... Happiness was an ensemble of extreme characters, concerntrated
into a tightly-knit family and social group. AB was very much the story of one
man, and everyone else to a back seat to that.
(But I know you're not going to listen, so why did I bother...)
j...@capebridge.net
under "normal" life.
(But I know you're not going to listen, so why did I bother...)
Mary
In article <ze2l5.83782$N4.20...@ozemail.com.au>,
Lucian Marks
>(Actually, it wasn't the wife it was the army guy. But again, why ask
>why.)
>Mary
>
okay that makes more sense. guess I wasn't paying attention.
damnfine
> But in general they both tried to display characters severely unraveling
> under "normal" life.
No, they didn't.
Happiness was concerntrated realism, AB was skewed realism.
j...@capebridge.net
clones).
Mary
In article <vKtl5.86459$N4.21...@ozemail.com.au>,
Danny the Man
I'm not gonna say much .
Too much has allready been said right .
But in my opinion you cannot compare the 2 movies with each other .
They do stay on the same ground .
But so do The Phantom Menace and the Matrix ****.
They are both fantasy but totally different .
And Mary you don't like the film,ok .
But please get a life will ya .
If ya don't get the facts right on who killed Lester,what's the point ?
Nobody mentioned that AB *** was coming out of the Dreamworks stable .
And Happiness *** from an independent house .
Saying allot i think .
Just watch AB for a good performance by Spacey .
And Happiness for the things that happen behind close doors in suburbia and
beyond .
You don't have to live in suburbia to have a shitty life ya know .
Or have a nazi as neighbour .
Also not to forget the performance of Laura Flynn Boyle,Ben Gazzara and the
great Philip Seymoure Hoffman .
If you like Happiness watch also for : Henry Fool / Hal Hartley **
Welcome to the
Dollhouse / Todd Solondz **
Buffalo 66 /
Vincent Gallo ****
On the funnier side try Clercks / Kevin Smith **
The Opposite of Sex / Don Roos ***
Said i was "not gonna say much" but then life is too short .
See ya ....... Dan
The world is full of assholes .
Everybody has one .
Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry .
PS : Iff anyone liked Buffalo 66 as much as i did,do sent me a mail .
Or write me a cool review,i sometimes think i'm the only one who
like's it that much ? !
nkle...@my-deja.com
"damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
> > But in general they both tried to display characters severely
unraveling
> > under "normal" life.
>
> No, they didn't.
>
> Happiness was concerntrated realism, AB was skewed realism.
I say kielbasa, you say que pasa.
I see both movies dealing with the idealism of the nuclear family, and
both movies taking the sins, the corruptions, the masked desires, the
scandals, and brought them all out into the open. Both films are about
this. Therefore, both are focussing on the same reality, and must be
compared together.
American Beauty, to its credit, has good performance by Spacey and
Birch (but I'm on the minority about Benning and Cooper's over-the-top
performances. ugh.). The screenplay lets them and us down. Skewed
realism may be its goal, but it HURT the film.
Why? Because it was contrived. The Benning/Gallagher relationship was
unbelievable. The Birch/Bentley relationship was unbelievable. The
Mena Suvari character was unbelievable. The Chris Cooper character was
unbelievable. And the final sequence was so ludicrous it belonged in a
Marx brothers film.
The only characters who were "normal" and thus relatable, were the
homosexual couple. And that's why it was biggotted. Sam Mendez had no
guts to showcase any of the implausible contrivances of the gay couple,
or no guts to portray the heterosexual families as relatable. It
becomes a one-dimensional tolerance tract. Make a rally, dude, not a
movie.
In Happiness, many series of events occur that were equally crazy, and
yet I believed them. Yet, I understood the characters, and while I
didn't like or relate to some of them, I knew they existed. And for
some scenes, I had a glimpse of drama of the best kind... where people
who strive for normalcy and idealism (and, yes, happiness), are cut
short for their entire lives.
Someone else wrote about the Ice Storm, and another said Sweet
Hereafter. Those films are better too. But Happiness and AB are
comedies (or alleged comedies). I had no idea I would like Happiness
as much as I did. I went in fully expectant of the worst, expecting to
hate it, and was pleasantly surprised. The film is hysterical, and it
hits home.
Nick.
P.S. Thanks Mary!!
j...@capebridge.net
"Danny the Man" <otr0...@online.be> wrote:
> Hey .
>
> I'm not gonna say much .
> Too much has allready been said right .
>
> But in my opinion you cannot compare the 2 movies with each other .
> They do stay on the same ground .
> But so do The Phantom Menace and the Matrix ****.
> They are both fantasy but totally different .
>
> And Mary you don't like the film,ok .
> But please get a life will ya .
Excuse me? You're writing to newsgroups. You get one too then.
> If ya don't get the facts right on who killed Lester,what's the point
?
Oh so the army guy didn't kill him?
Mary
j...@capebridge.net
In article <8n6g3f$sra$1...@trex.antw.online.be>,
"Danny the Man" <otr0...@online.be> wrote:
> Hey .
>
> I'm not gonna say much .
> Too much has allready been said right .
>
> But in my opinion you cannot compare the 2 movies with each other .
> They do stay on the same ground .
> But so do The Phantom Menace and the Matrix ****.
> They are both fantasy but totally different .
>
> And Mary you don't like the film,ok .
> But please get a life will ya .
> If ya don't get the facts right on who killed Lester,what's the point
?
>
j...@capebridge.net
snip
>Why? Because it was contrived. The Benning/Gallagher relationship was
>unbelievable. The Birch/Bentley relationship was unbelievable. The
>Mena Suvari character was unbelievable. The Chris Cooper character was
>unbelievable. And the final sequence was so ludicrous it belonged
>in a Marx brothers film.
Right. Exactly why I had no interest in what happened to them.
> In Happiness, many series of events occur that were equally crazy, and
> yet I believed them. Yet, I understood the characters, and while I
> didn't like or relate to some of them, I knew they existed. And for
> some scenes, I had a glimpse of drama of the best kind... where people
> who strive for normalcy and idealism (and, yes, happiness), are cut
> short for their entire lives.
Exactly. Why I cared about them and not AB's characters.
> Someone else wrote about the Ice Storm, and another said Sweet
> Hereafter. Those films are better too.
Liked those very much too.
But Happiness and AB are
> comedies (or alleged comedies). I had no idea I would like Happiness
> as much as I did. I went in fully expectant of the worst, expecting
to> hate it, and was pleasantly surprised. The film is hysterical, and
it> hits home.
> Nick.
>
> P.S. Thanks Mary!!
Uh...sure!
Mary
damnfine
> Ah, but realism is dealt with nonetheless eh?
LOL... ok... sure...
And 'Happy Gilmore' and 'Casino' are alike because they both have golf in
them.
j...@capebridge.net
You didn't really LOL, did you?
Mary
In article <9BGl5.87275$N4.21...@ozemail.com.au>,
damnfine
> Sorry if you don't agree with me and many others on this.
That's right, hide behind your precious "many others".
j...@capebridge.net
damnfine
> I know it's hard to face you're outnumbered.
No, it's not. Believe me. I really do prefer it that way.
j...@capebridge.net
albeit in a low "you're too dumb to get it" way.
In article <VUSl5.88292$N4.21...@ozemail.com.au>,
damnfine
> Then why do you spend so much time trying to sway other's opinions,
You think I try to sway other's opinions??
That's interesting.
j...@capebridge.net
"damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
> > Then why do you spend so much time trying to sway other's opinions,
>
> You think I try to sway other's opinions??
>
> That's interesting.
Yes and it's interesting you don't see it. Why be so vocal? Why not
just chuckle self-assuredly to yourself as you read of others'
misfortunes of not understanding what you capture so well?
Mary
Tribal Brandon
> <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
> > Then why do you spend so much time trying to sway other's opinions,
>
> You think I try to sway other's opinions??
>
> That's interesting.
You've convinced *me*.
--
-Brandon Blatcher
ania
> You are absolutely right. Am I dreaming, or did just about everybody
> else bought into this garbage?
>
> For the record, I saw an advanced preview of the film, before the
> press, before the awards, before the Oscar hoopla. American Beauty is
> shallow, simpleminded, bigotted, and WORST OF ALL SINS, illogical.
> Anybody who roots for Kevin Spacey's character for thinking that he
has
> gained his freedom by smoking dope, lusting after his daughter's
friend
> (but not going all the way--let's not endorse statutory rape), and
> being totally irresponsible ought to see a shrink. It doesn't even
> work as satire.
>
> A better film on the same subject. HAPPINESS by Todd Solondz. Nobody
> saw it. Where were you all?
>
> Nick.
watching tripe instead, i suspect.
come now, you dont expect them to watch anything TOO CONFRONTING do
you? ;)
ania
--
~ seeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ~
damnfine
> > > Then why do you spend so much time trying to sway other's opinions,
> >
> > You think I try to sway other's opinions??
> >
> > That's interesting.
>
> Yes and it's interesting you don't see it. Why be so vocal? Why not
> just chuckle self-assuredly to yourself as you read of others'
> misfortunes of not understanding what you capture so well?
Because I'd much rather antagonize them about it. But that hardly constitutes
trying to sway an opinion... I learned a long time ago that that's an exercise
in futility.
j...@capebridge.net
> <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
> > > > Then why do you spend so much time trying to sway other's
opinions,
> > >
> > > You think I try to sway other's opinions??
> > >
> > > That's interesting.
> >
> > Yes and it's interesting you don't see it. Why be so vocal? Why not
> > just chuckle self-assuredly to yourself as you read of others'
> > misfortunes of not understanding what you capture so well?
>
> Because I'd much rather antagonize them about it.
Thank you for admitting that.
>But that hardly constitutes
> trying to sway an opinion... I learned a long time ago that that's an
exercise in futility.
Well of course you *can't* sway others' opinions...but you can be
frustrated that you can't, and for you it comes out as knocking others'
intelligence. Thus, I believe you do care what others think about
these movies.
Believe me I usually go against the mainstream and take pride in hating
what the majority loves, because most of the time it's tripe that's
being recognized. But I never knock someone in my posts for not being
as enthralled as I am about a movie.
But I'm sure you see as well as I do that this is getting continually
more moot, so I'll stop cluttering the threads meant for discussing
particular movies. (was that a small cheer I heard?)
Mary
> --
> Damnfine,
> "I'm quietly judging you."
>
>
mee
> Great post. Refreshing to see someone else scratching their head over
> the recognition this movie received. (BTW I thought Happiness got it
> right.)
>
> Mary
>
I was prejudiced a little against it from the start because it came to
Britain on a vast mountain of hype, including all the boring mentions of
the theatre director who was making it big in Hollywoozzzz
And it was doing better than a film that had come out v. recently before
that I loved painfully but the newspapers hated.
I tried, thoguh, to watch it with a clear conscience as if it had never
been heard of before and found it...OK.
It was funnier than I expected and the teen drama wasn't bad compared to
most teen angst crap, but how I hated Kevin Spacey. And how I loathed the
assumption that I would empathise with him.
And that bloody plastic bag was badly shot.
And then my friends just said I was biased and never gave it a chance.
But you believe me, don't you?
le...@my-deja.com
>
> I was prejudiced a little against it from the start because it came to
> Britain on a vast mountain of hype, including all the boring mentions
of
> the theatre director who was making it big in Hollywoozzzz
> And it was doing better than a film that had come out v. recently
before that I loved painfully but the newspapers hated.
> > I tried, thoguh, to watch it with a clear conscience as if it had
never been heard of before and found it...OK.
> > It was funnier than I expected and the teen drama wasn't bad
compared to most teen angst crap, but how I hated Kevin Spacey. And how
I loathed the assumption that I would empathise with him.
> > And that bloody plastic bag was badly shot.
>
> And then my friends just said I was biased and never gave it a chance.
> But you believe me, don't you?
>
Yes. I think you were more than fair, but what's wrong with being
biased?
If you've seen enough movies and watched the Hollywood hype machine in
action long enough, you should be able to determine what you'd like or
not like in advance based on information and reviews available.
Experienced moviegoers should be able to tell what's going to suck and
what isn't. There are very few movies I'd see based on the subject
alone or on who's the star or who directed it. So I need to see the
trailer, read reviews, talk to people, read about the film and then
make up my mind. I'm careful to read between the lines and I generally
have a strong instinct one way or another.
I'll give you an example. Back in 1988, I read a bunch of unanimously
bad reviews for a low-budget teen comedy starring a couple of unknowns.
But the reviewers' descriptions of the movie made me laugh and made me
want to see it. How could a movie with such an imaginative plot be so
bad? It was BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and I absolutely loved
it. Had I listened to the reviews without trusting my instincts I would
have missed out on a clever, heart-warming, funny movie experience.
Too many people walk into a movie with their minds a blank slate and
react as if they've never seen a movie before. I walk in and challenge
the filmmaker to show me something new and original or, if it's just a
formula genre film, at least do it with some style and feeling and
polish. It's up to them to prove the worth of their movie to me, not up
to me to justify a bad movie to myself.
damon, interrupted
le...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> I resisted AMERICAN BEAUTY up to now, but finally watched it after
> taping it off Pay-Per-View. I was not at all surprised at how shallow,
> simple-minded, and unoriginal it was. Everything in it was already said
> in all those comedies of 30 years ago that used to star people like
> George Segal and Elliott Gould. All the characters are outlandish
> caricatures (just as they were in so many "counterculture" movies years
> ago). It’s sitcom writing, without the laughs, by a writer-director
> team that probably doesn’t have kids and probably never lived in the
> suburbs. They act like they’re the first people to make these
> observations about the malaise of modern American life.
that's not what the movie was about.
no wonder youmissed the depth.
..... It was all some middle-aged man’s fantasy about
> rediscovering his lost youth.
that's not all it was.
--
Definition of irony: Pat Choate, a Buchanan supporter who decries the
corruption of the two main parties, supporting idiotic laws in states
that disallow a candidate to switch parties when running for office
because of a Reform Party schism.
http://www.salon.com/business/feature/2000/08/01/napsterpress/index.html
damon, interrupted
j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>
> In article <8n2209$d5s$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> j...@capebridge.net wrote:
> > In article <8F8D9952...@209.30.0.14>,
> > n...@real.invalid (Lucian Marks) wrote:
> > > j...@capebridge.net wrote in <8n1m3b$4d3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>:
> > >
> > > >Great post. Refreshing to see someone else scratching their head
> > over
> > > >the recognition this movie received. (BTW I thought Happiness got
> it
> > > >right.)
> > > >
> > > >Mary
> > > >
> > >
> > > I saw AB after seeing Happiness (both not in the theater). AB seems
> > > watered down by comparison.
> > >
> > > s
> > >
> > > p
> > >
> > > o
> > >
> > > i
> > >
> > > l
> > >
> > > e
> > >
> > > r
> > >
> > > why did the wife kill lester in AB? it seems arbitrary.
> >
> > By that point I figured why ask why.
> >
> > Mary
> >
>
> (Actually, it wasn't the wife it was the army guy. But again, why ask
> why.)
> Mary
>
]
well, if you don't want to think about it,
it really doesn't help your critical assessment of the film.
damon, interrupted
j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>
> But in general they both tried to display characters severely unraveling
> under "normal" life.
>
> (But I know you're not going to listen, so why did I bother...)
i havent' seen happiness.
but american beauty was only superficially about
spacey's midlife crisis, or even about
abnomral characters.
it was more about power, and charisma, and narcissism.
these things it did exceptionally well with.
> Mary
>
> In article <ze2l5.83782$N4.20...@ozemail.com.au>,
> "damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> > <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
> > > Yes it is. It's no mistake people have linked the two. I believe
> > > Happiness achieved what AB tried in vain.
> >
> > Not at all... Happiness was an ensemble of extreme characters,
> concerntrated
> > into a tightly-knit family and social group. AB was very much the
> story of one
> > man, and everyone else to a back seat to that.
> >
> > (But I know you're not going to listen, so why did I bother...)
> >
> > --
> > Damnfine,
> > "I'm quietly judging you."
> >
> >
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
--
damon, interrupted
nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> In article <vKtl5.86459$N4.21...@ozemail.com.au>,
> "damnfine" <raoul...@journalist.com> wrote:
> > <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
> > > But in general they both tried to display characters severely
> unraveling
> > > under "normal" life.
> >
> > No, they didn't.
> >
> > Happiness was concerntrated realism, AB was skewed realism.
>
> I say kielbasa, you say que pasa.
>
> I see both movies dealing with the idealism of the nuclear family, and
> both movies taking the sins, the corruptions, the masked desires, the
> scandals, and brought them all out into the open. Both films are about
> this.
no.
american beauty is NOT about 'this'.
it is about something else.
it emrely uses your assessment as a strating point, not
as an endpoint.
it seems you missed some of whatr the movie was about.
no wonder you didn't like it.
Therefore, both are focussing on the same reality, and must be
> compared together.
>
> American Beauty, to its credit, has good performance by Spacey and
> Birch (but I'm on the minority about Benning and Cooper's over-the-top
> performances. ugh.). The screenplay lets them and us down. Skewed
> realism may be its goal, but it HURT the film.
>
> Why? Because it was contrived. The Benning/Gallagher relationship was
> unbelievable. The Birch/Bentley relationship was unbelievable. The
> Mena Suvari character was unbelievable. The Chris Cooper character was
> unbelievable.
funny, but those were what the movie was really about,
and they made perfect sense to me.
you apparenlty haven't seen as many relationships as i have.
> The only characters who were "normal" and thus relatable, were the
> homosexual couple. And that's why it was biggotted. Sam Mendez had no
> guts to showcase any of the implausible contrivances of the gay couple,
> or no guts to portray the heterosexual families as relatable. It
> becomes a one-dimensional tolerance tract. Make a rally, dude, not a
> movie.
now i'm beginning to think you're quite stupid.
> Someone else wrote about the Ice Storm, and another said Sweet
> Hereafter. Those films are better too. But Happiness and AB are
> comedies (or alleged comedies).
ab is not a comedy, nor does it allege to be.
Thomas Andrews
damon, interrupted <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
>
>
>j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>>
>> But in general they both tried to display characters severely unraveling
>> under "normal" life.
>>
>
>
>
>i havent' seen happiness.
>but american beauty was only superficially about
>spacey's midlife crisis, or even about
>abnomral characters.
>
In fact, I'd argue that "happiness" did not try to show characters
unraveling - they were already unraveled when we get to them.
Happiness is not similar in tone, in objective, or in goal.
Both are definitely playing *against* sit-com suburban stereotypes,
but both are saying very different things with almost no overlap
in thematic content.
That "Beauty" bashers always compare this movie to "Happiness"
is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting after a seemingly
sexually precocious teenager is the same as lusting after 10-year-olds.
--
Thomas Andrews tho...@best.com http://www.best.com/~thomaso/
"What's a man like me supposed to do,
With all this extra savoir-faire?" - TMBG
nkle...@my-deja.com
1) NEVER FULLY EXPLAIN YOUR THESIS. CASE IN POINT...
> no.
> american beauty is NOT about 'this'.
> it is about something else.
> it emrely uses your assessment as a strating point, not
> as an endpoint.
>
> it seems you missed some of whatr the movie was about.
> no wonder you didn't like it.
2) APPLY AMBIGUOUS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS A FACTOR. FOR EXAMPLE...
> funny, but those were what the movie was really about,
> and they made perfect sense to me.
>
> you apparenlty haven't seen as many relationships as i have.
3) WHENEVER NECESSARY, USE AD HOMINUM...
> now i'm beginning to think you're quite stupid.
>
4) EMPLOY "THE BIG LIE"...
> ab is not a comedy, nor does it allege to be.
Please... if you wish to jump in this discussion, you're gonna hafta
throw in meat. If you have enough time to throw in three half-
baked 'two-cents' worth throughout this thread, then you could at least
write one of them well.
Norman Wilner
> HOW TO LOSE AN ARGUMENT by Damon,Interrupted
>
> 1) NEVER FULLY EXPLAIN YOUR THESIS. CASE IN POINT...
>
>> no.
>> american beauty is NOT about 'this'.
>> it is about something else.
>> it emrely uses your assessment as a strating point, not
>> as an endpoint.
>>
>> it seems you missed some of whatr the movie was about.
>> no wonder you didn't like it.
>
>
> 2) APPLY AMBIGUOUS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS A
> FACTOR. FOR EXAMPLE...
>
>> funny, but those were what the movie was really about,
>> and they made perfect sense to me.
>>
>> you apparenlty haven't seen as many relationships as i have.
>
>
> 3) WHENEVER NECESSARY, USE AD HOMINUM...
>
> > now i'm beginning to think you're quite stupid.
> >
>
> 4) EMPLOY "THE BIG LIE"...
>
>> ab is not a comedy, nor does it allege to be.
>
>
> Please... if you wish to jump in this discussion, you're gonna
> hafta throw in meat. If you have enough time to throw in three
> could at least write one of them well.
He's right, though. "American Beauty" is not a comedy.
And it's "ad hominem".
Norm Wilner
Starweek Magazine
http://www.chapters.ca/wilner/
Tribal Brandon
> If you have enough time to throw in three half-
> baked 'two-cents' worth throughout this thread, then you could at least
> write one of them well.
no, no he can't.
--
-Brandon Blatcher
damon, interrupted
nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> HOW TO LOSE AN ARGUMENT by Damon,Interrupted
i'm sorry, i didn't know we were arguin YET.
see, i figuire i'd merely point out your gross
misinterpretations, rather than
go through the trouble of
wasrting time explaining things to people who cant' seem to understand
things.
i will as soon as you can grasp the concept of a movie not being
a single genre...
from imdb:
Genre: Drama / Comedy (more)
THAT'S not preofessing to be a comedy.
damon, interrupted
Norman Wilner wrote:
>
> <nkle...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:8nd3hg$hli$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> > HOW TO LOSE AN ARGUMENT by Damon,Interrupted
> >
> > 1) NEVER FULLY EXPLAIN YOUR THESIS. CASE IN POINT...
> >
> >> no.
> >> american beauty is NOT about 'this'.
> >> it is about something else.
> >> it emrely uses your assessment as a strating point, not
> >> as an endpoint.
> >>
> >> it seems you missed some of whatr the movie was about.
> >> no wonder you didn't like it.
> >
> >
> > 2) APPLY AMBIGUOUS PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS A
> > FACTOR. FOR EXAMPLE...
> >
> >> funny, but those were what the movie was really about,
> >> and they made perfect sense to me.
> >>
> >> you apparenlty haven't seen as many relationships as i have.
> >
> >
> > 3) WHENEVER NECESSARY, USE AD HOMINUM...
> >
> > > now i'm beginning to think you're quite stupid.
i', sorry, where is this statement ad hominem?
you make an incredibly stupid statement, one not
worth taking seriously, and you think my forming an opinion
of your nature becaus eof that statement is some sort of itrrelevant
attack?
> >
> > 4) EMPLOY "THE BIG LIE"...
> >
> >> ab is not a comedy, nor does it allege to be.
> >
> >
> > Please... if you wish to jump in this discussion, you're gonna
> > hafta throw in meat. If you have enough time to throw in three
> > half-baked 'two-cents' worth throughout this thread, then you
> > could at least write one of them well.
>
> He's right, though. "American Beauty" is not a comedy.
>
> And it's "ad hominem".
>
> Norm Wilner
> Starweek Magazine
> http://www.chapters.ca/wilner/
--
damon, interrupted
dammit, i thought i'd locked the cage this time.
le...@my-deja.com
"damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
>
>
> le...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> > I resisted AMERICAN BEAUTY up to now, but finally watched it after
> > taping it off Pay-Per-View. I was not at all surprised at how
shallow,
> > simple-minded, and unoriginal it was. Everything in it was already
said
> > in all those comedies of 30 years ago that used to star people like
> > George Segal and Elliott Gould. All the characters are outlandish
> > caricatures (just as they were in so many "counterculture" movies
years
> > ago). It’s sitcom writing, without the laughs, by a writer-director
> > team that probably doesn’t have kids and probably never lived in the
> > suburbs. They act like they’re the first people to make these
> > observations about the malaise of modern American life.
>
> that's not what the movie was about.
> no wonder youmissed the depth.
>
> ..... It was all some middle-aged man’s fantasy about
> > rediscovering his lost youth.
>
> that's not all it was.
>
> --
le...@my-deja.com
"damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
>
>
> j...@capebridge.net wrote:
> >
> > But in general they both tried to display characters severely
unraveling
> > under "normal" life.
> >
> > (But I know you're not going to listen, so why did I bother...)
>
> i havent' seen happiness.
> but american beauty was only superficially about
> spacey's midlife crisis, or even about
> abnomral characters.
>
>
> these things it did exceptionally well with.
>
power, charisma and narcissism and why should we care?
nkle...@my-deja.com
> see, i figuire i'd merely point out your gross
> misinterpretations, rather than
> go through the trouble of
> wasrting time explaining things to people who cant' seem to understand
> things.
Cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap....
Truth is, as you say you don't waste time if you explain your thesis,
you apparently HAVE no thesis, so you cloak it in "Well, you wouldn't
get it anyway." You don't KNOW me, fella. Now explain yourself. If
you want to lose the little credibility you've attained at this point,
then ignore.
> i will as soon as you can grasp the concept of a movie not being
> a single genre...
I never SAID it was a SINGLE genre. I said "comedy" in contrast to the
films "Sweet Hereafter" and "Ice Storm": two films that are fully
Dramas, and "Happiness" which is a "comedy" but is also a "drama". You
appear to me to be latching onto a quicksand. Instead of explaining
yourself, you go after something that's ludicrous to attack to begin
with, and then escalate it.
Using your logic, American Beauty is not a Drama either.
BTW: About my jab about the "normalcy" of the gay couple, vs. the
exaggerated charicatures of the heteros... This still stands. It may
seem stupid to you, and that's your mire to contend with. I'm not
making an issue of gays, I'm making an issue of how gays were portrayed
in the film. Face it... they seemed to be in an entirely different
film altogether. If the director wanted to make a point, it was lost
in the blatant proselytizing of his views, as it seeped into the Chris
Cooper/Wes Bentley angle. Boy, was that angle bad. Wrong kind of
movie.
Nick.
damon, interrupted
le...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> In article <3999E3E4...@mdo.net>,
> "damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > le...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > >
> > > I resisted AMERICAN BEAUTY up to now, but finally watched it after
> > > taping it off Pay-Per-View. I was not at all surprised at how
> shallow,
> > > simple-minded, and unoriginal it was. Everything in it was already
> said
> > > in all those comedies of 30 years ago that used to star people like
> > > George Segal and Elliott Gould. All the characters are outlandish
> > > caricatures (just as they were in so many "counterculture" movies
> years
> > > ago). It’s sitcom writing, without the laughs, by a writer-director
> > > team that probably doesn’t have kids and probably never lived in the
> > > suburbs. They act like they’re the first people to make these
> > > observations about the malaise of modern American life.
> >
> > that's not what the movie was about.
> > no wonder youmissed the depth.
> >
> > ..... It was all some middle-aged man’s fantasy about
> > > rediscovering his lost youth.
> >
> > that's not all it was.
> >
> > --
> So what was it about?
>
narcissism is the true american beauty.
it was about how self assurance and lack of fear yield power
over oneself and others.
it was about how powerful people twist less powerful people around,
to do their desires.
and mostly, it was about the moment of 'beauty', of bliss,
where all wordly concerns are swept aside in the face of wonder.
the film links all these things, and sets them in a context of a
sardonic view
of suburbia, thus sarcastically referring to said suburbia and
middle class values as 'beauty'.
damon, interrupted
nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > see, i figuire i'd merely point out your gross
> > misinterpretations, rather than
> > go through the trouble of
> > wasrting time explaining things to people who cant' seem to understand
> > things.
>
> Cheap cheap cheap cheap cheap....
i maybe cheap but i'm not easy.
>
> Truth is, as you say you don't waste time if you explain your thesis,
> you apparently HAVE no thesis,
you just keep beleiving this.
so you cloak it in "Well, you wouldn't
> get it anyway." You don't KNOW me, fella.
i don't.
i only know what you've said here.
and some of the things you've said have been quite stupid.
Now explain yourself. If
> you want to lose the little credibility you've attained at this point,
> then ignore.
>
> > i will as soon as you can grasp the concept of a movie not being
> > a single genre...
>
> I never SAID it was a SINGLE genre. I said "comedy" in contrast to the
> films "Sweet Hereafter" and "Ice Storm": two films that are fully
> Dramas, and "Happiness" which is a "comedy" but is also a "drama". You
> appear to me to be latching onto a quicksand. Instead of explaining
> yourself, you go after something that's ludicrous to attack to begin
> with, and then escalate it.
>
> Using your logic, American Beauty is not a Drama either.
exactly.
i don't see how you can call it a failed comedy when it really isn't a
comedy.
it is a multigenre film which, for me, works in those genres.
now, calling it a failed comedy is useless to rebut anyway,
because it's an unassailable statement.
but *just* calling it a comedy is grossly misinterpreting the form
and function fo the movie.
>
> BTW: About my jab about the "normalcy" of the gay couple, vs. the
> exaggerated charicatures of the heteros... This still stands. It may
> seem stupid to you, and that's your mire to contend with.
sigh.
well, if you're really too dumb to see it,
let's go look at that statement:
> The only characters who were "normal" and thus relatable, were the
> homosexual couple.
[1] abnormal charcters are relatable. i could list examples if you're
having
trouble with this.
[2] the most 'normal' characters were the daughter and lester.
yes, lester was painted with broad strokes at first, but that was
all the more to allow for sympathetic indentification. as the movie
progressed,
he achieved a calm and peacefullness that i haven't seen associated with
any midlife crises, so i hardly see how that was in any way contrived or
cliched.
>And that's why it was biggotted.
this is what i reacted to.
a token portrayal of a minorority [discussed later] does NOT make
the film bigotted TOWARD that minority. it's such an astoundingly stupid
statemnt i can't really beleive you're defending it.
it's like the people protested the phantom menace as bigotted as
biggotted because one of the characetr walked funny and spoke
with a jamaican accent.
Sam Mendez had no
> guts to showcase any of the implausible contrivances of the gay couple,
> or no guts to portray the heterosexual families as relatable.
this is also stupid.
the movie wasn't ABOUT gay couples, nor did it address them in any
way.
it showed *one* such couple as ideal because it
was mocking the traditional family unit,
because it was sarcastically saying nontraditional units are
capable of being as traditional, even less fucked up, than the supposed
'traditional family' that those crying for a return to 'traditional
family values' think of.
you're making some sort of odd bias issue out of a one note joke.
It
> becomes a one-dimensional tolerance tract. Make a rally, dude, not a
> movie.
it's not even about tolerance.
if anything, they support the movie's
central notion that narcissim trumps morality.
gays are supposedly immoral, but because they
do what pleases them in the movie, they are well adjusted.
I'm not
> making an issue of gays, I'm making an issue of how gays were portrayed
> in the film. Face it... they seemed to be in an entirely different
> film altogether.
an almost accurate observation, as it comes closer to what i'm
saying than your previous ones.
If the director wanted to make a point, it was lost
> in the blatant proselytizing of his views, as it seeped into the Chris
> Cooper/Wes Bentley
he did want to make a point, and he did make a point.
you got caught up in an incorrect point.
agian, i can see how you'd think the film was shallow, considering your
interpretation is shallow.
nkle...@my-deja.com
> Now explain yourself. If
> > you want to lose the little credibility you've attained at this
point,
> > then ignore.
> >
> > > i will as soon as you can grasp the concept of a movie not being
> > > a single genre...
> >
> > I never SAID it was a SINGLE genre. I said "comedy" in contrast to
the
> > films "Sweet Hereafter" and "Ice Storm": two films that are fully
> > Dramas, and "Happiness" which is a "comedy" but is also a "drama".
You
> > appear to me to be latching onto a quicksand. Instead of explaining
> > yourself, you go after something that's ludicrous to attack to begin
> > with, and then escalate it.
> >
> > Using your logic, American Beauty is not a Drama either.
>
> exactly.
> i don't see how you can call it a failed comedy when it really isn't a
> comedy.
Keep misreading my posts. I dare ya.
I didn't call it a failed comedy. I called it a failed movie. My
definition of comedy is broader than yours. If it contains broad
charicatures that have moments that are played up for laughs, then I
presume it is a comedy, no matter how serious it gets in the end. It
may not be a *PURE* comedy... it may be a comedy-drama. But, like I
said, this was said in pure contrast with Sweet Hereafter and Ice
Storm, which were very different in tone.
*SIGH*. There's just no hope.
> well, if you're really too dumb to see it,
> let's go look at that statement:
> > The only characters who were "normal" and thus relatable, were the
> > homosexual couple.
>
> [1] abnormal charcters are relatable. i could list examples if you're
> having trouble with this.
By relatable, I meant sympathetically portrayed.
> [2] the most 'normal' characters were the daughter and lester.
BUZZ. Wrong, fella. Maybe that was the filmmaker's intention, but
they got it very wrong.
The daughter lost all respect for me when she stood by the window
topless for the neighbor. It was a moment which SCREAMED "disbelieve
this!!" I don't know how to say this, but if the filmmakers wanted me
to believe that she turned from a strong-willed thinker to a slut in
one reel, then they have very low expectations of the audience.
Ask yourself, in that position, in that point in time, no matter what
moral background you have, would you do that. It was stupefying.
> yes, lester was painted with broad strokes at first, but that was
> all the more to allow for sympathetic indentification.
Which he got none from me.
as the movie progressed,
> he achieved a calm and peacefullness that i haven't seen associated
with
> any midlife crises, so i hardly see how that was in any way contrived
or
> cliched.
It wasn't his calm or peacefulness that was contrived, it was the
situations surrounding him as contrived. Had you read my post, you
would have understood that I didn't single that aspect out as contrived
or cliched. Even so, I didn't believe it. He threw away a loathsome
job. Fine. But then he works at a fast-food joint, buys a fancy car,
indulges in drugs, and nearly participates in statutory rape. There
was no way I can sympathize at this point. Yeah, yeah, look deeper.
He's the martyr for the moron club.
> >And that's why it was biggotted.
>
> this is what i reacted to.
> a token portrayal of a minorority [discussed later] does NOT make
> the film bigotted TOWARD that minority. it's such an astoundingly
stupid
> statemnt i can't really beleive you're defending it.
That's because you MISREAD it. It was not bigotted toward the
minority, it was bigotted toward the MAJORITY.
> Sam Mendez had no
> > guts to showcase any of the implausible contrivances of the gay
couple,
> > or no guts to portray the heterosexual families as relatable.
>
> this is also stupid.
> the movie wasn't ABOUT gay couples, nor did it address them in any
> way.
Oh no?
> it showed *one* such couple as ideal because it
> was mocking the traditional family unit,
> because it was sarcastically saying nontraditional units are
> capable of being as traditional, even less fucked up, than the
supposed
> 'traditional family' that those crying for a return to 'traditional
> family values' think of.
INTERNAL CONTRADITION. MY POINT ALL ALONG. And this is what Happiness
touched upon too.
> It
> > becomes a one-dimensional tolerance tract. Make a rally, dude, not
a
> > movie.
>
> it's not even about tolerance.
> if anything, they support the movie's
> central notion that narcissim trumps morality.
But it doesn't. And this is where it gets contrived.
Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw out all
morality? We are who we are, including our complicated moral
framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic, and
participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers wanted to such
all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to sympathize.
They may have done so for the curious contrast between morality and
narcissism, but from the very nature of our personas, it becomes
hackneyed and forced.
> gays are supposedly immoral, but because they
> do what pleases them in the movie, they are well adjusted.
But we don't know that. That is reaching. Other than a very few
scenes where they appear to be very well adjusted, we know very little
about them. Think of it, they could be CHASTE!! (it's not likely, but
that's how far reaching the film portrayed them).
So what do we know? They jog. WOW. They DO what they want!! To
associate jogging and taking drugs as the same thing... doing what you
want... then that is as pathetic a gesture as can be.
If they had showed gays as the same unrelatable louts who carried the
film, then their point may be lost. But it would have saved the
embarrassment of the last second surprise ending. Ugh. Hand me that
empty popcorn bag.
Nick.
j...@capebridge.net
tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
> That "Beauty" bashers always compare this movie to "Happiness"
> is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting after a seemingly
> sexually precocious teenager is the same as lusting after 10-year-
olds.
I don't link that at all. As I've said, it's exposing the underbelly
of "normal" family life.
Mary
j...@capebridge.net
le...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Explain yourself: what the hell did this movie have to do with
> power, charisma and narcissism and why should we care?
We shouldn't and I don't. BTW I had looked forward to AB more than any
other in a long time.
Jeffrey Davis
>
> In article <pLmm5.2765$R87.54881@sjc-read>,
> tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
> > is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting after a seemingly
> olds.
>
> I don't link that at all. As I've said, it's exposing the underbelly
> of "normal" family life.
They're always exposing the underbelly. No one ever exposes the
overbelly.
--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu>
The John Dortmunder of Lexington, Ky
j...@capebridge.net
nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
snip
> Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw out all
> morality? We are who we are, including our complicated moral
> framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic, and
> participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers wanted to
such> all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to
sympathize.
It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. My only hope is
that they couldn't have cared less about the audience.
Thank you for a such a deep breath of fresh air, Nick.
Mary
mee
> never been heard of before and found it...OK.
> > > It was funnier than I expected and the teen drama wasn't bad
> compared to most teen angst crap, but how I hated Kevin Spacey. And how
> I loathed the assumption that I would empathise with him.
> > > And that bloody plastic bag was badly shot.
> >
> > And then my friends just said I was biased and never gave it a chance.
> > But you believe me, don't you?
> >
> _______________________________________________________________
> Yes. I think you were more than fair, but what's wrong with being
> biased?
> If you've seen enough movies and watched the Hollywood hype machine in
> action long enough, you should be able to determine what you'd like or
> not like in advance based on information and reviews available.
The thing is, that you end up only seeing really good films and get to be
hyper-critical. I need to force myself to see average films occasionally
for balance. Like when some friends made me watch 'Scream 3' and it wasn't
bad in a minor, un-shattering ordinary sort of way, and made me realise
again the difference between OK and really bad.
> bad reviews for a low-budget teen comedy starring a couple of unknowns.
> But the reviewers' descriptions of the movie made me laugh and made me
> want to see it. How could a movie with such an imaginative plot be so
> bad? It was BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE and I absolutely loved
> it. Had I listened to the reviews without trusting my instincts I would
> have missed out on a clever, heart-warming, funny movie experience.
Especially the sequel "Our album covers have totally lied to us"
>
> Too many people walk into a movie with their minds a blank slate and
> react as if they've never seen a movie before. I walk in and challenge
> the filmmaker to show me something new and original or, if it's just a
> formula genre film, at least do it with some style and feeling and
> polish. It's up to them to prove the worth of their movie to me, not up
> to me to justify a bad movie to myself.
>
so what was the best film of '99?
>
--
everything is a test
Thomas Andrews
>In article <pLmm5.2765$R87.54881@sjc-read>,
> tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
>> is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting after a seemingly
>olds.
>
>I don't link that at all. As I've said, it's exposing the underbelly
>of "normal" family life.
>
>
But neither film is doing that, really. "Happiness" isn't showing
any normal family, certainly. This movie isn't about "normal" people,
unless you think it implies that most people are like this under there
"normal" exterior, which I don't think is the point.
It has been a while since I've seen it, but my memory is that all the
people are screwed up because of their sexual desires. That's why
the movie ends the way it does - the child, by sexually gratifying himself,
thinks he has reached a certain level of adultness, but the movie is
saying "this adultness thing is actually our downfall."
American Beauty is far less cynical, both about sex and about human
nature. There are some "forbidden desires" aspects to the movie,
but not all of them are sexual (drugs, the new car,) and they are
not shown to be perverse or evil.
"Happiness" has much more in common "The Ice Storm," which is still in the
same milieu (for the poster who didn't know what that means:
the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops.)
In "The Ice Storm," everybody is talking about sex, but nobody is having
sex, or, when there is sex, it is unsatisfying. That's why we have the
long scene with Klein waiting for Weaver - to show he's wasting so much
time and energy and emotion seeking sex when there are better things to
be doing with his life. "The Ice Storm" has a more mature and nuanced
view of sexuality, compared to the self-loathing of "Happiness," but
sex is clearly seen as a corruption. It doesn't make them evil or
loathsome, as in happiness, but it saps them of their goodness.
In "American Beauty," teen sexuality is seen to be a positive thing,
if approached like Jane, and a less positive thing if approached
like Angela. Lester starts the movie unwilling to pursue or seduce
Angela because he is "a loser." At the end of the movie, he decides
not to finish the seduction because it is wrong. That both shows how
lost he was at the start, and how, with his self-esteem rebuilt, he
finally has also regained his decency.
The colonel is, on a surface level, like the "Happiness" characters;
he suffers a deep self-loathing tied to his sexual desires. But,
in fact, he is more like Lester, misspending his life out of fear.
In "Happiness," there is no way out - it is a cycle of life of bitterness,
frustration, and self-loathing. This horrid existance is inextricably
tied to sexuality, which the film portrays universally as something horrible
and evil.
This view of life is certainly arresting, and I thought it was a
good film, but it's not very deep. It hammers away at its point
in a fairly unsubtle way, and its point isn't very subtle or nuanced
to begin with.
Thomas Andrews
In article <8ngt5l$sou$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, <j...@capebridge.net> wrote:
>In article <pLmm5.2765$R87.54881@sjc-read>,
> tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
>> That "Beauty" bashers always compare this movie to "Happiness"
>> is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting after a seemingly
>> sexually precocious teenager is the same as lusting after 10-year-
>olds.
>
>I don't link that at all. As I've said, it's exposing the underbelly
>of "normal" family life.
>
>Mary
But neither film is doing that, really. "Happiness" isn't showing
any normal family, certainly. This movie isn't about "normal" people,
unless you think it implies that most people are like this under there
"normal" exterior, which I don't think is the point.
It has been a while since I've seen it, but my memory is that all the
people are screwed up because of their sexual desires. That's why
the movie ends the way it does - the child, by sexually gratifying himself,
thinks he has reached a certain level of adultness, but the movie is
saying "this sex thing is actually your downfall."
American Beauty is far less cynical, both about sex and about human
nature. There are some "forbidden desires" aspects to the movie,
but not all of them are sexual (drugs, the new car,) and they are
not shown to be perverse or evil.
"Happiness" has much more in common with "The Ice Storm," which is
still in the same milieu (for the poster who didn't know what that
means: the physical or social setting in which something occurs
or develops.) In "The Ice Storm," everybody is talking about sex,
but nobody is having sex, or, when there is sex, it is unsatisfying.
That's why we have the long scene with Klein waiting for Weaver -
to show he's wasting so much time and energy and emotion seeking
sex when there are better things to be doing with his life. "The
Ice Storm" has a more mature and nuanced view of sexuality, compared
to the self-loathing of "Happiness," but sex is clearly seen as a
corruption. It doesn't make them evil or loathsome, as in happiness,
but it saps them of their goodness.
In "American Beauty," teen sexuality is seen to be a positive thing,
if approached like Jane, and a less positive thing if approached
like Angela. Lester starts the movie unwilling to pursue or seduce
Angela because he is "a loser." At the end of the movie, he decides
not to finish the seduction because it is wrong. That both shows how
lost he was at the start, and how, with his self-esteem rebuilt, he
finally has also regained his decency.
The colonel is, on a surface level, like the "Happiness" characters;
he suffers a deep self-loathing tied to his sexual desires. But,
in fact, he is more like Lester, misspending his life out of fear.
In "Happiness," there is no way out - it is a cycle of bitterness,
frustration, and self-loathing. This horrid existance is inextricably
tied to sexuality, which the film portrays universally as something horrible
and evil.
This view of life is certainly arresting, and I thought it was a
good film, but it's not very deep. It hammers away at its point
in a fairly unsubtle way, and its point isn't very subtle or nuanced
to begin with.
--
Helen & Bob
Jeffrey Davis wrote:
> j...@capebridge.net wrote:
> >
> > In article <pLmm5.2765$R87.54881@sjc-read>,
> > tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
> > > That "Beauty" bashers always compare this movie to "Happiness"
> > > is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting after a seemingly
> > > sexually precocious teenager is the same as lusting after 10-year-
> > olds.
> >
> > I don't link that at all. As I've said, it's exposing the underbelly
> > of "normal" family life.
>
> They're always exposing the underbelly. No one ever exposes the
> overbelly.
>
> --
> Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu>
> The John Dortmunder of Lexington, Ky
And why is it considered "normal" family life? Or maybe I am abnormal,
having been married (faithfully) for 33 years, and having two kids that
have become great adults.
Bob
j...@capebridge.net
100...@mrbusy.compsoc.man.ac.uk>,
> >
> so what was the best film of '99?
The Corndog Man, IMO.
paulx...@my-deja.com
--Paul
---------------------------
In article <8mv7a4$a3p$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
le...@my-deja.com wrote:
> ...If I was a right-wing conservative, I’d call the film a cynical,
> condescending, manipulative attack on the nuclear family ...
>Frankly, I don’t mind attacks on the nuclear family as long as they
>get it right ... But this film didn’t get it right. I
> personally have a lot in common with Kevin Spacey’s character in terms
> of age, status, family situation, etc. Given that, I didn’t find a
> single honest moment in the film ... People in real life are far more
>complex than these people. It was all some middle-aged man’s fantasy
>about rediscovering his lost youth. I don’t need to go to the movies
>to see other middle-aged men’s fantasies.
j...@capebridge.net
Helen & Bob <chil...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > And why is it considered "normal" family life? Or maybe I am
abnormal,> having been married (faithfully) for 33 years, and having
two kids that> have become great adults.
> Bob
Right. And maybe exposing your underbelly will reveal nothing. Bully
for you!
Mary
Norman Wilner
news:399BF9...@ca.uky.edu...
> j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>> In article <pLmm5.2765$R87.54881@sjc-read>,
>> tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
>>
>>> "Happiness" is odd to me. Perhaps they think lusting
>>> after a seemingly sexually precocious teenager is the
>>
>> I don't link that at all. As I've said, it's exposing the
>> underbelly of "normal" family life.
>
> They're always exposing the underbelly. No one ever exposes
> the overbelly.
I've heard Brando's doing it on his latest movie, but they're shooting
around it.
j...@capebridge.net
> But neither film is doing that, really. "Happiness" isn't showing
> any normal family, certainly. This movie isn't about "normal" people,
No kidding! Hence the quotations.
> unless you think it implies that most people are like this under there
> "normal" exterior, which I don't think is the point.
I don't think it implies "most" are but certainly "some" are. And it
is the general point of both movies IMO: tongue-in-cheek "Happiness"
and "Beauty", right?
> It has been a while since I've seen it, but my memory is that all the
> people are screwed up because of their sexual desires. That's why
> the movie ends the way it does - the child, by sexually gratifying
himself,
> thinks he has reached a certain level of adultness, but the movie is
> saying "this sex thing is actually your downfall."
>
> American Beauty is far less cynical, both about sex and about human
> nature. There are some "forbidden desires" aspects to the movie,
> but not all of them are sexual (drugs, the new car,) and they are
> not shown to be perverse or evil.
Nothing perverse huh? No, just your average American reactions I guess
(?)
Then please don't tell me AB is deep?
My basic difference with these movies, whether or not you think they
should be linked at all, is that I couldn't care less about the
cartoony AB characters, but did see the more evil H characters as real
people. Says a lot for H's filmmakers.
Mary
Glad this thread has people talking anyway.
le...@my-deja.com
> > _______________________________________________________________
> > Yes. I think you were more than fair, but what's wrong with being
> > biased? If you've seen enough movies and watched the Hollywood
hype machine in action long enough, you should be able to determine
what you'd like or not like in advance based on information and reviews
available.
>
> The thing is, that you end up only seeing really good films and get
to be hyper-critical. I need to force myself to see average films
occasionally for balance. Like when some friends made me watch 'Scream
3' and it wasn't bad in a minor, un-shattering ordinary sort of way,
and made me realise again the difference between OK and really bad.
> >
____________________________________________________________________
You have a point. But I can't bring myself to pay $9.50 (the current
price of a first-run movie here in Manhattan) to see something I think
I'll dislike or some lowbrow comedy of Adam Sandler's. And when these
things get to cable, if I don't like them, I usually switch the channel
rather than stick with it. E.g. I somewhat enjoyed the two Chris
Farley/David Spade movies on cable but I couldn't bring myself to see
them in the theaters. And if I'd seen them with a big audience I would
have enjoyed them in the theaters.
All this was less of a problem back in the day when theaters showed
double features.
> so what was the best film of '99?
PRINCESS MONONOKE.
>American movies? THE MATRIX and THREE KINGS.
> >
>
> --
> everything is a test
Tell me about it.
Thomas Andrews
> tho...@best.com (Thomas Andrews) wrote:
>
>Nothing perverse huh? No, just your average American reactions I guess
>(?)
Sorry, I meant "not all shown..." And I stand by that - Lester's lust
is not shown to be evil. The colonel's desire isn't what makes him
bad, it's his resistance to it.
In "Happiness," the characters desires are grotesque and evil.
...
>
>My basic difference with these movies, whether or not you think they
>should be linked at all, is that I couldn't care less about the
>cartoony AB characters, but did see the more evil H characters as real
>people. Says a lot for H's filmmakers.
>
Or a lot about you. :-)
damon, interrupted
nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> > Now explain yourself. If
> > > you want to lose the little credibility you've attained at this
> point,
> > > then ignore.
> > >
> > > > i will as soon as you can grasp the concept of a movie not being
> > > > a single genre...
> > >
> > > I never SAID it was a SINGLE genre. I said "comedy" in contrast to
> the
> > > films "Sweet Hereafter" and "Ice Storm": two films that are fully
> > > Dramas, and "Happiness" which is a "comedy" but is also a "drama".
> You
> > > appear to me to be latching onto a quicksand. Instead of explaining
> > > yourself, you go after something that's ludicrous to attack to begin
> > > with, and then escalate it.
> > >
> > > Using your logic, American Beauty is not a Drama either.
> >
> > exactly.
> > i don't see how you can call it a failed comedy when it really isn't a
> > comedy.
>
> Keep misreading my posts. I dare ya.
okay!
> I didn't call it a failed comedy. I called it a failed movie.
you also said:
>But Happiness and AB are
> comedies (or alleged comedies).
that's like calling fight club or die hard a comedy.
it's as accurate as calling a human an arm.
My
> definition of comedy is broader than yours. If it contains broad
> charicatures that have moments that are played up for laughs, then I
> presume it is a comedy, no matter how serious it gets in the end. It
> may not be a *PURE* comedy... it may be a comedy-drama. But, like I
> said, this was said in pure contrast with Sweet Hereafter and Ice
> Storm, which were very different in tone.
haven't seen ice storm,
but sweet hereafter was interesting, probably about as good.
egoyan seems to have inherent flaws in his filmaking style.
> *SIGH*. There's just no hope.
until i'm worshiped by all.
then maybe i can shape up this nation.
> > well, if you're really too dumb to see it,
> > let's go look at that statement:
> > > The only characters who were "normal" and thus relatable, were the
> > > homosexual couple.
> >
> > [1] abnormal charcters are relatable. i could list examples if you're
> > having trouble with this.
>
> By relatable, I meant sympathetically portrayed.
which means you're using words incorrectly.
not surprising.
but, again, the daughter and lester were sympathetically portrayed.
as was ricky fitt's mom.
> > [2] the most 'normal' characters were the daughter and lester.
>
> BUZZ. Wrong, fella. Maybe that was the filmmaker's intention, but
> they got it very wrong.
well,now,
we have your word for this.
me, and many many others, thought they were normal.
you didn't.
you say the filmakers failed at this, but they succeeded for me.
so, i think the onus is on you
to demonstrate you're not the aberration.
considering your other comments, that would
be a hard thing for you to demonstrate.
> The daughter lost all respect for me when she stood by the window
> topless for the neighbor. It was a moment which SCREAMED "disbelieve
> this!!" I don't know how to say this, but if the filmmakers wanted me
> to believe that she turned from a strong-willed thinker to a slut in
> one reel, then they have very low expectations of the audience.
sigh.
yes, this shallow interpretation of the film does
explain your antipathy towards it.
rickey DOES exert control over her.
this is both realistic and well documented int he film.
and i don't know what sort of relationships you've been in,
but i've had girlfriends flash me before.
> Ask yourself, in that position, in that point in time, no matter what
> moral background you have, would you do that. It was stupefying.
*i* would, but then i'm a male.
would i woman?
of course.
> as the movie progressed,
> > he achieved a calm and peacefullness that i haven't seen associated
> with
> > any midlife crises, so i hardly see how that was in any way contrived
> or
> > cliched.
>
> It wasn't his calm or peacefulness that was contrived, it was the
> situations surrounding him as contrived. Had you read my post, you
> would have understood that I didn't single that aspect out as contrived
> or cliched.
had you read MY post, you'd understood i didn't say you had,
so i can't see why you have some sudden and irrelevant urge to point
that out.
>Even so, I didn't believe it. He threw away a loathsome
> job. Fine. But then he works at a fast-food joint, buys a fancy car,
> indulges in drugs, and nearly participates in statutory rape. There
> was no way I can sympathize at this point.
*i* can.
it's a zen thing.
besides which, i don't beleive in any law that makes sex between him
and mena illegal.
another thing the movie was saying.
> > >And that's why it was biggotted.
> >
> > this is what i reacted to.
> > a token portrayal of a minorority [discussed later] does NOT make
> > the film bigotted TOWARD that minority. it's such an astoundingly
> stupid
> > statemnt i can't really beleive you're defending it.
>
> That's because you MISREAD it. It was not bigotted toward the
> minority, it was bigotted toward the MAJORITY.
sooooo, you're saying that the only positive portrayal being
a gay couple supports the MAJORITY of heterosexual families?????????
if you're going to talk nonsense, then i *can't* keep up.
> > Sam Mendez had no
> > > guts to showcase any of the implausible contrivances of the gay
> couple,
> > > or no guts to portray the heterosexual families as relatable.
> >
> > this is also stupid.
> > the movie wasn't ABOUT gay couples, nor did it address them in any
> > way.
>
> Oh no?
no.
glad to clear that up for you.
> > it showed *one* such couple as ideal because it
> > was mocking the traditional family unit,
> > because it was sarcastically saying nontraditional units are
> > capable of being as traditional, even less fucked up, than the
> supposed
> > 'traditional family' that those crying for a return to 'traditional
> > family values' think of.
>
> INTERNAL CONTRADITION. MY POINT ALL ALONG.
but you think to think this is some sort of massive Theme or somesuch.
the gay couple was deliberately diminished.
it wasn't About the gay couple.
the gay couple got almost NO screen time.
the only reason they were there was to make a joke.
your focus on it is about as relevrant as focusing ont he cheerleader's
friends who get upset at
her when she talk about having sex.
you remember them, they got all of 1 minute of screen time.
but i'm sure there's some important Theme that mendez fucked up
there too.
And this is what Happiness
> touched upon too.
fight club also touched on it.
> > It
> > > becomes a one-dimensional tolerance tract. Make a rally, dude, not
> a
> > > movie.
> >
> > it's not even about tolerance.
> > if anything, they support the movie's
> > central notion that narcissim trumps morality.
>
> But it doesn't.
yes it does.
so there.
>And this is where it gets contrived.
>
> Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw out all
> morality?
no one.
in fact, this movie makes that point *explicitly*.
ricky is the most narcisstic of them all,
manipulates poeple left and right for his own advantage,
and yet actually cares about and tries to help
jane and lester.
lester turns narcissitic, yet forgives his wife and
decides not to sleep with the cheerleader.
We are who we are, including our complicated moral
> framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic, and
> participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers wanted to such
> all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to sympathize.
they didn't want to, nor did they.
in fact, you entire post reeks of a bias against the movie
because you had problems with its morals.
that clears things up for me.
> They may have done so for the curious contrast between morality and
> narcissism, but from the very nature of our personas, it becomes
> hackneyed and forced.
this is a statement you'd have to support.
> > gays are supposedly immoral, but because they
> > do what pleases them in the movie, they are well adjusted.
>
> But we don't know that.
no, the movie says this, but intentionally cuts short any in depth
exploration,
it *doesn't* look deeper at *them* on purpose, because
to do so would expose the same fault lines that the rest of the film
wears.
it doesn't look deeper on purpose because it's not gay families
it's examining, it's american morality.
That is reaching. Other than a very few
> scenes where they appear to be very well adjusted, we know very little
> about them. Think of it, they could be CHASTE!! (it's not likely, but
> that's how far reaching the film portrayed them).
>
> So what do we know? They jog. WOW. They DO what they want!! To
> associate jogging and taking drugs as the same thing... doing what you
> want... then that is as pathetic a gesture as can be.
that ISnarcissim-
do what pleases you.
and i'm not associating jogging with drugs.
there's amuch mor eobvious association that you just intentionally
discounted
above because you wanted to make a silly rant.
> If they had showed gays as the same unrelatable louts who carried the
> film, then their point may be lost.
exactly.
damon, interrupted
j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>
> In article <8ngjs4$hn0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >
> snip
> > Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw out all
> > morality? We are who we are, including our complicated moral
> > framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic, and
> > participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers wanted to
> such> all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to
> sympathize.
>
> It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. My only hope is
> that they couldn't have cared less about the audience.
>
> Thank you for a such a deep breath of fresh air, Nick.
>
you are an odd person.
i ask you to think things through a bit before you post:
the movie made 100 million plus.
it won several oscars.
obviously SOME people sympathized.
why shouldn't they expect sympathy just because some few people didn't
have any?
j...@capebridge.net
"damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
>
>
> j...@capebridge.net wrote:
> >
> > In article <8ngjs4$hn0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > >
> > snip
> > > Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw
out all
> > > morality? We are who we are, including our complicated moral
> > > framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic, and
> > > participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers wanted to
> > such> all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to
> > sympathize.
> >
> > It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. My only hope is
> > that they couldn't have cared less about the audience.
> >
> > Thank you for a such a deep breath of fresh air, Nick.
> >
>
> you are an odd person.
Thank you.
>
> i ask you to think things through a bit before you post:
> the movie made 100 million plus.
> it won several oscars.
Who cares? Those points never determine my opinion.
>
> obviously SOME people sympathized.
>
> why shouldn't they expect sympathy just because some few people didn't
> have any?
Oh, you'd like to think it's just a few....
Mary
nkle...@my-deja.com
aspects of American Beauty that I haven't seen before. That said, I
still feel it fails... as a movie, or its message.
The issue isn't about my personal morality. It's about the universe
these characters live in, and whether or not you can sincerely buy
their decisions, moral or not. Happiness, Ice Storm, Sweet Hereafter,
Pleasantville, Ordinary People, and this film seem to all have a single
distinguishing characteristic... they focus upon the dark side of the
typical American Family. Some do so to push to envelope as to show
what forms of behavior are acceptable. Some do so to show that the
dream is simply that... a dream.
I am confused as to some of the statemtents you've made in the past
letter. You state that the film is about power, an example thereof
being the Bentley character exercising his authority, manipulating the
Thora Birch character, to the point she poses nude for him by the
window. You then admit that had you been her, you would have done the
same thing.
This is what confuses me. Bentley's character just didn't exercise any
authority over _me_. I just didn't buy it. He comes across as the
smartest, most elusive character in the film, for no other reason than
the filmmakers said so. So he's parented by a mean father and a mute
mother. So he fools his Dad with the urine samples. So he makes a lot
of extra illegal money on the side. So he philosophizes about the
beauty of the plastic bag in the wind. Maybe millions of people bought
it. I didn't.
Doesn't that give me greater authority than him, and therefore, you?
Two. I disagree with the assessment about the homosexual subplot.
After all, it's what did Lester in. It may have been a "joke," and I
can take a good one. But jokes like these are funny if they're based
in reality, even a darker reality. I felt the filmmakers were saying
too much with too little. It was as if the Colonel was a
representative of all those averse to homosexual behavior out there,
and that him being in the closet was a cheap joke. Whatever your take,
if you look closely at people who hold this view, you'd find such hold
an even greater disdain for the homophobic murders that take place.
The association just does not work.
Three. One thing I liked about Happiness over AB was that with
Happiness, a point is that one's lapses don't just affect him, but it
affects everyone. Take the next-to-final scene in Happiness <SPOILER
ALERT>. The scene where the pedophile confronts his own son is one of
the most heart-wrenching scenes ever put to film. The father feels
remorseful but helpless to the power of his sickness. The son feels
like he was rejected... why did you pick HIM over me?? That father's
sin not only screwed him up, but his entire family. <END OF SPOILER>.
Frankly, the family in AB was not like that. Sure, they all grew to
really hate Lester, but you never had any inclination to believe that
this was nothing more than thoughts they had already had, finally
surfacing. There's no drama. No arc.
You said that the theme of American Beauty is about narcissism
triumphing over morality. It's a fine interpretation, but I could not
disagree with the message more. As nails to the blackboard to you, I
will say _The Nutty Professor_ remake had it better than American
Beauty. Had Lester turned into Buddy Love, then I doubt you would have
been so enthusiastic.
j...@capebridge.net
"damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
snip
> you say the filmakers failed at this, but they succeeded for me.
Great, it worked for you, not for us and "many others".
> so, i think the onus is on you
> to demonstrate you're not the aberration.
Hey he's not that unique with his opinion you know. So what do you
want, a signed petition?
> snip
> and i don't know what sort of relationships you've been in,
> but i've had girlfriends flash me before.
Well isn't that special!
> > Ask yourself, in that position, in that point in time, no matter
what
> > moral background you have, would you do that. It was stupefying.
>
> *i* would, but then i'm a male.
>
> would i woman?
> of course.
I wouldn't. Why of course?
> >Even so, I didn't believe it. He threw away a loathsome
> > job. Fine. But then he works at a fast-food joint, buys a fancy
car,
> > indulges in drugs, and nearly participates in statutory rape. There
> > was no way I can sympathize at this point.
>
> *i* can.
Goody two-shoes for you!
> in fact, you entire post reeks of a bias against the movie
> because you had problems with its morals.
Reeks? Calm down. Everyone would have problems (hopefully) with
Happiness' morals, but that doesn't determine a bias on its own. I
liked it.
> that clears things up for me.
Good ... ?
Mary
j...@capebridge.net
I wish I could put my thoughts into words the way you do. As such I've
been fodder for a few posters because I can't seem to back up how I
feel about certain movies intelligently.
The "no drama, no arc" point particularly hit home for my great
disappointment in the most anticipated movie for me last year.
Mary
In article <8njpub$8c3$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
JennieD-O'C
>Happiness, Ice Storm, Sweet Hereafter,
>Pleasantville, Ordinary People, and this film seem to all have a single
>distinguishing characteristic... they focus upon the dark side of the
>typical American Family.
Psst. "The Sweet Hereafter" takes place in Canada, and has nothing to do
with Americans, familial or otherwise. :-)
Otherwise, good call.
---
Jennie D-O'C <jenn...@intranet.org> http://home.intranet.org/~jenniedo/
"Having a childhood is overrated." -Stef Maruch
nkle...@my-deja.com
> >... they focus upon the dark side of the
> >typical American Family.
>
> Psst. "The Sweet Hereafter" takes place in Canada, and has nothing
to do
> with Americans, familial or otherwise. :-)
>
You're right!! My mistake. Too bad, tho. I've known there's no hope
for the American family for some time now. I thought Canada had it down
pat. Thanks for setting me straight. ;>
damon, interrupted
j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>
> In article <399CC06C...@mdo.net>,
> "damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> > j...@capebridge.net wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <8ngjs4$hn0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > > nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > snip
> > > > Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw
> out all
> > > > morality? We are who we are, including our complicated moral
> > > > framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic, and
> > > > participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers wanted to
> > > such> all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to
> > > sympathize.
> > >
> > > It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. My only hope is
> > > that they couldn't have cared less about the audience.
> > >
> > > Thank you for a such a deep breath of fresh air, Nick.
> > >
> >
> > you are an odd person.
>
> Thank you.
> >
> > i ask you to think things through a bit before you post:
> > the movie made 100 million plus.
> > it won several oscars.
>
> Who cares? Those points never determine my opinion.
who cares what your opinion is if you are so obviously wrong?
> > obviously SOME people sympathized.
> >
> > why shouldn't they expect sympathy just because some few people didn't
> > have any?
>
> Oh, you'd like to think it's just a few....
in terms of percentage.
i'm sure there are thousands out there who didn't liek the film,
and that's okay.
like it or don't.
but making incredibly stupid and ill thought
statements like "It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. "
is a surefire way to get someone to point out
how stupid and ill thought it is.
damon, interrupted
nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> First off, thank you for this discussion, bringing to light certain
> aspects of American Beauty that I haven't seen before. That said, I
> still feel it fails... as a movie, or its message.
well,s ure, i didn't expect to change yoru mind on that.
i'm merely pointing out what i think were missaprehensions on your
part.
> The issue isn't about my personal morality. It's about the universe
> these characters live in, and whether or not you can sincerely buy
> their decisions, moral or not. Happiness, Ice Storm, Sweet Hereafter,
> Pleasantville, Ordinary People, and this film seem to all have a single
> distinguishing characteristic... they focus upon the dark side of the
> typical American Family.
i've let this slide a few times, but sweet hereafter had
very very little to do with 'the dark side of the typical american
family'
sweet hereafter was more about the consequences of tragedy and
how they affect people.
as for pleasantville, again you're focusing on something
cursory.
pleasantville was a satiric look at several things, among them
the artifice of the 50's portrayal of the family, and of noncomformity
and individuality.
the family per se was only addressed as it related to
the media's portrayal of it; it was never the primary focus.
> I am confused as to some of the statemtents you've made in the past
> letter. You state that the film is about power, an example thereof
> being the Bentley character exercising his authority, manipulating the
> Thora Birch character, to the point she poses nude for him by the
> window. You then admit that had you been her, you would have done the
> same thing.
well, i'm a male, and yes, i'd take my shirt off for a woman i'm
dating next door.
> This is what confuses me. Bentley's character just didn't exercise any
> authority over _me_. I just didn't buy it.
fine.
He comes across as the
> smartest, most elusive character in the film, for no other reason than
> the filmmakers said so. So he's parented by a mean father and a mute
> mother. So he fools his Dad with the urine samples. So he makes a lot
> of extra illegal money on the side. So he philosophizes about the
> beauty of the plastic bag in the wind. Maybe millions of people bought
> it. I didn't.
>
> Doesn't that give me greater authority than him, and therefore, you?
how?
the point i was making with rickey is that the movie portrays
narcissism and the inherent power it gives one over people positively.
rickyt was engimatic, yes, but he also had power over everyone int he
film.
afaic, and i admit this may be a misreading of the director's
intent, the col shot lester because lester took his son
away, not because lester was gay.
iow, rickey, having leanred what it took to manipulate his
father [and this is shown repeatedly during the film], had
twisted his dad so much that when rickey finally got fed up
and deliberatly manipulated his father into disowning him, it crushed
the col, breaking him. rickey didn't care at all; he like dhis dad, but
copuld easily live without him.
now, WE got to see his manipulations. that puts us "over" him
in some metatextual way, but that has little to do with the film.
you may not buy it, but 7ithink the film's intent wrt much of this is
clear.
> Two. I disagree with the assessment about the homosexual subplot.
> After all, it's what did Lester in.
homophobia did lester in.
there's a difference between that and the portrayal of the gay couple.
i didn't address the col part, because [as i mentioned above] i see
it diferently, and i suspect in that part
i'm seeing something differentr than what was intended.
as it is, i don't really have much of anopinion over the col.'s
actions at the end. they seem deliberatly ambiguous, as you mention,
but they do add the final joke to the movie-
that lester is killed the moment he achives pure happiness.
It may have been a "joke," and I
> can take a good one. But jokes like these are funny if they're based
> in reality, even a darker reality. I felt the filmmakers were saying
> too much with too little. It was as if the Colonel was a
> representative of all those averse to homosexual behavior out there,
> and that him being in the closet was a cheap joke. Whatever your take,
> if you look closely at people who hold this view, you'd find such hold
> an even greater disdain for the homophobic murders that take place.
> The association just does not work.
>
> Three. One thing I liked about Happiness over AB was that with
> Happiness, a point is that one's lapses don't just affect him, but it
> affects everyone. Take the next-to-final scene in Happiness <SPOILER
> ALERT>.
haven't see it, can't comment, am snipping instead of reading.
> You said that the theme of American Beauty is about narcissism
> triumphing over morality. It's a fine interpretation, but I could not
> disagree with the message more.
well, lots wouldn't.
while i think lester not having sex with mena, is a bit of a wimp out,
[although i can see the film is strengthened in a different direction
because of it],
i think it's very courageous in its message.
as for finding the idea of narcissism over morality disagreeable,
i think lester's final actions and rickey's overall actions
show that narcissim doesn't necessarily translate into wanton
evil.
in fact i truly narcissitic person wouldn't be evil, as he'd see no
reason
to bother to hurt others.
that's what rickey was like.
As nails to the blackboard to you, I
> will say _The Nutty Professor_ remake had it better than American
> Beauty. Had Lester turned into Buddy Love, then I doubt you would have
> been so enthusiastic.
>
--
damon, interrupted
j...@capebridge.net wrote:
>
> In article <399CBECF...@mdo.net>,
> "damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > you say the filmakers failed at this, but they succeeded for me.
>
> Great, it worked for you, not for us and "many others".
that's certainly not in dispute.
> > so, i think the onus is on you
> > to demonstrate you're not the aberration.
>
> Hey he's not that unique with his opinion you know. So what do you
> want, a signed petition?
yes. and photos too.
>
> > snip
>
> > and i don't know what sort of relationships you've been in,
> > but i've had girlfriends flash me before.
>
> Well isn't that special!
depends on which girlfriend.
> > > Ask yourself, in that position, in that point in time, no matter
> what
> > > moral background you have, would you do that. It was stupefying.
> >
> > *i* would, but then i'm a male.
> >
> > would a woman?
> > of course.
>
> I wouldn't. Why of course?
because i know women who have. or would. hence, "No matter
what moral backgorund you have", well, the experiential background
*i* have suggests it's reasonable.
> > >Even so, I didn't believe it. He threw away a loathsome
> > > job. Fine. But then he works at a fast-food joint, buys a fancy
> car,
> > > indulges in drugs, and nearly participates in statutory rape. There
> > > was no way I can sympathize at this point.
> >
> > *i* can.
>
> Goody two-shoes for you!
i know, it's lovely.
> > that clears things up for me.
>
> Good ... ?
>
i can see clearly now, the dawn has come.
damon, interrupted
Maggie Exon wrote:
>
> Mary wrote:
>
> > The "no drama, no arc" point particularly hit home for my great
> > disappointment in the most anticipated movie for me last year.
> >
>
> I have begun to be struck how often this comment describes why I am so often
> disappointed by "serious" movies which have been given great critical aclaim
> (including AB). I find it very difficult to take an overly-intellectualised
> attitude to a film I an watching. I want to have some empathy with at least
> one of the characters (which does not mean they have to admirable) and feel
> to some extent I have gone on a journey with them. For this to happen the
> milieu in which the characters move and their own actions need to mesh into
> some acceptable reality.
>
this is really what most movie criticsim boils down to-
'i liked it' or 'i didn't like it'.
and most of that comes with whether the reviewer
empathizes with the character[s].
for instance, one of the best comic book writers, alan moore,
to me is very cold, and i don't empathize with most of his characters.
however, he writes books with 5 or 6 different themes, and writes them
extremely well.
one of the best works of fiction in the past ten years is by him, it's
called from hell, and it's been optioned as a movie.
but there's very little emotion in it.
> Film reality is not the same as real-world reality. In some genres it can
> be far removed (say in comic book adaptations). In others, the filmakers
> are clearly trying to make some point about our real world. That is when
> film reality can so easily seem phoney, with characters acting in ways which
> jar with our sense of the way people really behave. When that happens I
> find the sense of drama and of a journey goes.
>
> I did not care about the characters in AB. Were we supposed to?
i think it's clearwe were.
your lack of doing so just means the movie didn't work for you.
that's fine.
i felt sort of the same way about 6th sense.
If not, the
> motives seem to me to be essentially satiric, and satire is a very difficult
> thing to pull off since it is essentially opposed to out desire for empathy
> with the characters we are watching.
>
> I have been struck how varied the interpretations of this film are. Often
> that is a reflection of the depth of a great work of art. However, in this
> case I think it is a reflection of how lacking in dramatic unity this film
> was.
> Maggie
Maggie Exon
> The "no drama, no arc" point particularly hit home for my great
> disappointment in the most anticipated movie for me last year.
>
I have begun to be struck how often this comment describes why I am so often
disappointed by "serious" movies which have been given great critical aclaim
(including AB). I find it very difficult to take an overly-intellectualised
attitude to a film I an watching. I want to have some empathy with at least
one of the characters (which does not mean they have to admirable) and feel
to some extent I have gone on a journey with them. For this to happen the
milieu in which the characters move and their own actions need to mesh into
some acceptable reality.
Film reality is not the same as real-world reality. In some genres it can
be far removed (say in comic book adaptations). In others, the filmakers
are clearly trying to make some point about our real world. That is when
film reality can so easily seem phoney, with characters acting in ways which
jar with our sense of the way people really behave. When that happens I
find the sense of drama and of a journey goes.
I did not care about the characters in AB. Were we supposed to? If not, the
Maggie Exon
"damon, interrupted" wrote:
> this is really what most movie criticsim boils down to-
> 'i liked it' or 'i didn't like it'.
> and most of that comes with whether the reviewer
> empathizes with the character[s].
>
I totally agree with you. But this doesn't preclude people from trying to explain
their likes and dislikes. Those of us who saw AB and did nor like it may well be
in the minority and that does put something of an onus on us to explain our
feelings.
Maggie
Mary Campbell
> <nkle...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>>Happiness, Ice Storm, Sweet Hereafter,
>>Pleasantville, Ordinary People, and this film seem to all have a single
>>distinguishing characteristic... they focus upon the dark side of the
>>typical American Family.
>
> with Americans, familial or otherwise. :-)
>
Although the action of THE SWEET HEREAFTER takes place in Canada, in the
book that it is based on (Russell Banks' novel of the same name) the
setting is a small town in the northern United States.
damon, interrupted
Maggie Exon wrote:
>
> "damon, interrupted" wrote:
>
> > this is really what most movie criticsim boils down to-
> > 'i liked it' or 'i didn't like it'.
> > and most of that comes with whether the reviewer
> > empathizes with the character[s].
> >
>
> I totally agree with you. But this doesn't preclude people from trying to explain
> their likes and dislikes.
sure.
Those of us who saw AB and did nor like it may well be
> in the minority and that does put something of an onus on us to explain our
> feelings.
i wasn't asking for that.
i was saying that making a statement like
'the director couldn't have been expecting us to sympathize'
[or whatever], is silly, considering people did.
now, it may be i'm just responding to sloppy writing.
lord knows i do enough of that.
but i do try and be precise in my word usage,
and i objected to the way the sentence was structured.
akh...@my-deja.com
H Rachel <galadriel...@hotmail.com.invalid> wrote:
> le...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >I’d like to see something honest and intelligent (and funny)
> >about mid- life crisis, something that implicates the hero in
> >his own condition, the way Woody Allen’s DECONSTRUCTING HARRY
> >acknowledged Woody’s character’s own self-destructiveness and
> >immaturity and the role his character flaws played in his art.
> >Now THAT should have won Best Picture that year (1997) and not
> >that contrived romantic fantasy TITANIC. But that's another
> >story.
> >Thank you.
> >
>
> DECONSTRUCTING HARRY was very good, but nah, THE SWEET HEREAFTER
> should have won... but as if that would ever be an issue!
>
> What on earth resisted you from seeing AB for so long? By no
> means the very best film of last year, but not bad as far as BEST
> PICTURE winners go.
>
Couldn't agree more w/ you about "The Sweet Hereafter" -- the excellent
DVD even has a feature length director's commentary.
Atul
Maggie Exon
> > Those of us who saw AB and did nor like it may well be
> > in the minority and that does put something of an onus on us to explain our
> > feelings.
>
> i wasn't asking for that.
> i was saying that making a statement like
> 'the director couldn't have been expecting us to sympathize'
> [or whatever], is silly, considering people did.
>
> now, it may be i'm just responding to sloppy writing.
> lord knows i do enough of that.
> but i do try and be precise in my word usage,
> and i objected to the way the sentence was structured.
Actually, all I did was ask a question.
Quote from my post "I did not care about the characters in AB. Were we supposed to?" I
am genuinely interested in the answer, since directors do not always try to make us
sympathise and Mendes' intentions were not clear to me. I then hypothesised about the
possibility that he did not intend this and that his intentions were wholly satiric. I
do not believe I ever stated categorically that the director had intended sympathy and
had failed.
I hope you won't take it as a flame if I say that you should not accuse people of
sloppy writing unless you quote the words that you object to exactly as given.
Maggie
j...@capebridge.net
> > "damon, interrupted" <dcru...@mdo.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > j...@capebridge.net wrote:
> > > >
> > > > In article <8ngjs4$hn0$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> > > > nkle...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > snip
> > > > > Whose to say that to be narcissistic that you must also throw
> > out all
> > > > > morality? We are who we are, including our complicated moral
> > > > > framework. That is why Lester is unrelatable, unsympathetic,
and
> > > > > participates in contrived situations. If the filmmakers
wanted to
> > > > such> all morality out of Lester, they shouldn't expect me to
> > > > sympathize.
> > > >
> > > > It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. My only
hope is
> > > > that they couldn't have cared less about the audience.
> > > >
> > > > Thank you for a such a deep breath of fresh air, Nick.
> > > >
> > >
> > > you are an odd person.
> >
> > >
> > > i ask you to think things through a bit before you post:
> > > the movie made 100 million plus.
> > > it won several oscars.
> >
>
> who cares what your opinion is if you are so obviously wrong?
EEEEE earth to you - opinions are never wrong.
Mary
>
> > > obviously SOME people sympathized.
> > >
> > > why shouldn't they expect sympathy just because some few people
didn't
> > > have any?
> >
> > Oh, you'd like to think it's just a few....
>
> in terms of percentage.
>
> i'm sure there are thousands out there who didn't liek the film,
> and that's okay.
>
> like it or don't.
>
> but making incredibly stupid and ill thought
> statements like "It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. "
> is a surefire way to get someone to point out
> how stupid and ill thought it is.
>
> --
> Definition of irony: Pat Choate, a Buchanan supporter who decries the
> corruption of the two main parties, supporting idiotic laws in states
> that disallow a candidate to switch parties when running for office
> because of a Reform Party schism.
>
>
http://www.salon.com/business/feature/2000/08/01/napsterpress/index.html
>
>
j...@capebridge.net
>
> but making incredibly stupid and ill thought
> statements like "It's laughable if the filmmakers expected sympathy. "
> is a surefire way to get someone to point out
> how stupid and ill thought it is.
Thank you for such a heartfelt response.
Mary
>
> --
> Definition of irony: Pat Choate, a Buchanan supporter who decries the
> corruption of the two main parties, supporting idiotic laws in states
> that disallow a candidate to switch parties when running for office
> because of a Reform Party schism.
>
>
http://www.salon.com/business/feature/2000/08/01/napsterpress/index.html
>
>