THE FUCKING BOURNE ULTIMATUM? REALLY?

[stray]

On a petty note: What the fuck is it with people who think that things that are in films and books and etc have nothing to do with them? How much more absurd can you get.

I said the plastic bag had nothing to do with the premise of the film (and it seemed like you were making it a focal point). Not that it was some entirely meaningless element thrown in there just for the hell of it.

[edit] Also, I don't see how you can seperate the kid from the bag. Everything about the bag was from his own fucked up perspective on things.

[lamaros]

I'm interested to The premise of the film is what? That "many middle class American men are dysfunctional, miserable, and secretly would like to lash out"?

I guess they just put all the other characters in the film to colour these guys in, eh? Surely there is no comment being made on/by each character, on/by them as relationalion entities, on/by them as a society, et cetera. Of course, each bit only relates to itself, there is no overlap. The plastic bag is only a comment on some "fucking psycho kid" and has nothing to do with anything else. It just happens to be in the same film.

[K9]

Out of interest Lamaros, other than the Godfather II what movies do you go back and watch time and again? I'm just interested, as I'm really starting to feel out of my depth here.

[lamaros]

Out of interest Lamaros, other than the Godfather II what movies do you go back and watch time and again? I'm just interested, as I'm really starting to feel out of my depth here.

I don't go back and watch many films more than a couple of times, especially recently. I'm not a big fan of collecting DVDs, I enjoy watching things at the Cinema more (And only classics and cult films get replayed much at cinemas i know of -- I saw Playtime a year or two back in 70mm. Amazing!). I do like Fifth Element and have watched it many times though. I'm sure that will burst my pretentious bubble. :)

[K9]

...

[tazelbain]

I'm interested to The premise of the film is what? That "many middle class American men are dysfunctional, miserable, and secretly would like to lash out"?

I guess they just put all the other characters in the film to colour these guys in, eh? Surely there is no comment being made on/by each character, on/by them as relationalion entities, on/by them as a society, et cetera. Of course, each bit only relates to itself, there is no overlap. The plastic bag is only a comment on some "fucking psycho kid" and has nothing to do with anything else. It just happens to be in the same film.

Since the the main character tells you what its about, I don't understand the confusion.

5th element: More films need to be made with an anime aesthetic

[stray]

I'm interested to The premise of the film is what? That "many middle class American men are dysfunctional, miserable, and secretly would like to lash out"?

I guess they just put all the other characters in the film to colour these guys in, eh? Surely there is no comment being made on/by each character, on/by them as relationalion entities, on/by them as a society, et cetera. Of course, each bit only relates to itself, there is no overlap. The plastic bag is only a comment on some "fucking psycho kid" and has nothing to do with anything else. It just happens to be in the same film.

Yeah, I'm saying it's a comment on the kid, but also saying it's a comment on his perspective of Spacey -- just that it isn't the authoritative view of Spacey or the movie. Just like every other character has their points of view.. They're all given the same amount of screentime. Be it his wife, his daughter, his daughter's friend, the kid's marine dad -- they all have their own perspective on him. There's that final sequence that kind of illustrates that -- in the end of the movie, when he gets shot, it's pretty obvious that it wasn't supposed to be from any one of their points of view -- as he was laying there, dead in the kitchen, it flashes to his daughter's face, then the kid cracking a smile, his wife crying, his daughter's friend curled up, the marine panicking with blood on his hands... All reacting to this guy's life and death in their own way. And then, Spacey's own narration of himself to close the movie (he also opens the film in narration, if you recall). And as far as I'm concerned, when there is a narrator, then the narrator has the sole authority on what is and what isn't the premise of the movie --- especially when the narrator is the protagonist himself!

That being said, I know that saying "many middle class American men are dysfunctional, miserable, and secretly would like to lash out" may be simplifying it, but that's pretty much what I got throughout the whole movie when it came to Spacey's own perspective. I'd say that the kid might have saw himself as the most understanding or sympathetic to Spacey -- but I'm not so sure if he really was, other than in his own head.

[edit] Man, I talk too much. Leave it to tazelbain to sum it up easily.

[lamaros]

Since the the main character tells you what its about, I don't understand the confusion.

My point was that it was patronising, no? So a guy telling us what it's all about...

(Narrators can also be unreliable.)

[stray]

Fair enough. I love narrators myself. Especially the "dead, but I'm telling this story anyways" variety. See Double Indemnity or Sunset Blvd.

[tazelbain]

Not all art should be left for the viewer to figure out what the artists intent is.  Because like "Hamlet kissing his mother", they will get it wrong and fuck up your story.  And Allan Ball had a point.  I think the critic in you is mad he told his point and you can't make up one of your own.  American Beauty,  a tirade against the excesses on modern Liberalism.

[lamaros]

What is with this "I can only remember what you've said in the last sentence" business? I never said I had a problem with not being able to make the film mean what I want it to mean. I have a problem with the way it goes about saying what it says. Can we consider this conversation done now?

[Abagadro]

American Beauty,  a tirade against the excesses on modern Liberalism.

That's the point? Could have fooled me. I thought it was about how middle-class life is characterized by putting forth an outward show of normalcy which covers a rotten core of self-denial (sort of like, I don't know, the American Beauty Rose that when it blooms is beautiful on the outside and diseased on the inside) and any attempt to escape such social norms is severely punished.

[stu]

Sean Penn was also good in Carlito's Way.

Yes! I liked the version of that character they stuck into Vice City too.

[Nebu]

That's the point? Could have fooled me. I thought it was about how middle-class life is characterized by putting forth an outward show of normalcy which covers a rotten core of self-denial (sort of like, I don't know, the American Beauty Rose that when it blooms is beautiful on the outside and diseased on the inside) and any attempt to escape such social norms is severely punished.

That's exactly what I got from it as well.

[HaemishM]

What is with this "I can only remember what you've said in the last sentence" business? I never said I had a problem with not being able to make the film mean what I want it to mean. I have a problem with the way it goes about saying what it says. Can we consider this conversation done now?

Your problem with American Beauty is a STYLISTIC problem, not a premise problem. I can see why you'd feel that way. It took the very slow, deliberate pacing of Kubrick's movies and made if more airy and dream-like. In some movies, that style bothers me a lot, like all of Shamalamadingdong's movies after Unbreakable, because it feels forced. It feels as if the actors are being fit into ill-fitting holes by the director's choice of style. It feels pretentious.

I think the style fit the piece fine, myself. I also feel part of the theme of the movie was that we make ourselves miserable by putting unrealistic expectations on ourselves, and get so wrapped up in the superficial trappings, that we fail to see the beauty in our everyday, mundane lives. And then some homophobic Marine shoots you in the head.

[Rishathra]

It's been my observation that American Beauty love/hate splits up almost exactly at the same time as pre/post hype.  My girlfriend and I went to the theater one day, didn't really see anything special there, and then said, "hey, what's that?  Wasn't that the one with the trippy trailer we saw a few months ago?  Let's see that."  We came out of the theater absolutely blown away.  On the other hand, everyone I recommended the movie to, hated it.  I guess it's only good when it's surprisingly good.  Everyone I know who went into it after hearing the hype for it though it was crap.  Everyone who saw it before the Oscar buzz enjoyed it.

[stu]

Buddy Kane: [Carolyn is getting railed in a motel room by the Real Estate King] Do you like getting nailed by the King?

Carolyn Burnham: Yes, your majesty!


That's classic.

I am usually completely against narration in movies- if the story can be told with a complete lack of music or dialogue, then it's a good example of a movie that works. American Beauty is a rare exception for me.

[stray]

I couldn't stand a lack of good, snappy narration dialogue in a noir flick for sure. It's a must. Whether it be Sunset Blvd or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

It's worked well in many other genres as well... Shawshank -- that'd be a lesser movie without Red's insight on things. Goodfellas. Taxi Driver. Apocalypse Now. The Big Lebowski. High Fidelity. And I mentioned Carlito's Way because of Penn earlier, but Pacino's narration in it is great. Almost poetic.

[tazelbain]

American Beauty,  a tirade against the excesses on modern Liberalism.

That's the point? Could have fooled me.

That's not the point.  You fooled yourself by severing it from the sentance before hand.

I thought it was about how middle-class life is characterized by putting forth an outward show of normalcy which covers a rotten core of self-denial (sort of like, I don't know, the American Beauty Rose that when it blooms is beautiful on the outside and diseased on the inside) and any attempt to escape such social norms is severely punished.

No doubt that is why he died, but I really don't see the narrator as telling us a story about how he was dicked over by social norms. 

I think he's telling us the story about the two Beauties and how he learned to tell the difference.

[Abagadro]

You fooled yourself by severing it from the sentance before hand.

Nah, I think you fooled me by not writing in a comprehensible fashion. 

[tazelbain]

Words are not my aeroplane.

[Margalis]

I'm not a huge fan of American Beauty but some of Lamaros' complaints are silly.

Here are some legitimate problems:
1. The murder mystery angle feels superfluous.
2. The "suburban life sucks" angle is too surface-level and hamfisted.

The movie doesn't have a whole lot of depth, the moral of the story is pretty cut and dried. It was a statement movie but the statement was pretty shallow.

[stray]

Was it a murder mystery really? I don't see what people mean by that. Maybe if you make more out of it, I suppose it can be a superfluous "murder mystery" -- but I don't think it was intended to be a mystery at all. Y'know.. What with the marine rushing into his house, concealing the weapon, with blood on his body. Seemed pretty obvious who killed him. His wife intended to kill him herself, sure -- but afterwards, she's just shown against a wall with a gun in her hand, no blood, etc.. All I got out of that was that she missed her chance to do it himself, and now that he's dead, she's grieving instead.

I don't mind the shallow statement. "Fuck all of you" is a good statement, shallow or not.

[Furiously]

I'd just like to add a comment about Rocky.

The producers wanted James Caan to play Rocky. The writer wanted himself.

The writer won on the condition the movie cost less then $1 Million to make.

[stray]

I still think that's one of the most surprising facts in Hollywood history.

That Sylvester Stallone wrote Rocky. Hell, that he could even write at all.

[Margalis]

By the end it isn't a mystery who killed Kevin Spacey but that is a major plot in the movie. Apparently the original script was actually much more of a whodunnit but slowly morphed into more of a character-based drama. I felt those parts of the movie were at odds. The red herrings with the kids and the wife were pretty superfluous to the main story. He could have died of a heart attack at the end and it wouldn't have changed much.

[lamaros]

I'm not a huge fan of American Beauty but some of Lamaros' complaints are silly.

Here are some legitimate problems:
1. The murder mystery angle feels superfluous.
2. The "suburban life sucks" angle is too surface-level and hamfisted.

The movie doesn't have a whole lot of depth, the moral of the story is pretty cut and dried. It was a statement movie but the statement was pretty shallow.

If you think that what you just said was different to my complaints you're just failing at reading again.

[Margalis]

Or you are failing at writing.

Edit: I'll add some content to my post. AB is interesting in that many of the critics who lauded it at the time have now turned against it. It's the same sort of thing you see happening in literature a lot. (I highly recommened "A Reader's Manifesto", it goes into this phenomenon in depth) Something comes out, critics praise it, then a few years later they pretend never to have liked it in the first place.

[stray]

Or as Public Enemy put it: Don't Believe the Hype 


I still like it though. Not fanatical about it or anything (despite me carrying on this conversation on here), but it's still entertaining. I think that was my first time I saw Chris Cooper as well -- and he's easily one of my favorite actors now. So there's that.

[Miasma]

I'd just like to add a comment about Rocky.

The producers wanted James Caan to play Rocky. The writer wanted himself.

The writer won on the condition the movie cost less then $1 Million to make.

I did not know that and am still having trouble believing it.

[Roac]

By the end it isn't a mystery who killed Kevin Spacey but that is a major plot in the movie. Apparently the original script was actually much more of a whodunnit but slowly morphed into more of a character-based drama. I felt those parts of the movie were at odds. The red herrings with the kids and the wife were pretty superfluous to the main story. He could have died of a heart attack at the end and it wouldn't have changed much.

The murder doesn't make it a murder mystery, but it does extend more on the idea of suburban middle class life.  Only one person killed him, but a few more could have, and one almost did.  If you're looking at American Beauty as a statement about these people, what does it say about their character if they were capable of this?  Even if they only considered it?

[bhodi]

I dunno, I'm no film critic but I saw it as an indictment of suburbia, when a guy has a wake up call and ends up rejecting the status quo (which has become so bad and made so many miserable) just to feel normal again.

And then goes and fucks it up by refusing the girl, which I totally don't get at all. Because as Billy Idol says, there's nothing pure in this world.. he should have totally gone for it :)

[stray]

Bhodi, you rock.

[HaemishM]

Dude, wasn't that chick 16? 

[schild]

I'm 99% sure it had nothing to do with her age, but merely the fact she was a virgin.