 "Classic Vicious Cultural Marxism from the Hollywood Elites" | 2009-09-23 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3OP9CU8GUWI03 |
This movie is propaganda disguised as entertainment or art. I'll grant that it's entertaining. The plot in brief is a middle-aged guy (Kevin Spacey) with real-estate agent wife and sullen teenage daughter, who quits his job to work out, smoke pot, work at a hamburger joint and chase his daughter's hot friend. New neighbors move in with a dominating ex-Colonel father and a pot-selling, "artistic" son. The son falls in love with Spacey's daughter, Spacey's wife cheats on him, and Spacey dreams of hitting on his daughter's friend. Spacey also befriends the Colonel's son, who sells him pot. The Colonel is obsessed that his son isn't gay, but is secretly gay himself, and in a weird twist, propositions Spacey, who refuses. Spacey has a chance at his daughter's friend but he refuses it in the end (in the one act of moral clarity in the movie), but then he gets shot in the head by one of the others (I won't tell who).
No doubt that Kevin Spacey is an appealing character, even though he acts immature and juvenile. Of course, one is led on in the film, wondering whether Spacey's character is going to score with his daughter's female friend. So the writers use the "adolescent porn" hook to get you interested, as well as the fantasy of dropping out of society, like Spacey, and then they stick you with the anti-family propaganda when you unwittingly think that the movie is entertainment.
If you know anything about Cultural Marxism and the ideology of Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, this movie typifies it to a tee. "Cultural Marxism" is Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. It is also called "Critical Theory" in that it seeks to criticize America's (or the West's) culture so vehemently, so viciously, and so falsely, that people feel ashamed of their culture and are then open to political change and domination from the Left. That's what this movie is in a nutshell. It's very artful and manipulative propaganda. Very much like "Cider House Rules."
Cultural Marxism seeks to destroy all of America's cultural icons, and it stems from an anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-white, anti-private-enterprise, pro-drugs, pro-open-sex, pro-atheist viewpoint. Cultural Marxism turns morality upside down. This movie cynically dumps on white, suburban families, middle-class Americans, American marriages, parenthood, the military, the private job (capitalism), and a disciplined lifestyle. It promotes as "heroes:" gay couples, a drug-dealer teenager who hates his father, and a loser guy who regresses from a position of responsibility to being 18 & irresponsible again. It also promotes drug use and teenage sex. (Great! Just what America needs more of --- teenage drug use and promiscuous sex! There's no down side to that!)
Seeing this movie makes you feel sick about the American Family because you see absolutely no redeeming characters or good family members. This is the intent of the author/director. White suburbia is depicted as a moral wasteland. The trick that the story writer/director uses is human sexuality. Because everyone has a libido, then everyone is corruptible and contemptible. THUS, no-one can judge anyone else's behavior, and the culture that is examined under the cynical microscope, comes off as corrupt and sickening to the viewer. But because the writer/director has total control of what happens, he can warp the values and characters at will, and so makes a "normal" family look contemptible, but a pot-smoking, drug-dealing kid who lies to his parents, look like a hero. (He also makes a gay couple look like virtual saints.)
The character of the Colonel is depicted as a bitter anti-gay man, who (of course!) secretly is gay himself. His marriage is catatonic and his drug-dealing son (THE HERO) hates him and lies to him. This is a slap to military families. I would be willing to bet that military families are generally much better, more loving and healthy than your typical family. But NOT IN THIS MOVIE. Of course, a typical Welfare single-parent family from the city will much more likely have gang/drug/crime/teenage pregnancy/STD problems, but this doesn't prevent the SELF-LOATHING White Cultural Marxists to pick on the middle-class intact family for their "American Beauty" hit job.
Spacey's family is a disaster, as his wife cheats on him (with a man himself going through a divorce), his daughter hates him, he is nasty to his wife, and there is no love anywhere. But the Colonel's family is worse. In other words, there are NO good families, no positive role models, no love, no values. A moral wasteland. Except of course, for the upside-down values of the Colonel's pothead son, and the two "saintly" gays shacking up. So you're put just where the Cultural Marxist director wants you to be -- confused and vulnerable -- so he can propagandize you. The "successful" private job also gets raked over the coals, as Spacey's Real-estate agent wife is made to look foolish, the business job that Spacey quits is also made to look corrupt and contemptible, and the pursuit of a better life materially is criticized as morally barren.
I repeat, the story line is entertaining, as the director pulls you in with identifying with Kevin Spacey's character and wondering if he's going to score with his daughter's alluring friend, all the while feeding you his (the director's) horrible contempt of the middle-class, "successful" American Family. The only redeemable part of the movie comes at the end, when Spacey is dying and he reflects on what is really important in life. But that is too little, too late to save this moral mess of a movie.
Watch this movie with a HUGE GRAIN OF SALT and remember that the Cultural Marxists are trying to manipulate you!
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 "A Truly Unique and Thought Provoking Film" | 2009-09-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1YCERMZ0BXVEL |
| I remember hearing the buzz about this movie when it came out in theaters last year. I had planned to see it, but for some reason never got around to it. One year and five Academy awards later the movie "everyone" was talking about is out on video, so I decided to see what all the whoopla was about. I'm one of those people who is really picky when it comes to enjoying certain movies. Because I'm sick of all the Hollywood clichés and the "ooooh, ahhh, special FX without a plot routine." Well...American Beauty seems to be a remedy for all the crap that is Hollywood these days. Returning home from Blockbuster I popped in the video, turned the lights down and for some reason felt I would be disappointed once again. Needless to say, 123 minutes later as the last part of the credits rolled up and the screen turned blue I was still staring at the TV, completely enriched within my thoughts and contemplation's of American Beauty, the movie `everyone' was talking about. I mean, to put it briefly, this is one of the best movies of the 90's, one of the BEST MOVIES EVER!! Just in my humble opinion. Never, since Schindler's List or the original Star Wars has a movie been able to engross me in such a story. I mean WOW!! I have so many positives for this film. Basically the movie focuses on Lester Burnham(Kevin Spacey) who is having kind of a mid-life crisis going on. Since the movie is narrated from his point of view, we can better understand what he's going through and what his thoughts are. In the beginning of the movie he comes to the rationalization that he's trapped in a meaningless and depressing marriage. His wife (Annette Bening) shows more admiration in her career and affair with her boss than him and his daughter (Thora Birch) who basically hates them both because...well because she's a teenager. While attending a basketball half-time show to see his daughter cheerlead, Lester goes into a trance when he catches the eye of his daughter's friend Angela(Mena Suvari). The 42-year-old man immediately falls for this 18? 17? year old girl. That seemed to be the catalyst to Lester's transformation. He dreams about this girl day and night and for that reason turns into a completely different person. He stops worrying, and just starts living life to its fullest. His new goal is to get into the pants of his daughter's friend and start acting like he was when he was a teenager. While his new personality may make him happy, it's making the rest of his family miserable, which builds up to the great climax. This movie just isn't about the life of Lester though; it also digs deep into the emotions of the people living around him and next door, with everything coming together at the end. This is one of those films that is hard to review, one of those films that you can't really describe in words why you like it, only in words why you dislike it. Many of my friends didn't like this movie because they couldn't accept the protagonist as a pedophile. But the girl isn't exactly a youngin' or anything, and I think the majority of people could relate to Lester's hardships. This movie has just a little bit of nudity and probably one short sex scene. I don't see how it can really offend anybody THESE days unless you work for the Christian Science Monitor or something like that. Or maybe it's just the fact that Scary Movie has given me so much shock value that I've become immune. Anyway, I recommend this movie for anybody looking for a solid 2 hours of entertainment, with good acting and great cinematography. |
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| "Sexy and Seductive" | 2009-08-20 |
| - Reviewed By User: ACLYWYW075K1Y |
| From the first scene I knew this movie was a winner. American Beauty has the right mix a raunchiness, wit, and humor to make it a true classic. |
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 ""Huh?"" | 2009-07-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3S3BCBT6LSV88 |
This movie came up in conversation today and I remembered I had bought it because I really like Kevin Spacey and because it won Oscar for Best Picture. So I watched it and am really weirded out. This is a 1999 movie and when it was made, I would have been exactly Kevin Spacey's character's age. Having undergone one myself, I totally understand his midlife crisis and somehow, even his solution. The Burnhams are very real due to the acting talents of Spacey and Bening; however, the movie is unreal. Or is it the other way around? There are so many inter-connections and twists and turns, yet it's predictable at the same time. At least there are only 6 major characters to deal with: two married couples and two teens, the couples' children, no less.
I'm giving this 3 stars because it's close, on the positive side, to 2 and 1/2 stars: totally midpoint since I am so muddled and ambivalent about this movie. |
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| "So Bizare it's Good" | 2009-06-22 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2BE3MTUT0YBF0 |
| I can't beileve it's been ten years since this movie came out, I had to watch this for film history class a few years ago and have been hooked ever since. Every character with the exception of the two gay men is flawed deeply on some level : Lester (Kevin Spacey)is so bored and lifeless in his marriage with the overcompetitive, driven real estate agent wife that he actively seeks out an affair with his daughter's teenage friend Angela. Angela for her part is attention starved and seeks to realize her needs through sexual actions. His daughter strikes up a relationship with a voyeristic cameraman who is selling drugs behind the back of his Marine father, who disdains gay people, but reveals towards the end of the movie that he himself is gay. The end is perplexing at first because there are several people who may want Lester dead from a sullen wife who is "refusing to be a victim," the gay marine, his daughter's voyaristic boyfriend acting on the wishes of his girlfriend (Lester's daughter.) Good movie, but not for those who are faint of heart. |
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| "Sticks With You" | 2009-05-30 |
| - Reviewed By User: AGIV4A3SF59KP |
| Watched this movie for the first time last night. I found the movie to be haunting in that it reflected my life and I would imagine a great many other's lives. We spend our life chasing money, status, the perfect home and career and somehow we lose ourselves in the process, and when we finally end up with what we have been working so hard to obtain all these years, we find we are empty, bitter shells of what we once were. A very eye opening movie for me. |
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