American Beauty
- Thread starter bonjour
- Start date
Johnny Canuck2 said:
not going to happen. I've retired from the 'American Beauty is an empty, cowardly piece of crap' game. Reno states it all pretty well any way.
brahaminda
...of the Mind
brahaminda
...of the Mind
DJWrongspeed said:i think agree with it's criticism's , but the character acting is ace and has some aces laughs.
What struck me more (being a dj/producer'n'all) is that it must be the most sampled film in the world ever, different bits of the sound track seem to pop up all over and vocal samples seem to be included in DJ sets all the time. I even heard a d'n'b remix of the main marimba theme the other day on R1.......will it ever end. Still the original joey negro house mix he did is a timeless house classic.
Which has just confirmed my theory that D'n'B is the most middle class music there is
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
It's a load of crap with one good speech.
brahaminda
...of the Mind
Donna Ferentes said:
Where?
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
"All this is just stuff."
Donna Ferentes said:
That's a great speech, but I still think the whole film is great. Think about the title for example, to what does it refer? Is it not an allusion to the commodification of sexuality and aesthetics, as well as the degradation of the Platonic Ideal in a materialistic age? But the idea that a 40 year-old American man would be incapable of skinning up is indeed implausible.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
The portrayal of the other characters is laughable. It's like one of those Sixties films that tried to explain the counterculture by offering an amended stereotype of it.
DJWrongspeed
radio eros
brahaminda said:
u don't know what yer talking about , shut up
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
A forty-year-old Englishman writes: not all that implausible.phildwyer said:
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Absence of experience.
It's like a couple of pretentious film students were given 10 million squids and decided to make a film denouncing American suburbia. Because if there's one thing this world needs it's another film showing the dark heart of American suburbia.
It is, as someone else so eloquently put it, cock-cheese.
It is, as someone else so eloquently put it, cock-cheese.
gsv
liminally queer
He thinks it justifies paedophilia. I think he's missing the point. He thinks I (and others) am missing the point about it justifying paedophilia. If I don't stop here I'll just get into a spat with the man, which I don't want to do cause I rather like himsparklefish said:I saw it for the first time last night and thought it was a great film, I would be interested to know why dub thinks it's so shit. I might do a search if he won't tell us.
But the DVD commentary's also good
GS(v)
gsv said:
that's absolute fucking horse shit. I have NEVER made any such claims about American Beauty,
gsv said:
it would be better if American Beauty DID justify paedophilia. At least then it would have nailed its colours to a mast, said something substantive, actually offered something for debate.
instead, it's a thin lifeless fart of platitudes and GCSE-level angst.
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
The 'dark heart of suburbia' or whatever is a fine subject, plenty of good films and books about it, many more to come.
But I hated American Beauty for the style more than anything else -- the self-consciousness of it all, the cinematography ripped from someone's idea of how an independent film should look, which seemed to be the film's only exercise.
A lot of recentish US films that define themselves against the mainstream have the same problem. Shots have no purpose other than their perceived beauty. They might think they're making Bresson or Renoir, but it's a secondhand beauty, adopting the look but not the substance of great cinema. That's the touchstone -- great cinema, before the thing's even been made.
But I hated American Beauty for the style more than anything else -- the self-consciousness of it all, the cinematography ripped from someone's idea of how an independent film should look, which seemed to be the film's only exercise.
A lot of recentish US films that define themselves against the mainstream have the same problem. Shots have no purpose other than their perceived beauty. They might think they're making Bresson or Renoir, but it's a secondhand beauty, adopting the look but not the substance of great cinema. That's the touchstone -- great cinema, before the thing's even been made.
red rose
Fee-Ai-Esh-See-Oh
Dont think its too bad if you see it as just a film (or just a story maybe) rather than trying to read loads into it like a lot of people seem to be doing.
I quite enjoyed it, although some of the dawsons-creek style teenage revelations about how life is got a bit tedious.
I quite enjoyed it, although some of the dawsons-creek style teenage revelations about how life is got a bit tedious.
maya
timewasting fool (in every universe)
american beauty is shit, but let just get this off-topick fuzzyrant a voice:
...followed by some Lovelockian ruminations about the delicate balance of human civilisations versus life in the sea.
...or more Herzogian attacks of the savageness of the chaos principle which rules nature and the minds of men.
followed by wild squid orgies and some decadent opium smoking/well-hung warrior men and ladies with tribal-painted breats like in Live and Let Die...*wibble*(oh, that was the tarot cards and the bongo drumming dude...my mistake! )
actually i'd like to see that- a film where young highschool americans are f*cking squids...preferrably a giant squid.Alex B said:
...followed by some Lovelockian ruminations about the delicate balance of human civilisations versus life in the sea.
...or more Herzogian attacks of the savageness of the chaos principle which rules nature and the minds of men.
followed by wild squid orgies and some decadent opium smoking/well-hung warrior men and ladies with tribal-painted breats like in Live and Let Die...*wibble*(oh, that was the tarot cards and the bongo drumming dude...my mistake!
)
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Nah, the title is the name of a rose and of a Grateful Dead album. That's as deep as it gets, maaaaan.phildwyer said:
Dirty Martini
gets what he cant want
maya said:
Why the hell not?
corporate whore
oh, thought you were dead
In the credit side, American Beauty does contain one of the finest uses of the word 'cunt' in a mainstream US film. Not too shocking to denizens of these parts, sure, but I saw it in a cinema in North America, where there was audible shock in the cinema.
damn, i miss the bits of this thread where people ripped the shit out of the fool Dwyer.
lost forever.
lost forever.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Dubversion said:damn, i miss the bits of this thread where people ripped the shit out of the fool Dwyer.
lost forever.
Don't worry. We can rest assured that ego-man will give us plenty more opportunities for piss-ripping every time he posts.
Similar threads
