Watch it Fade

Rating: 3/10 (16 December 2003)

It's nice to see this overrated film fade from the memory, alongside other Oscar "winners", like the silly Thelma and Louise or Sitcom-ish As Good as it Gets. Make no mistake that Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Chris Cooper can bring the goods, but this slice of baby-boomer angst is hardly their shining hour. I can also express no surprise, whatsoever, as Mena Suvari is now appearing in one of the endless parade of Cheerleader/Dance films. Critics had her sized-up as the next Susan Sarandon. I had my doubts when I first saw this, that maybe, just maybe I was wrong. Maybe the two gay guys bringing by the fruit-basket/housewarming present had some esoteric,deeper meaning, and wasn't really fit for a Jim Belushi sitcom. Maybe the fact that Chris Cooper paid such maniacal attention to his son (Wes Bentley) it was predatory, and then failed to observe him making thousands, damn near millions, selling the cool-sounding "Thai Stick", maybe, just maybe, that, in and of itself had some deeper meaning. I thought maybe Peter Gallagher's bad acting was also part of the spice of the movie. Maybe Annette Bening hitting the target range wasn't really a cliche, but a sly poke at inferior movies that do such stuff. Maybe Kevin Spacey's "Can we take you to the pizza-joint, huh, huh, huh, huh?????", maybe that's supposed to be high humor, too. I think of these things, and say... Naahhh. This movie just over-rated. Has my anger about the ridiculous snub of Russell Crowe for The Insider, and that film's complete shut-out surfaced yet? Just checking. All I can say is, fade away, American Beauty, fade away.