Great, but DEFINITELY NOT the best movie of all time

Rating: Null/10 (24 October 1999)

It seems that Kevin Spacey makes any movie that he is in great (or just about any movie he's in). Once again, he gets to display his tremendous acting talent. In fact, ALL of the performances in this movie were fantastic. I particularly loved Annette Bening's performance. It's always a delight to see her act in movies, but she totally outdid anything she's done in movies before. Her performance is this movie was marvelous. I think that the best thing about this movie was that it had some of the best performances I have seen in movies. Beyond that, this movie can be described in many ways. Among other things, it was hilarious, witty, touching, and moving. I really enjoyed seeing this movie, and I'm thinking of going to see it again. I highly recommend it, and I think that EVERYONE should see this movie. However, I think this movie is overrated. It definitely is ranked too highly on IMDB's top 250 (the #1 movie???). It definitely is not the best movie of all time, nor is it one of the top ten movies of all time. Mind you, there are movies in the 101-250 range that SHOULD rank higher than this movie. Yet, could this be THE best movie of this year? It's too early to tell--the movie studios usually roll out the "big guns" at the end of a year. But "American Beauty" surely is ONE of the best movies of 1999. It's a shame that 1999 has been such a bad year for movies. In my opinion, this has been the worst year for movies in recent times. I'm still waiting to see "Boys Don't Cry" and "The Emperor and the Assassin". I'm sure those movies will be just as good as (if not better than) this one.