A HOLLYWOOD PUZZLE

Rating: 3/10 (31 March 2000)

AMERICAN BEAUTY is a shot-list of anecdotes about self-centered people who oftentimes speak in surreal dialog. This pretentious, poorly structured feature that swept the 2000 Oscars is one of Hollywood's enduring puzzles. How a boring film that has nothing to offer but pretense makes it this far is a complete mystery to me. Its industry popularity and critical acclaim is utterly astounding to me.
No doubt Kevin Spacey is a fine actor, but the 2000 best actor Oscar if there really is one, clearly belonged to Denzel Washington for HURRICANE.
Here, we see visuals that have no real meaning but are conjured for effect that simply deepens the meandering. We hear meaningless dialog that is nothing more than teenage angst. This hodgepodge is nothing but a mishmash of oddball, misfiring scenes altogether not making a half-baked B-film scenario. But hey, it takes all kinds of ballplayers to make up a ball game. Those who enjoy quickly forgotten tongue in cheek films this might be for you.