Astonishingly Bad

Rating: 1/10 (21 July 2012)

It's 2012 and I've only just watched this film. I'm really only familiar with it because of the video cover I've seen around for years, and probably only watched it because I've been catching up on 90s films I have not seen, or have seen and want to again. In fact, it was only just before I watched it that I realised it had won 5 Oscars, including Best Picture. That last fact had me hardly able to believe my eyes as I saw the tripe unfolding on the screen before me.
This repugnant, puerile piece of garbage actually won Best Picture?? And it has one of the highest ratings on this site?? I live in Australia. Ironically, I visited America the year this film came out. I toured around and visited several friends and their families. None of them came close to the complete losers portrayed here. Spacey is now a man because he's thrown in his job, blackmailed his boss and lusts after a school girl, as well as treating his family like dirt. Benning... well, she was just a complete embarrassment. I mean, seriously! How can anyone watch her and not cringe?? The daughter is the typical moody brat that always appears on screen (we're just told that she's the "typical teenager" - shock horror, I've actually met teenagers who are quite level-headed and half-way decent as human beings), and her slutty friend, the object of Spacey's pathetic desires, completes the abject collection of unbearable characters. Oh, there's also the weird, drug-selling boy who loves to watch plastic bags.
This is not good drama; i's unwatchable. It's not good comedy; it's never remotely funny, not in a dark way or any other way it seems to think it is. It's not clever and it's not deep. I've read around this site and see "American Beauty" is very much love it or hate it, and I know I'm not alone with my revulsion for this thing. And, from what I've seen, most of the haters seem to be Americans who have taken offense to Hollywood's out-of-touch ideas of the "typical" American family.
There are some movies ("The Matrix" springs to mind) that many adore, but which I can't get a handle on, and yet I respect those who do love it and, eventually watching it again, I could appreciate it somewhat more, and assumed I just haven't been able to "get" it. But this thing... what is going on? I thought "Titanic" wishing Best Picture was a joke, but that's "Gone With The Wind" compared with this appalling piece of junk, and the fact that it is revered by so many is the most repellent part of all.