I want to look good naked

Rating: 9/10 (5 September 2009)

-Lester Burnham is a great example of how sex or the promise of sex can change a man's life. When we meet him, his life is PAINFULLY ordinary. He works a poop job that he hates, he leads a sexless marriage with his wife that he has no love for anymore, whacking off in the shower is his high point and his daughter hates him. His life seems to be going downhill fast till he goes to his daughter's school function and falls for her cheerleader friend Angela. He has fantasies about her, which all somehow include rose petals. He decides that in order to have a chance with Angela he must start working out so he can look good naked. This begins to trigger a change in his life as he begins to do all the things he's always wanted do. He quits his job and gets a new one flipping burgers, buys himself a pretty sweet car and he begins to take charge of his life. All seems to be going well for good ol' Lester till his homophobic neighbor gets the wrong idea and does something horrible to our hero. -Who knew that an average looking town filled with seemingly average people could make such an interesting story. Alan Ball did and thank goodness he had such a sick and twisted mind to write this great story. Fans of the great and badly missed "Six Feet Under" will no doubt recognize all the weird Alan Ball signature in this movie that he translated into the TV show. From the weird fantasies to regular people, doing weird things is all Alan Ball at his best. I'm guessing if I were to peek into his mind I wouldn't find a happy man leading an ordinary life like the characters he comes up with seem to be. Considering the tone of the movie and just how f***king creepy the opening is one would think this would be a serious movie but it has more laughs than the crap that get passed as comedies nowadays. -The best filmmakers always somehow seem to be a smidge overweight and the brilliant Sam Mendes continues that unhealthy trend. i guess i have to gain a couple if i ever want that golden statue. Mendes has this great obsession with simplicity that goes hand in hand with Ball's quirky script. Most filmmakers would probably go ever board with the story and turn the dark humor into slapstick but Mendes keeps his cool and in the process makes the movie better for it. I've only seen three of his movies and this is best yet. I just love how he took things that looked simple in Ball's script like the paper bag caught in the wind and made it into something beautiful like the way it is in the movie now. Can't wait for his next potential masterpiece. the late great Conrad L. Hall will always be remembered as one of the great DP's of our time and this movie as one of his best looking. Much like Mendes the cinematography is very simple and has many hidden messages if you looked closely or watched the movie 1000 times. -One thing I love about this movie is the nail biting suspense in the last act. I just love the scene when Chris Cooper goes up to Spacey and you just don't know what this crazy man is going to do. Is he going to kill him, punch him or kiss him? I've never had a movie do that to me before and I really loved it. Really gets you into the movie. Giving his best performance yet is Keyer Soze as Lester Burnham. he's a man that want more in life and his transformation from boring normal everyday life to happy and content is captured wonderfully by Spacey. If memory serves me right then I believe the hicks at the academy gave him an award for this. It caused some controversy as many people thought that crown should have gone to Denzel. -Thora Birch dose a brilliant job of playing the Goth like Jane who despite her short screen time manages to capture you and really makes you feel for her character although she does get whiny like a lot of us around that age. this and "Ghost World" are the best acting jobs she's done and I hope she gets more jobs that showcase her talents. Mena Suvari does the job of the insecure seductress really well. I love how her character isn't all one dimensional as we learn more about why she puts on such a shallow exterior. Chris Cooper plays the homophobic army man nicely so does his wife whose played by an unrecognizable Allison Janney. With a dad that's so uptight and a mother that's virtually dead you'd expect their offspring to be a stiff but instead of that we get a dope dealing DV obsessed boy played by Wes Bentley who looks WAY too old to be in high school. What high schooler has a 5 o'clock shadow? -it won a lot of Oscars and got a lot of buzz and it deserved every bit of it.