masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (28 May 2001)

american beauty is my favorite movie of all time. i basically registered on this site so i could add this comment and address some of the negative stuff people to throw at this film. Its so hard to explain why i love this film. so many times a person can walk away from a movie and take much more out of it than others, and it often comes down to personal taste. This however is a unique case. I dare say that i believe the people who didn't like this movie, at least most of them, simply didn't get it. Or didn't get all of it. If someone actually walked away feeling the message of the movie, its hard to disagree or not like it becuase the message is how we should not take anything in life for granted, and that theres is beauty in even some of the worst parts of life; the key word there being life. Life is an amazing, mysterious, crazy and difficult thing, but something that usually, if we don't enjoy, its our fault. So much of it is state of mind, the same thing can happen to two different peoeple but they can each be effected differently becuase of their outlook on life. This movie tried to suggest maybe we should change the way we look at things. Maybe we should realize that, in the end, and no matter how far away it seems the end ALWAYS eventually will come, so much of the crap we let get in the way just doesn't matter. We don't need to arrive at the end to finally learn this lesson. Enjoy life as you live it, look at the big picture and see life as a good thing, even though individual cases may not at first seem that way. I watch movies to enjoy them, not to find the meaning to the universe. After american beauty, however, i actually took something with me after the credits rolled. It helped me realize that life isn't always beautiful in the sense of happy-go-lucky disney type cheerfulness. It is often stressful, unfair, sad, (and for those of you out there who write that they've never encountered such dysfunctional families in real life...consider yourself the lucky minority, or maybe you just haven't looked around hard enough) but beauty doesn't always have to be so obvious. Look for it, and its there, because life itself is the most beautiful thing. Well...after reading this over i realize i may sound like a wierdo to anyone who doesn't agree with or follow what i'm trying to say, but the bottom line is american beauty has a very important message. If you don't feel that way, watch it again. It may be a bit more cinematic than real life, but it gets the point across.