A Beautiful Masterpiece

Rating: 9/10 (27 September 1999)

When I first heard about this movie, I read about it in Entertainment Weekly and it sounded really interesting, but I didn't realize that it would be as good as it was. Everything about the movie fit so well with everything else in the movie. No scene seemed just thrown in to extend time or add some nudity. The nudity that was in this movie really fit the movie (unlike other movies like He Got Game and The Thomas Crown Affair). The dialogue was excellent and every actor stayed in character the whole time. I must say that I am not really a fan of Annette Benning (She's good, but there are better actresses), but I see Oscar contention for her. Kevin Spacey was also excellent and he could also get an Oscar. I must say though that it was the "kids" that most impressed me. Thora Birch was fantastic in this movie and it is good to see that she has outgrown stuff like Now and Then and Hocus Pocus. Mena Suvari was fabulous in this movie (She was one of the few really good characters in American Pie along with Alison Hanningan). I was, however, most impressed with Wes Bentley who came out of nowhere to be such a great actor. I really believed him to be Ricky Fitts.
As soon as the camera was flying above the street at the beginning of the movie, I was convinced that it was going to be a great movie. It reminded me a lot of The Ice Storm, which is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Even the music sounded very much like it would have been in the Ice Storm (with the exception of "American Woman").
I must say that in a year with such high movie grosses, no movie has jumped out at me as being in contention for an Oscar and while I doubt this one will win Best Picture, I do hope that at least one of the talented actors receives an award for their performance because they were really that good.
On a scale of 1-10, I give this movie a very high 9.