Award-savvy film

Rating: 4/10 (30 September 1999)

American Beauty: Dramedy about a man living through a mid-life crisis, whose infatuation with a teenage girl serves him as a wake up call to do something about his comfortable, but less than perfect life.
After reading other IMDB user reviews, it was not surprising to find people already predicting award for this film months away even for nominations. Don't get me wrong: I loved American Beauty. But why the same type of award talk don't go to films like The Matrix or the 6th Sense? Simple: The Academy Awards gives priority to genres like period pieces, family dramas, and in another time, musicals, while ignoring genres like horror, action, science fiction and mystery, no matter how well crafted these films could be. Other than The French Connection and Silence of the Lambs, I don't remember Oscar leaving this pattern.
American Beauty however, gets bold with scenes of masturbation, child corruption, drug use, adultery, child abuse �������and murder. I have no problem with this when the scenes are done as tastefully as in this film. My problem comes when a jewel like Kids gets grilled for its almost equal bold contempt, while Beauty is praised.
Let's wake up and smell the roses audience.