#75 - American Beauty

Hey!! How about that? I DO watch movies that were made within the last ten years that most of you have heard of. And its an Oscar winner no less. And it stars the best American born manager of a British theatre you have ever heard of...if you've ever heard of anything like that. And it also stars one of the best no-name supporting actors of the last several years. You know the type. They are in a ton of movies and always do good work, but don't exactly have headliner status. All in all, this is a well thought out, well made, and suprisingly intriguing movie. I liked much of it, but for this review, I am going to talk about what I didn't like about it. Actually, it's not so much what I didn't like, it's more of a number of observations about a movie that was quite popular, and apparently, the best one of the year.

Let's talk about Kevin Spacey. In case you were wondering, he's the British theatre manager I was talking about earlier. His whole character in this movie, from narrator to his relationships with everyone else and himself is an absolute enigma to me. It's fascinating because we are drawn to him because of his bitter, dark sarcasm towards the world, but that means we are rooting for a man who falls for an underage girl. And we DO root for him. We want him to tell people where to shove it. We want him to stand up and piss people off, but much of what he does is to attract his daughters friend. It's interesting because he's not a bad person, definately not an anti-hero, but he is a pedophile. To his credit, it's not the pedophilia that we are rooting for in his character. We actually root against that, but still want him to be bold and abrasive. I think much of the reason we are on his side is because we know that all of it will be in vain. We know from the start that he is going to die and we want to see him die in a different state than what he is in at the start of the movie. So we get behind him, even if some of his actions are questionable.

And then there is his lovely wife. To say that the two are estranged would be quite an understatement. She takes on the the largest share of Spacey's ferocity, and deservedly so. She has become detached from her family, and in some cases reality. It's great watching him tell her where to stick it, and how hard. I gotta be honest though, I was not impressed by Anette Bennings performance. Whereas everybody else had a very internal character, she seemed to be more of a caricature that anything else. I understand the idea of her character being a caricature because that is what she presents to the world. The strong, take no prisoners real estate agent and the neat and tidy, clean cut family woman are all an image she wants to show the world, but we know that it is all show. I understand all of that, but Benning's performance is a little too much caricature, and not enough of the internal material that makes that stronger. I instantly think of the dinner scene when Spacey and Benning are fighting and Spacey throws the asparagus against the wall. I didnt think the way Benning played that scene was real or connected. Too much show and not enough feel.

I have to mention the performance of Chris Cooper. He is every bit intense as he is frightening. I dont remember if he got nominated for a supporting Oscar, but he should have, and with great consideration. The pain, the anguish, and the torment are all so strong and overpowering, but it's never overdone or out of place. Great performance.

I found myself wondering what the filmmakers were trying to say with this movie. It's not merely a slam against suburban life or modern living, and I think that breaking it down to just being a message about skeletons in the closet is too easy. But there is a message in there. I think the message lies in Wes Bentley's character. It's his outlook on the world that we are suppossed to take away. While everybody gets caught up in their appearance to others and other insignificant things, Bentley notices the poetic beauty of the world, even if he is looking at a dead animal, or a floating piece of garbage. There is beauty all around you, you just have to look for it.

Unrelated Lollapalooza review #3: So this was the last day of the festival, and the most important thing was that I watch Blues Traveler. Everything else would just be bonus. BT is one of my top three bands I had never seen them play before, and by all accounts they are awesome live. But more on them later. I started off by checking out The Redwalls. Didn't know anything about them, but took a chance and was rewarded. They have some pretty good songs and I was quite pleased. I think its clear that they listened to the Beatles in their youth because a lot of their sound had a strong echo of the lads from Liverpool. I wandered around and checked out the last bit of The Hold Steady. I wanted to see more because they have a lot of energy when they perform. It was clear that they love to play for an audience and are proud of being from Minnesota. After that I watched Ben Kweller, who was okay. Not bad, and not great. Right after that was 30 Seconds to Mars. That was dissappointing. They really aren't that good. I got the feeling that they wouldn't be as popular as they are if Jared Leto wasn't fronting the band. It's also not really my kind of music, so that may have something to do with it. Leto does get credit for throwing popsicles into the crowd and climbing to the top of the stage for a song, but he loses all that for his overuse of the "F" word. I'm all for swearing, but there is such a thing as too much for no particular reason other that you know you can. I left that early in order to get to the other side and check out The Shins. This was a dilemma because The Shins overlapped with The Reverend Horton Heat, and I loves me some Rev. Luckily, and unfortunately, the sound guys helped make that decision for me. I stayed towards the back of the crowd in order to skip out and split my time between the two sets, but the sound was so bad I couldn't hear the lyrics. The yells from the crowd to turn it up were louder than the lyrics. So I left to check out all of the Rev's set, and I was handsomely rewarded. This guy is AWESOME!!! He rocks out from start to finish and does not let up. Its great music played well. And the Rev is the character he sings about. He looks it, he lives it, he is it. The looks he gives when he sings are priceless and punctuated by his extremely expressive, icy blue eyes. Tremendously entertaining. The psychobilly freakout was in full force. After that I had a choice, I could go get relatively close for Wilco and then be relatively close for Blues Traveler, or I could sacrifice getting a good shit at Wilco in order to get really close for BT. I chose the latter since it was going to be my first BT show. I heard some of Wilco, and what I did hear sounded pretty good, but it was far away. I'll have to check them out some other time because I enjoy their work. In the meantime, I was stuck between an obnoxiously loud stoner kid and the guy who was going to be seeing BT for the 64th time in his life. Hey stoner kid, the reason people aren't talking to you is because you are annoying and loud, and this is coming from someone who spent most of his youth being annoying and loud. And #64 over there, you are a loser. You mean to tell me that your fat ass has seen this band 63 times before now since 1995. Thats over six shows a year!!! Now I love BT, have all of their albums, studio and live, but there are other bands out there. Some people may be impressed by the little trivia facts(what the band members drink during the show and why) that you may know from so much exposure, but I am not. I am also not impressed that you know the roadies by their first names. And another thing, you aren't cool when you yell at them before a show trying to get their attention, they are trying to work and dont have time for someone like you. Get a life. But hey, once the music started, it was all good. Unbelievable. They jam and jam and jam. So good. They have a tremendous ability to start a song, transition into another song, transition into yet another song, and then when you have almost forgotten about the original song, they seamlessly go back to it and finish the whole thing up with resounding success. Throughout the festival, people sang along to lyrics, but no crowd sang along as loud and as unified as this crowd. It was great. These guys have something special that may not translate into immediate album sales, but do garner a tremendous following of devoted fans that they clearly appreciate, and even recognize, especially when they have been there 63 times before. By the time the show got over, I was in the front row, up against the rail. As soon as they got done, the Chili Pappers were starting all the way on the other side of the park. In the hour and a half they had for their set, I went from the front row at Blues Traveler, all the way across Grant Park and to about 20 feet from the front row at the Chili Peppers. It was one of the hardest move ups I have ever done. It was hot, sweaty, and crowded from way back. I was almost denied the journey was creamed from behind by a crowd surfer. She was knocked down pretty hard and wouldnt have been able to make it out of the crowd on her own. Luckily, she had friend with her, and I could keep going. And I kept going. The key is to sneak up when people are getting out so you arent just bulling your way through, which is a much needed technique at times. The best is to shift up when a crowd surfer comes by. Everybody groups together and you can sneak right on up. Its even better when they fall. Here's a sidenote: when you are crowd surfing, lay flat so there is more surface area for people to hold you up with. When a crowd surfer comes by, just walk them along with your hands. Dont push them so hard that they fly beyond where people are paying attention, therefore leading the crowd surfer to an untimely death, and people get crushed underneath them. Oh, I guess the Chili Peppers were cool, there was so much going on that it was hard to really pay attention. It was harder to move up when they played their slower songs because people weren't dancing around as much, but they seemed to play pretty well. That's it. That was my three day weekend earlier in the month. I only I didnt need food and water, I could have seen even more stuff, but I saw a TON of great bands, all of which played as hard as they could for the crowd. It was a great experience.