American Beauty

The bloom is not off the rose for the film of 1999, a paint-it-black comedy that earned Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Kevin Spacey rules as Lester Burnham, a suburban drone and "chronic loser" who feels like he's just waking up from a twenty-year coma. Calling himself a regular guy with nothing to lose, he rebels at the office (he quits his job and blackmails his boss) and at home against Carolyn, his harridan wife (an over-the-top Annette Bening, who rode the crest of this film's acclaim to an Oscar nomination). Baby boomer mid-life crisis and suburban ennui prove to be fertile ground for Oscar-winning screenwriter Alan Ball, a former Cybil scribe, who writes with sitcom savvy. Director Sam Mendes' hothouse of a film turns everything up to 11: the revitalized Lester doesn't just fantasize about his daughter's highschool cheerleader classmate; he imagines her in a bathtub of rose petals. The ex-Marine (Chris Cooper) who has fatefully moved in next door isn't just a child abusing homophobic; he is a Nazi sympathizer as well. His son (Wes Bentley) isn't just a drug-dealer; he's a videotaping voyeur. As one character notes (talking about "all the beauty in the world"), it's too much. But to detractors who find the film's portrait of suburban existence gratuitously bleak, the doomed Lester offers this unsettling thought at film's end: "I know you don't have any idea what I'm talking about. It's okay. You will." Highly recommended. (K. Lee Benson)[Blu-ray Review—Sept. 28, 2010—Paramount, 122 min., R, Blu-ray: $29.99—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1999's American Beauty sports a great transfer with a DTS-HD soundtrack. Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Sam Mendes and screenwriter Alan Ball, a storyboard presentation with Mendes and cinematographer Conrad L. Hall (60 min.), a “Look Closer…” “making-of” featurette (18 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: an Oscar winner makes a fine debut on Blu-ray.]