It’s been Beatles week here at Popdose, but I’m not going to write about any of the Beatles’ movies. Nor am I going to write about any of the movies that are soundtracked using all Beatles songs or Beatles covers (I did really want to write about 1976’s cover-filled All This and World War II, but I’ve never actually seen the movie, and it’s not available anywhere). Instead, I’m writing about a movie that contains one Beatles cover by one of my favorite artists, whose untimely death was one of the tragedies of my music-loving life.
American Beauty (1999), Sam Mendes’s directorial debut, turns ten this year. It also happens to be the first film I’ve written about for this column that won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I saw it in the theater twice — once with a friend and once with my mom — and I was truly blown away by it at the time. I don’t think the plot was necessarily what did it for me, though Alan Ball did write a fantastic script, for which he won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
The best part about the movie for me was the performances. I think every actor playing a major role in American Beauty was amazing (though I was less impressed with Mena Suvari, I have to admit). And while I was rooting for Richard Farnsworth to win Best Actor in 2000 for his beautiful performance in The Straight Story, I do think Kevin Spacey deserved the award. I’ve seen American Beauty on a lot of “most overrated films” lists, and while it no longer has the same impact as it did ten years ago, I still love it.
