{"id":349,"date":"2025-08-01T02:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T06:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=349"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T19:13:08","slug":"american-beauty-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=349","title":{"rendered":"American Beauty-1999"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>American Beauty-1999<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Director Sam Mendes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Top 250 Films #136<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Scott&#8217;s Review #70<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/60000407.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1113\" src=\"http:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/60000407-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"60000407\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/60000407-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/60000407.jpg 284w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reviewed June 25, 2014<\/p>\n<p><strong>Grade: A<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>American Beauty is a film that holds up magnificently well and packs the same punch as when I first saw it in 1999.<\/p>\n<p>The film won the Best Picture Oscar in 1999, surprisingly so, as it is not a mainstream film and is edgy, artistic, and poetic.<\/p>\n<p>The film is a thought-provoking story of the American Dream gone wrong and how most people live ordinary, humdrum, on the surface, happy lives, but ultimately are unhappy, damaged, or otherwise unfulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>It is a truthful film and reminds me quite a bit of The Ice Storm, a 1997 film.<\/p>\n<p>American Beauty is not a downer but rather witty, darkly humorous, and filled with dry sarcasm.<\/p>\n<p>Kevin Spacey is tremendous as the central character going through a midlife crisis, and Annette Bening is frighteningly good as his neurotic, controlling wife.<\/p>\n<p>Their daughter, played by Thora Birch, has her teenage angst and falls in love with a neighborhood misfit. Every character, even small and supporting, is troubled in some way.<\/p>\n<p>American Beauty (1999) is a film that was loved or hated at the time of its release; some did not get it or did not want to invest the thought it requires, but to me, it&#8217;s a work of art that has achieved a timeless quality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Oscar Nominations: 5 wins-<\/strong>Best Picture <strong>(won)<\/strong>, Best Director-Sam Mendes <strong>(won)<\/strong>, Best Actor-Kevin Spacey <strong>(won)<\/strong>, Best Actress-Annette Bening, Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen <strong>(won)<\/strong>, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography <strong>(won)<\/strong>, Best Film Editing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Beauty-1999 Director Sam Mendes Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening Top 250 Films #136 Scott&#8217;s Review #70 Reviewed June 25, 2014 Grade: A American Beauty is a film that holds up magnificently well and packs the same punch as when I first saw it in 1999. The film won the Best Picture Oscar in 1999, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/?p=349\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">American Beauty-1999<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,42,49,179,207,7464],"tags":[7869,1925,1692,2116,1595,2078,1779,2114,11860,2117,2115,2580],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1999-films","category-bestpictureoscar","category-comedies","category-darkcomedies","category-satires","category-top-250-films","tag-136-favorite-film","tag-allison-janney","tag-annette-bening","tag-chris-cooper","tag-kevin-spacey","tag-mena-suvari","tag-peter-gallagher","tag-sam-mendes","tag-sam-robards","tag-scott-bakula","tag-thora-birch","tag-wes-bentley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23593,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/23593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottsfilmreviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}