...in the best traditions of black comedy. American Beauty is humorous, distressing, heartfelt, and uplifting.
Video:
Befitting a fine motion picture, DreamWorks provide a fine image. It is well defined and brilliantly colored, with only traces of line flutter and minor grain to interfere with the illusion of absolute reality. The spacious, 2.35:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen also helps considerably in conveying the Panavision theatrical experience.
Audio:
The audio is pretty much as we might expect it to be in a film like this, and more. At startup, one chooses Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1. In either case, there isn't a lot of need for the rear channels except for minor musical ambiance enhancement; but the sound is ultra-clear, and there is an enormous deep bass response that comes as a pleasant surprise and helps underline several key plot elements.
Extras:
The cover jacket claims "over three hours of bonus features," a statement that seemed at first reading something of a stretch. There is a full-feature audio commentary with director Sam Mendes and writer Alan Ball, which, of course, requires a second viewing of the movie, but I doubt that DreamWorks were counting this time in their three hours. The featurette on the disc, "American Beauty: Look Closer...," is about twenty-two minutes long, not terribly revealing, mostly hype, but entertaining. Then there is a storyboard presentation, which I admit I didn't get all the way through, comprised of over 130 storyboard drawings compared to actual screen shots, with commentary by Mendes and director of photography Conrad Hall; this in itself would take quite a while to view. And there are cast and crew biographies, some production notes, two widescreen trailers, a booklet essay by the director, and twenty-eight scene selections.
Additionally, if you have a DVD-ROM player in your PC, you can access the screenplay with corresponding film footage. OK, it probably does all add up to over three extra hours. In fact, probably quite a bit more. Oddly, DreamWorks leave out any concessions to non-English speakers; English is the only spoken language provided, and English is the only available captioning.
Parting Thoughts:
In "Walden," Henry David Thoreau wrote, "I wished to live deliberately...and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Lester Burnham makes the discovery belatedly that he had not been living for quite some time and determines to change the course of his life. Perhaps most of us never make the discovery at all. "American Beauty" has the distinction of appealing to our minds and our emotions alike, with no undue conflict between the two. Its characters may be stereotypes, but they are stereotypes in the best traditions of black comedy. "American Beauty" is humorous, distressing, heartfelt, and uplifting. What more could you ask of a movie?
Befitting a fine motion picture, DreamWorks provide a fine image. It is well defined and brilliantly colored, with only traces of line flutter and minor grain to interfere with the illusion of absolute reality. The spacious, 2.35:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen also helps considerably in conveying the Panavision theatrical experience.
Audio:
The audio is pretty much as we might expect it to be in a film like this, and more. At startup, one chooses Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1. In either case, there isn't a lot of need for the rear channels except for minor musical ambiance enhancement; but the sound is ultra-clear, and there is an enormous deep bass response that comes as a pleasant surprise and helps underline several key plot elements.
Extras:
The cover jacket claims "over three hours of bonus features," a statement that seemed at first reading something of a stretch. There is a full-feature audio commentary with director Sam Mendes and writer Alan Ball, which, of course, requires a second viewing of the movie, but I doubt that DreamWorks were counting this time in their three hours. The featurette on the disc, "American Beauty: Look Closer...," is about twenty-two minutes long, not terribly revealing, mostly hype, but entertaining. Then there is a storyboard presentation, which I admit I didn't get all the way through, comprised of over 130 storyboard drawings compared to actual screen shots, with commentary by Mendes and director of photography Conrad Hall; this in itself would take quite a while to view. And there are cast and crew biographies, some production notes, two widescreen trailers, a booklet essay by the director, and twenty-eight scene selections.
Additionally, if you have a DVD-ROM player in your PC, you can access the screenplay with corresponding film footage. OK, it probably does all add up to over three extra hours. In fact, probably quite a bit more. Oddly, DreamWorks leave out any concessions to non-English speakers; English is the only spoken language provided, and English is the only available captioning.
Parting Thoughts:
In "Walden," Henry David Thoreau wrote, "I wished to live deliberately...and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Lester Burnham makes the discovery belatedly that he had not been living for quite some time and determines to change the course of his life. Perhaps most of us never make the discovery at all. "American Beauty" has the distinction of appealing to our minds and our emotions alike, with no undue conflict between the two. Its characters may be stereotypes, but they are stereotypes in the best traditions of black comedy. "American Beauty" is humorous, distressing, heartfelt, and uplifting. What more could you ask of a movie?
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]5498[/release]