American Beauty, future Best Picture winner, released

American Beauty Released: September 17, 1999 Studio: DreamWorks Genre: drama Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 130.10 Worldwide: 356.30 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: 216.70 Worldwide: 504.87

Directing: Sam Mendes Screenwriting: Alan Ball Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper Review: American Beauty is the feature film debut of director Sam Mendes, a longtime English stage director, and playwright/screenwriter Alan Ball. It “is a biting black comedy on contemporary American life.” AFI07 “It’s about yearning after youth, respect, power and, of course, beauty.” RE “The tragic, absurdist, dark domestic tale” FS focuses on “Lester Burnham (Spacey), who calmly narrates his own story posthumously a la Joe Gillis from Sunset Boulevard (1950).” FS He’s a “chronic loser…[an] American suburbanite family man who is unable to speak his mind or actually feel much of anything.” FS He’s endured “too many years of a demeaning job, and a dysfunctional marriage to his obsessive-compulsive, adulterous realtor wife Carolyn (Bening).” FS Lester, however, turns “his midlife crisis into a midlife resolution.” EM’18 “He becomes infatuated with his self-loathing daughter Jane’s (Birch) under-aged cheerleader friend Angela Hayes (Suvari)” FS while his daughter “has fallen for the drug-peddling, video-voyeur neighbor next door Ricky Fitts (Bentley).” FS “Ricky’s dad (Cooper) is a former marine who tests him for drugs, taking a urine sample every six months.” RE “Angela is not Lester’s highway to bliss, but she is at least a catalyst” RE for his release from his mundane life. Lester “does reckless and foolish things [but]…he knows he’s running wild – and chooses to, burning up the future years of an empty lifetime for a few flashes of freedom.” RE All the characters’ “emotional threads come together during one dark and stormy night, when there is a series of misunderstandings so bizarre they belong in a screwball comedy.” RE Sources: AFI07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” RE Roger Ebert EM’18 Empire (3/20/2018). “The 100 Greatest Movies” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Oscars: Wins: 5 – including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Kevin Spacey), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography Nominations: 8 – including Best Actress (Bening), Best Original Score, Best Editing Other Awards: Other Lists/Honors: First posted 5/28/2023.

The Third Man released 50 years ago today

The Third Man Released: September 1, 1949 Studio: British Lion Film Corporation (UK), Selznick (US) Genre: mystery/film noir Box Office (numbers in millions): Domestic: 1.07 Worldwide: 1.52 Adjusted for Inflation: Domestic: ? Worldwide: ?

Directing: Carol Reed Screenwriting: Graham Greene Starring: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard Review: The Third Man is “a bona fide British classic: rich on atmosphere, strong on suspense and blessed with quite wonderful performances.” BFI In “a true collaboration between director Carol Reed and screenwriter Graham Greene,” BFI the latter created “this cool, perfect adaptation” T98 of his own novel. “Mercury Theatre collaborators Welles and Cotten play a chilling game of cat and mouse” A07 “set in corrupt and desperate post-WWII Vienna during the Cold War” FS in this tale “of a supposed dead man and the old friend who wants to get to the bottom of the mystery.” A07 Cotton is Holly Martins, an American pulp fiction writer who travels to Vienna for a job promised him by his friend, Harry Lime, “a black-market drug dealer of the sleaziest nature.” VD played by “a never-better Orson Welles.” RS Martins finds out Lime was supposedly killed in an accident. In his sleuthing to find the truth, he becomes infatuated with Lime’s girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Valli) and is “drawn into the decadent and corrupt world in which Lime existed.” BFI “The rotting streets of postwar Vienna are a metaphor for the paranoia in this bleak film noir.” A07 It is “beautifully shot by cinematographer Robert Krasker.” BFI It is “so brilliantly black, it’s like a one-film negation of Victory in Europe.” ML It is “full of sequences that linger in the mind,” BFI such as “the dramatic scene atop a ferris wheel” FS an d“the underground sewer scene at the end of the film [which] is considered by some to be a masterpiece.” VD There’s also “the acclaimed zither rendition of ‘The Harry Lime Theme’ by Anton Karas helps to create a rare, haunting movie atmosphere.” BFI Sources: A07 American Film Institute (2007). “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition” BFI British Film Institute (1999) “The BFI 100: A Selection of the Favourite British Films of the 20th Century” FS Filmsite.org “100 Greatest Films” ML Movieline (Dec. 1995). “100 Best Movies Ever Made” by Virginia Campbell and Edward Margulies RS Rolling Stone (12/30/1999). “100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years” T98 Time Out (1998). “Readers’ Top 100 Films” VD Video Detective (1997). “Top 100 Films of All Time”

Awards/Honors/Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Lists: Dave’s Movie Database Genre Lists: Awards: Oscars: Wins: 1 – Best Cinematography: Black & White Nominations: 3 – including Best Director, Best Film Editing Other Lists/Honors: Critics’ Picks: Roger Ebert Leslie Halliwell/John Walker Rian Johnson First posted 9/12/2019; last updated 6/4/2023.