Re: American Beauty

[Alan McKendree <amck@thenetdr.com>]

At 15:53 -0700 10/3/1999, The Who Mailing List Digest wrote:
>Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 19:15:15 -0400
>From: Kyle G Lumsden <kyle316@juno.com>
>
>I went to see "American Beauty" last night and, in addition to being the
>most amazing movie I've ever seen

Try

The Lion in Winter
Casablanca
Tommy
Sleuth
The Ruling Class
The Fly (remake with Jeff Goldblum)
Brimstone & Treacle
Ken Russell's portion of "Aria"
9-1/2 Weeks
Manhunter
Shakespeare in Love
The Princess Bride
Searching for Bobby Fischer

any of which are more amazing (i.e., better) in plot, or execution, or both,
than American Beauty.

Saw the movie last week and as I posted in another venue it was very good,
but I actually like the trailer, which featured Baba O'Riley, a bit better.
I've been thinking about why this was, and it's that while the movie was
well written, acted, and directed, had an interesting plot, and dealt with
important issues, the promise held out by the trailer wasn't fulfilled.
This is not a majestic movie, nor did I find it uplifting, and that's what
I was led to hope for by hearing BO'R, which IS majestic and uplifting,
over the trailer. Thought-provoking, yes, and well worth seeing, but I'd
dared to hope for a movie to match The Who's music, and IMO this ain't it.
And of course, there's the gripe about BO'R not appearing in the movie at
all, although there's a very satisfying and appropriate chunk of "The
Seeker".

>it had a line in the credits that read "Special Thanks To
>Pete Townshend".  None of the other soundtrack artists were given a
>"Special Thanks" -- just Mr. Townshend.

I haven't been able to get a good answer to why this is...some say it's
because he arranged some incidental music, but that seems a bit vague.

Cheers,

Alan
Dell is the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.  Apple sees in 3-D.

Alan
Dell is the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.  Apple sees in 3-D.