I saw American Beauty today. A few observations. Many people have described it as Kevin Spacey going through a mid-life crisis. It isn't precisely right. He has a mid-life epiphany. He realizes that his life is unexamined and he's allowed it to be so. He begins to examine it, and finds that he is surrounded by loss. His wife is a horror, a shallow and energetic career woman whose desire for perfection has left all semblance of real human feelings in the murky past. She's like a cokehead, devoid of any examination or awareness of the valuable things on life, driven only by the coke or, in her case, perhaps her adrenalin addiction. What is she hiding from? Where, thinks Spacey, is the woman he loved - the woman who used to go up on the roof to flash the traffic helicopter? He knows that this monster he lives with must have that woman inside of her, but he can't find her. He's lost his daughter, too, although the script makes this difficult to understand, because they are a lot alike but can't seem to make contact. Spacey misses that contact, which he knows he once had. His job -well, 14 years as an advertising whore, and they want him to write a job justification memo, which he can't bring himself to do. How, he thinks, did it get so messed up, and how can he fix it? His retaliation against life brings some real identification from the audience members, who laugh, sit stunned, cheer, and consistently get involved with his crisis. I can't remember a movie with so many instances of audience members talking to the screen. By the way, it's no comedy. It's funny enough, but it is a movie about loss, dysfunction, and the breakdown of communication. If you watched it a second time, knowing the punch lines and therefore impervious to them, I think you'd realize the intense sadness at the center.

The movie isn't perfect. Some of the main characters are pure cardboard: the stereotyped and unbelievable Marine colonel next door on one side, the two considerate gay guys on the other side, and even Annette Bening's character - cartoons more suitable in a farce than in a witty drama. But all that doesn't matter, because the heart of the movie beats solid. The narrative flows with an added metaphorical punctuation, represented in Spacey's fantasies and the home movies of the sensitive boy next door. Rarely does a film rise to these poetic heights. Spacey, his daughter, the daughter's sexy friend, and the daughter's drug dealing boyfriend, form the real core of the movie, and they couldn't be much better.

Kevin Spacey is an unusual actor. I don't see him as journeying to every corner of the acting universe like Branagh or Streep, or Kevin Kline, but what he brings to the screen is a perfect everyman quality. The fact that he doesn't have a traditional actor's voice and range is a plus, not a minus. It accentuates his skill at portraying everyman. We can see and understand a real person at the center of every role he plays, no matter how far that man might be from our own behavior. Isn't SE7EN a perfect example? How much more did you relate to mass-murdering Spacey than Brad Pitt, the good cop. In addition, Spacey is the most economical actor I've ever seen. With nothing more than sudden smiles and the look in his eyes, he can manipulate your emotions as precisely as a violinist. Employing him is like adding an extra counterpoint to the musical score, because he can raise and lower the emotional temperature of the audience in the same way the music would do it. Can you tell I'm a fan? The guy is great. He erases all the technique, opens himself up and invites you into his part. "This isn't me in this role, it's both of us". It doesn't even matter that there are some flaws in this film. Spacey, with the aid of some of the other players, simply diverts your attention from everything else like a master illusionist. It's difficult for me to remember a better performance since Brando was a real actor. And the kid who plays the drug dealer just about goes toe-to-toe with Spacey

On the celebrity nudity side, Mena Suvari and Thora Birch both show off their chests, both worth seeing, both in a sensitive and beautiful context, and I'll bet we'll have some bootlegs soon. On the other hand, forget that. Sometimes you come to a site like mine because you don't want to watch an entire dumb-ass movie to see that minute of nudity. In this case, don't wait for the captures. Go to the theater and see the movie. I don't think anyone in the audience regretted being there.