American Beauty

Unspooled

Paul Scheer & Amy Nicholson

Film Reviews, Tv & Film

4.6 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2024

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Paul & Amy curiously ask, what was our mindset in September 1999 when American Beauty was released as a smash hit? They examine Wes Bentley’s character and his emotional core to the consciousness of this movie, Amy Fisher’s “Long Island Lolita” influence, and how this film earned prestige with a modern feel at the time, while its legacy continues to fade. Plus: Is Lester Burnham just Edward Norton without Tyler Durden? Next week, Paul & Amy are talking about The Sting! You can join the conversation on Paul’s Discord at https://discord.gg/ZwtygZGTa6. Check out this week's spotlight episode from the Unspooled archives, The Sixth Sense: https://www.earwolf.com/episode/the-sixth-sense/ Paul’s book Joyful Recollections of Trauma is on presale now! Find it at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/joyful-recollections-of-trauma-paul-scheer Learn more about the show at Unspooledpod.com, follow us on Twitter @unspooled and Instagram @unspooledpod, and don’t forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The year is 1999.
0:03.0	And we're not obsessing about this movie.
0:06.0	We're just curious.
0:08.0	The film, American Beauty. Oh, Hello everybody and welcome to
0:35.0	and a spooled. Oh my gosh I am Paul Sheer.
0:38.0	I am joined as always by my co-host Amy Nicholson
0:40.0	and this is the show where we are talking about movies that are viewed as being the greatest of all time.
0:46.7	And we're actually doing something even a little bit more special right now because we are not just talking about general movies.
0:51.5	We're talking about movies that won the Oscar for Best Picture.
0:55.7	I mean are they deserving of that Oscar and today is a perfect example as we are getting
1:01.5	into American Beauty. 1999, smash it.
1:06.0	Yeah, a film that was the biggest juggernaut of juggernuts, a film that honestly,
1:12.0	I'm going to ask us all to do a special thing right now
1:14.6	and get in the head space of trying to remember why and how this movie was such a gigantic deal. Try to remember that this movie felt fresh,
1:24.3	revolutionary, modern, and not just a ridiculous joke. Well how about this if you
1:30.1	weren't alive in 1999 to have seen this movie or lived through the release of this film,
1:36.8	we're going to contextualize that for you.
1:39.2	This might be a movie that if you watch it, you will think, oh my God my god this sucks why are you covering this well
1:44.0	we're covering it for two reasons one because it was a movie that captured the
1:48.5	zeit guys I think that in our conversation today we're not just gonna be ripping on this movie, we're also not going to be
1:54.6	lifting it up. We're going to talk about like the complex issues that are at the center of
1:59.4	this film. What works, what doesn't work, and why even when the stuff that works feels false.
	...

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