The first time I saw American Beauty, as a senior in high school, it was amazing: for a teenager, the idea that adults were miserable until they started acting like teenagers was comforting, no duh. Then I watched it a few years later and this time I absolutely hated it: I thought the acting was horrible and I loathed every character. Then, a few years later I was stuck in my college town, working on my fifth year (with an extra year off, so six years all told) of a degree, all my friends gone for break or just gone in general, stuck in my crappy apartment because they were short-staffed at the shitty chili place where I was assistant manager and I had to stay for that one shift. I had already watched Grave of Fireflies (seriously, the most depressing movie I’ve ever seen), was halfway drunk and alone in a blizzard, when I decided to pop in American Beauty. This time through, and probably because I’d just watched a movie about kids SLOWLY STARVING TO DEATH, all I could see was the hollow emptiness and sadness behind every character, just barely being held at bay by the idiotic things that make up the American Dream, like remote control cars and being the best real estator. It was like looking into the heart of the void, like watching a cleverly disguised Kafka story. Does that mean that this is a movie worth watching? I don’t think so (I haven’t watched it since and have no desire to), but if anyone out there is looking for a double-feature right before you off yourself, you could do worse.

That’s nothing compared to Tom Cruise’s story about the time he burped up a wad of maggots during a commercial break on the Tonight Show… LOL!

“Not even this dying child can keep me from the joy of finally seeing Hole live!”