Word: lester
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...DIED. LESTER BOWIE, 58, theatrical avant-garde jazz trumpeter and founding member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago; of liver cancer; in Brooklyn, New York. A key voice in the experimental-jazz movement of the 1960s in Chicago, Bowie recorded and performed in Europe and the U.S. for 35 years--often in his trademark white coat...
...have had a good time and Iggy has put on a good show. But the Stooges weren't just a show. It was an earnest expression of his messed-up self; and for his audience, it was an authentic encounter with another; it was art . As the great Lester Bangs put it waaay back in 1970, the Stooges facilitated mass psychic liberation from the conditions of our own messed up lives. If they couldn't play their instruments, that was because anyone should be, could be on-stage and that was a/the point. And now he's a performer with...
...start of the movie, Lester Burnham (a brilliant Kevin Spacey), trapped and overly-insulated, leads a meaningless life with no sense of power or self-esteem; bogged down with particulars, he no longer knows how and when to express the proper emotions and can no longer communicate with his daughter or wife. Burnham eventually snaps this spell by developing a strong sexual fantasy for his daughter's 17-year-old friend, triggering an entirely hedonistic lifestyle in which he buys whatever he wants and smokes pot all day. This is a direct reaction to his prior condition of too much...
What makes American Beauty both so fascinating and troubling is its refusal to play its characters' idiosyncrasies for shock value, and especially its amoral complicity in Lester's lesser actions. The film's tone is strangely gleeful, for instance, when Lester viciously berates his chilly wife.Winning an argument easily with a self-satisfied put-down that sadistically needles her insecurities, Spacey lets a devilish grin sneak across his face as if to say: ooh! that was fun. Trouble is, Lester's target (adeptly played by Bening) is so easy and his blow so gratuitous that one can't help feeling...
...fact is, this stale groove is just a pose of countercultural shallowness -- mistaking selfish cruelty for an authentic rebellion within the soul. Lester isn't tuning in or dropping out; he's just turning the reins over to his inner selfish teenager. It's a shame, really, that for all its gorgeousness and thoughtfulness, there isn't more underneath American Beauty. After all, as the promotional tagline insists, this is a movie that invites "look[ing] closer." It should, by all accounts, be remarkably subtle. For a time as I watched (from somewhat farther away), I agreed -- snowed...