"American Beauty" Movie Review | The Main Ingredient With Chris Ellis Podcast - Ep.6

Is the suburban dream just a facade? Join me, Chris Ellis, and my fellow cinephile Josh England as we unravel the layers of the 1999 cinematic gem, "American Beauty." We promise an exploration into the film’s profound success, which defied its modest $15 million budget to gross $356 million, and reflection on its enduring themes of loneliness, identity, and the quest for authenticity. Kevin Spacey's portrayal of Lester Burnham draws us into a world where mundane suburban life is anything but ordinary, sparking a conversation on the societal pressures that suffocate individuality.

Our discussion ventures into the contrasting dynamics of the Fitz household, where Ricky's artistic rebellion stands in stark opposition to his father's stern conformity. It’s a fascinating examination of how “American Beauty” portrays the struggle to live authentically amidst demands for conformity. Meanwhile, we dissect the Burnham family, looking at Carolyn’s relentless pursuit of perfection and the impact it has on their daughter. Lester’s transformation from a passive participant in his life to a man chasing newfound freedom echoes the longing for self-discovery many of us feel. 

In our analysis, we don’t shy away from comparing the film’s narrative brilliance to other cinematic explorations of societal pressures, like "Falling Down." Lester's journey of defiance unfolds against Carolyn’s desperate grip on appearances, opening a poignant dialogue on relationship dynamics and personal transformation. From the symbolism of roses to the haunting beauty of a plastic bag caught in the wind, our episode shines a light on the film’s deep exploration of life’s complexities. Tune in for an engaging conversation celebrating the timeless allure and cinematic genius of "American Beauty.

Chapters

• 0:00 American Beauty 1999 Discussion
• 5:18 Exploring Mundane Life in 1999
• 11:43 Conformity vs Expression in American Beauty
• 23:30 Capturing Life's Beauty Through Perspective
• 29:47 The Effects of Insecurity and Ego
• 41:19 Relationship Dynamics in American Beauty
• 46:51 Lester's Defiance and Carolyn's Struggles
• 57:08 Discovering Family Dynamics in American Beauty
• 1:09:04 Family Dynamics and Relationship Struggles
• 1:22:47 Analyzing American Beauty's Depth
• 1:34:47 Comparing Falling Down and American Beauty

Transcript

Chris: 0:00

I can't see this movie being acted by anybody else than the people that were in it. Who else is going to play Lester Burnham?

Josh: 0:07

Who else is going to do that? I guess, now that we know he's a certified pedophile, he was the man for the job 25 years later and it's a different story what's up y'all?

Chris: 0:39

my name is chris ellis and this is the main ingredient with chris ellis. Today we're here talking about a blockbuster film from 1999. I mean major blockbuster, but I'm here talking about this film with my homie, josh England.

Josh: 0:53

How you doing, josh. I'm doing great. I'm excited to be here and I'm excited to talk movie.

Chris: 0:58

It's good to have you here, man. It's been a long time since we linked up.

Josh: 1:10

You've always been a good friend of mine, always kept in contact through everything. So with this movie I think, uh, we're gonna have a lot of fun yeah, yeah, well, we always have fun.

Chris: 1:14

We always have fun anytime talking movie. Yeah, so let's get into it. Uh, american beauty 1999. It's a dreamworks picture, uh, film directed by sam mend, written by Alan Ball, starring Kevin Spacey as Lester Burnham, annette Bening as Carol Burnham, thora Birch as Jane Burnham, wes Bentley as Rick Fitz, mina Suvari as Angela Hayes, chris Cooper as Colonel Frank Fitz, peter Gallagher as Buddy King, the real estate king, and this is the thing that people really need to understand. This was a $15 million budget on this film and it made $356 million.

Josh: 1:58

It's a Hollywood elite film. I mean well done, well done, well done. 356.

Chris: 2:01

Yeah, yeah, that kind of explains why Kevin Space done 356? Yeah, yeah, that kind of explains why Kevin Spacey went shot to the moon after this.

Josh: 2:09

A 356 in 1999, you're making a slice of life movie about just regular people in the context of like Fight Club. You know, and you're still raking in dough. Yes, yes.

Chris: 2:24

I don't know of many movies other than like Terminator movies and stuff like that back in the 90s that made this much money. You know, it's like a anomaly, like a movie that just super low not you know in Hollywood terms that is a low budget. Fifteen minutes is a low budget in Hollywood terms, so it's almost a micro budget budget in Hollywood terms. So it's almost a micro budget. But to make three, 56 and to get the accolades that it got over the years and still be a movie, that's kind of relevant to what's going on today with marriages and relationships and teenage kids being assholes 25 years later, we're reviewing the film in the context of now.

Josh: 3:05

Yes, and it's mind-blowing.

Chris: 3:07

It's mind-blowing, yeah so let's get into it. The opening scene um jane and her boyfriend rick is talking about killing the dad. You know, they're just joking around and stuff and wait, but you don't know that they're joking around don't know that they're joking around it's unreliable narrator so when, when it first came on, I was like holy shit, are they really talking?

Josh: 3:31

yes, yes, they seem so serious, and they're goth kids too, so think all black yeah, goth kids killing their parents super moody yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris: 3:42

This had the Columbine feeling. Exactly Ricky Fitz, oh Fitz. So we get into Lester, burnham. Lester's a 42-year-old man who pretty much jerks off in the morning in the shower. He's so lonely. He's lonely, he's in a relationship, but he's alone.

Josh: 4:02

You couldn't feel more alone, surrounded by the people who are supposed to love you, correct?

Chris: 4:07

Yeah, correct, and that's me being married now but divorced. I know that feeling of being in a relationship. But you don't feel like you're in a relationship because you feel like the other person kind of doesn't respect you and they kind of checked out. Because in this relationship, lester and Kara are checked out with each other Like they've kind of the cliche, they've grown apart. Yeah, low key, and this happens in a lot of relationships over time. When one person has a certain level of success and the other person is stagnant, they lose a little bit of respect for that other person for not moving with them. Grow together, you have to grow together. Grow together Big thing in marriages and relationships. Make sure you grow together. Do not let him be a couch potato playing video games while you go to work. Two, three jobs a day. Don't do that. But that's the reality though. You have to grow together because you will grow apart, evolve and change.

Josh: 5:05

Yeah, evolve and change. Yeah, evolve and change. And they've obviously been together so long. They're 42, but they have a 16-year-old. You know, like they've done family.

Chris: 5:15

Yeah, they've done family. They've done family big time. He's, I guess, a telemarketer and he hates his job because it's boring. I mean, think about about it. You're on the phone all day, you're, you're getting hung up on by clients and people and it's like he's kind of just in his mundane. Yeah, lazy on. You know, unexciting life in general, like his whole life is, is nothing exciting about his life, even his house to the white picket fence and the roses along the fence.

Josh: 5:47

You see him doing the smile with just his mouth at his desk while talking on the phone yeah, but he works for a magazine and he's actually trying to wrangle people who are buying advertisements in the magazine, but he can't make connection with them. He can't make connection and he even says, you know, like does this person really exist? And I think he's asking, like who am I talking to? I'm talking to no one at all. To no one at all.

Chris: 6:15

Yeah, out into the void. Do you know of people who live in this existence like right now, today, where they have expressed to you like their life isn't shit?

Josh: 6:26

more people live lester burnham's life than live the life of looking for beauty in the mundane. Yeah, I mean, this is a critique on suburbia. So people who live in suburbia are conforming that like they go to the nine to five, uh, they give their life to this. They're told like you show up at nine, you get out at five and in those in that structure, that's your life. You don't see outside that wall. I mean the opening scene after that where Lester's saying like I'm 42 and I'm alone, this is the highlight of my day in the shower. You know jerking off in the shower.

Josh: 7:02

This is the highlight of my day. That was sad, that music cuts in and you could be listening to. You know an English documentary on wildlife and because you're looking at someone who's just living this mundane routine and has been for 15 years. I think more people are living that than are living a life of art and expression than are living a life of art and expression.

Chris: 7:24

I agree. I agree, I've talked to more people. I know more people in my life friends and family that are bored with their lives than lead exciting lives, and not really exciting, but just something that's meaningful to them.

Josh: 7:41

Everybody's doing shit, that's just not meaningful.

Chris: 7:43

They're just going through the motions, and one thing my mother always told me was like, don't do that, don't just go through the motions of life, live like how you want to live it, the way you want it, and if you got to crash out and burn, you did it your way At the end of your life. You just don't want to be full with regrets. I wish I would have done this, I wish I would have done that, and even at the age I am, I have a few regrets, but not many, because I've been able to live the life I wanted to live.

Josh: 8:12

For the most part You're going to have regrets, but the scariest thing is that you wake up at 42 knowing that you've wasted 15 years of your life, and he breaks bad because at the job that has promised him his life they say we're going to let you go. But he knows the dirt on the company and he's like, oh my God, you're going to fire me after giving 15 years of my life to this business.

Chris: 8:36

Yeah, he has all the dirt, he knows where the bones are buried and everything. He let it be known. Yeah, yeah, I know the boss spends money on strippers or whatever.

Josh: 8:44

Yeah, the hookers, and let it be known.

Chris: 8:45

yeah, yeah, I know the boss spends money on strippers or whatever stuff and like 50, 60 000 of people's salary on hookers and stuff. So I'll tell it all yeah, he's finally like. Uh feels like he's, he's having this. I'm a fight back moment, I'm not gonna get pushed over anymore that's where he breaks bad.

Josh: 8:57

That's where he breaks bad, right there in the office.

Chris: 8:59

But we get to the scene where they're having dinner at night the first dinner dinner scene and you can tell who rules that house. They're listening to fucking Lawrence Welk music, having a traditional three-person dinner under candlelight. This is all Carolyn Burnham's idea of what dinner time should be for a family. The daughter hates it and Lester definitely hates it, but they deal with it because they know Mom. The daughter hates it and Lester definitely hates it, but they deal with it because they know mom. You know happy wife, happy life type of situation.

Josh: 9:31

It's easier to go along with the program that it is to Bucket and that's the big theme for the whole movie and for Lester Burnham's life. It's easier to go along like take your hits. Oh no, I'm sorry, I didn't say anything. I'm going to get some ice cream now. Yeah.

Chris: 9:46

It's so sad, it's so pathetic. I feel sad for him watching the movie. He's a loser. Oh my, this man could have been one of those guys who could have had a great life had he just fought for his independence and like.

Josh: 9:59

I'm a man. I'm going to be a man.

Chris: 10:02

He kind of, just as they say, simped out and said I'm just going to whatever life gives me, I'm just going to take it. I'm not going to buck the system. Like you said, I'm not going to say nothing back. You can't go through life like that man.

Josh: 10:13

He's checked out completely.

Chris: 10:15

That is someone completely checked out.

Josh: 10:17

And he says so after the dinner to Janie because he's in the process of breaking bad. And he goes up to Janie and says I'm sorry, I haven't been more available. He's been there with his body and his presence, but in his mind he's gone. He's gone.

Chris: 10:30

He's on the moon, he's gone.

Josh: 10:32

He's on the moon.

Chris: 10:32

It made me feel sorry for him because it's like that's not really a good existence to be in when you just checked out of life of enjoying life.

Josh: 10:46

He didn't enjoy nothing but jerking off in the morning, in a way, I'm already dead.

Chris: 10:48

Right, he's already dead, so he didn't care about too much. You know nothing else. Then we get to a part where the next door neighbor, uh, son rick is filming. He's filming the family and that struck me as weird, also because when I first saw I was like is he a peeping tom or whatever, and stuff. But we learned later like he likes to, I guess, examine life and he's about living and habitats of you know natures of people and things and stuff yeah, but you didn't know that from the beginning.

Chris: 11:19

He just looked like a peeping tom he just looked weird at first In 1999,.

Josh: 11:24

to be on camera is to be vulnerable. You know, he's got a handy cam.

Josh: 11:28

You know today to be on camera is almost ubiquitous with life. You're never not on a camera, but in 1999, that was something that was going into your life and capturing your moments. So this definitely feels creepy to us. Ricky Fitz is living a life of art and expression and looking at the details and when the Fitz moved next door, you have a sounding board for extreme conformity and extreme expression in in the military dad. He has fallen in line, he can't see outside of the stricture of the military and Ricky is like this is not a way to live and I think Lester Burnham has to make the choice in Breaking Bad whether he wants to be military dad or he wants to be someone who's living a life of expression and art Right and he sees that that.

Chris: 12:26

So that informs the context of which way lester burnham's gonna go going back to rick and his home life, his dad seems like a man out of the 1950s. And we're talking. This is supposed to be present day. When this movie was made. It was supposed to be present.

Josh: 12:41

So we're in the late 90s, yeah, but for some reason his dad feels like ward cleaver in an army suit he's still watching the military films as a form of entertainment, laughing at them because he's told he's supposed to do that he has a crew cut also, sorry mind all over the place. Okay, central casting, oh, central casting. Oh, chris Cooper. Chris Cooper is a beast as the military dad with that high and tight haircut. It's so frightening he's so intense.

Chris: 13:15

Everything is so intense, every little conversation, like at one point in time when somebody rang the doorbell he looked at the wife like you have company. I'm like, oh, was he?

Josh: 13:24

going to smack her if she had company. He's been smacking her. He's been smacking her.

Chris: 13:29

She's dead on the inside, she is oh my God, I felt worse for her than anybody in the entire movie. You feel that she is a walking zombie. She has no existence other than to serve Frank Fitz dinner, lunch, breakfast and go sit down.

Josh: 13:49

Yeah, that was her existence.

Chris: 13:51

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, go sit your ass down. Talk about the living dead. She's the living dead she was the living dead and I'm starting to think that maybe the quirkiness or weirdness of Rick, might some of that might have came from his mom and what's going on with her maybe I mean, yeah, but he's kind of weird, I'm just saying.

Josh: 14:13

But growing up in 1999 with a dad who's from the 50s, I mean art and expression are saying there's something sick with society when you fall in line with everything you know, yeah, and he goes outside. He's part of the you know society and society doesn't act like his dad stuck in the 50s, yeah, and his dad is this uh crucible of violence. Who's beating him? You know, physically beating him, and so, instead of bucking the system, you, you remember when the gay couple comes next door and the reaction that Ricky Fitz has to give to his dad to prove that like, oh, I think that's wrong, it's all smoke and mirrors, so he gets that there's something wrong with that amount of conformity.

Chris: 14:59

Rick actually has the best understanding of who his father is.

Josh: 15:02

He knows exactly who his father is and how to negotiate that?

Chris: 15:05

How to negotiate that? So Rick isn't as wild and weird as we think. He understands what's going on in his household. He understands his mother has whatever issues she has, and he definitely understands his father, because there were incidences where it could have went wild and crazy, like fight me back and stuff like that. He knew how to talk to his dad to calm it down.

Josh: 15:27

Imagine having to develop that sense of survival, you know, and he brings that to the rest of the world in society. He dresses, you know, stripped down. He gets the job. He says I am a functioning member of society, but on the inside he's running his weed business. Yeah, you know, he's Big weed man. Big weed man and exploring his passion and looking at the mundane, you know, videotaping the bag and stuff like that.

Chris: 15:53

Yeah, he gets it.

Josh: 15:54

He's actually our most normal guy in all of it, you're right, you're right, out of all the main characters, men, the men in the movie. He's the most normal one because he just knows how to negotiate the craziness around.

Chris: 16:10

Yeah, yeah, he's a chameleon. He knows how to fit in in every, exactly any scenario. You feel like rick, like even when they were talking about going to new york at the end of the movie, you feel like he was gonna be fine. Yeah, he was gonna be a, he was gonna be better he's.

Josh: 16:22

Yeah, he was going to be A-OK. He was going to be better, he was going to be better, he was going to be better.

Chris: 16:25

He was getting out of his violent house. He was going with 40,000. He was going to be good, he was going to be fine. He was going to be better yeah.

Josh: 16:35

So then we get to the part where the daughter is a cheerleader at the high school.

Chris: 16:40

Her friends, and especially her friend angela, angela hayes and uh lester does not want to go. He's more or less like you know. I want to watch this show on tv, do we really have to go yeah you're like I don't want to see this shit.

Chris: 16:54

It's boring. She doesn't really want us there, which is true. She did not want her parents coming, because she pretty much hates her parents, but most teenagers do, um, so, uh, they go, the girls perform their cheerleading dance after it's over lester and and carolyn gets introduced to angela. Yeah, but before that, lester is sexually aroused by angela during this halftime dance, and that's where we start seeing the rose petal theme come into play, the lolita sequence. That is crazy. That he's. He singled out her out of all. Pretty much the gym was empty in his mind. It was just those two in the gym with a spotlight on her and he just focused like a hawk on his prey. Uh, which we were talking about earlier, is like if, if this movie was made today, it would.

Josh: 17:50

It would come off as very creepy it comes off as creepy, yeah, it comes off as creepy. You could not lean into giving the main character their fantasy as they see it now. Correct, I don't think. I mean, if someone tried to do that, you would be making, you know, kiddie porn or something, yeah, and it would really turn people off. But in 1999, they allow the main character to lean in and they allow the audience to see it. Lolita, yeah, they allow the audience to see how sick this guy is.

Chris: 18:26

That's what I loved about past movies is like they let writers and directors express what's going on in their minds without worrying about how society would see it. Now, everybody's worried about how you would seem to other people. I don't want to make a movie about this because I would seem like a creep Back then just express yourself. Whatever the movie is, just express yourself. So I'm so grateful that we have movies like this in the archives, where you can see the mind of a man like that in real time. This is how some men think. We might not like it, but you know we got the. What happened with Woody Allen? He fucking adopted a 12 old or something to end up marrying her.

Josh: 19:09

Not great, not a good thing, well, okay. So I think that this movie and Alan Ball is making a critique on this, and in writing from the perspective of the main character, and and and leaning into it and really showing it he's making a critique. People these days, even if you're making a critique, they stay with the superficial like oh, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're not, they're not allowing room to breathe for the critique. This is wrong. But it also bookends something really important. Lester Burnham is on the, on the precipice of breaking bad. You know he's in recovery from 15 years of being beaten down by his job, his home life. He's so lonely and he's coming to the, to the forefront. You know he's been in a coma for 20 years. He says yeah, and he's regressing back to when he thought time was good and that was when he was in his early twenties.

Chris: 20:07

So do you think it's because of him seeing Angela made him do that, or do you think he would have actually transitioned backwards?

Josh: 20:16

anyway, I think he would have transitioned anyway and I think Angela was the first object of his affection, as he's regressing back to his early twenties. So in his mind, psychologically, he's in his early 20s but you know who angela really is.

Chris: 20:30

It's just a younger version of his wife that's who actually is exactly exactly exactly. It's just his wife. Yes, when he first met her, yes, beautiful, young, vibrant, youthful, that's all angela really is.

Josh: 20:44

But he can't get that out of his wife now because he sees her as as bitchy as she's a older bitchy woman who's lost her way, just as much correct and and she's just as much saddled with kind of social ills that Lester has been. Only in the opposite way. She's accepted conformity and she's embraced it and she wants it. So bad, yeah, success and all that yeah yeah, real estate stuff.

Chris: 21:12

Um. So now we get to the part where he's he's in bed with his wife. Um, he has, he has another dream of of angela covered in rose petals. But it gets even weirder like he goes into his daughter's room while his daughter's taking a shower. Yeah, goes to her journal or book, finds angela's number and actually tries to call her. That was the point where I feel like he said I'm just gonna go ahead and say, fuck it, I'm gonna cross this line, I'm gonna make the call.

Chris: 21:40

Yeah, yeah, but even then he couldn't really make the call because when she answered he was kind of like uh, uh, uh and he kind of he kind of got stuck. But I feel like that was the point where he decided like I'm gonna do this shit, I'm gonna see if I can generate some type of relationship with angela outside of my daughter. Yeah, that was the creepy moment to me. Yeah, because he made the, the call.

Josh: 22:02

It's creepy, but he's acting like a teenager. He's regressing Good point. He's acting like a 42-year-old man. Doesn't do this.

Chris: 22:13

A teenager does, and someone who's going back mentally does snoops through journals, through diaries and the way he ran away when the daughter came out of the shower. Oh, it's so pathetic. He ran away like a child.

Josh: 22:25

Yes.

Chris: 22:26

Yes, making hella noise. We can hear you running through the house Not wanting to get caught. Yeah, yeah, it was so weird, but I'm glad you brought that up. He did regress back into being a teenage boy, that whole holding onto the phone, not knowing what the nervousness of a teenager the nervousness.

Josh: 22:46

What does he do next? He gets a job at a burger shop. What does he do next? He buys the car of his dreams from when he was a teenager.

Chris: 22:54

So we kind of see a man going through midlife crisis. Oh 100%, yeah, yeah, 100%, and that's a whole nother thing that a lot of men go through is this point in your life where your kids are older, they don't need you as much. Uh, your wife is older, she really doesn't need you as much. You guys are not really having sex, uh. And then you're, you're trying to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.

Josh: 23:18

Self-identity, yeah, self-identity. When your identity is, you know, going to work nine to five supporting your family in this way and that gets ripped away from you. You're baseless, you have no one, you have no sense of who you are.

Chris: 23:30

Yeah, yeah, I feel like Lester lost his self. Like you said, he lost his self years ago but also, at the same time, like with anybody, that kid is always still there. You know that kid is always still there. You know that kid is always still there. And I think the biggest issue with Lester and I'm glad I don't have this issue personally in my life is that he didn't have no homeboys to kind of keep him grounded. He doesn't have anybody to talk to. He's a loner. He is totally a loner. Most men have at least a brother or uncle or some other man to express what's going on in their life. Yeah, but just imagine being that dude in that world by yourself, Nobody to talk to.

Josh: 24:12

Well, he does get someone. He gets Ricky Fitz, a teenager. A teenager, and that's not a good sounding board for a 42-year-old man. Yeah, not a teenager. Smoking weed in the alleyway with a teenager is not where you go to rebuild your sense of self.

Chris: 24:28

That was a shining moment, having fun right there with Rick smoking weed.

Josh: 24:33

I feel like they're really high in that part, Cause he's like the way he laughs. He's like I'm in trouble.

Chris: 24:40

Method acting I'm going to really get high. Callie Cush, the director, gave it back. Method acting is going to really get hot. He dove into it that Cali Kush. Oh, oh.

Josh: 24:48

The director gave him that. Cali Kush. Talk about another way in which 25 years has taken place and the idea of smoking weed has radically changed. 1999, people are still going to jail for weed. Yeah, you know, this is a bad thing, yeah, in 2024 taboo you walk into the store and you buy weed good weed.

Chris: 25:12

I feel like eventually it's gonna be like at walmart and shit, like you just be able to buy weed on the shelf at walmart, right there pack a cigarette, cigarette weed right next to it just get what you need I feel like we're going that way.

Chris: 25:23

I'm glad that that society has developed a conscious mind about weed smoking. First of all, you can't ban weed and not ban cigarettes. That's just fucking stupid. Cigarettes kill people who don't even smoke. Let's call a spade a spade. We know what this is about. This has nothing to do with weed being bad. It's the politics and people at top taking charge. But what was interesting was that Rick also had a collection of tapes and he had a lot of technology and stuff in his house and I don't know why and I don't think he ever explained in the movie why he collected all that data. In your opinion, why do you think he he saved all that stuff? Like what do you think what was the point of him saving 10 000 videotapes of people? So instead of just like erasing over it and recording again, yeah.

Josh: 26:23

Yeah, ricky Fitz sees American beauty in, in the minutia of life, um, and there are all of these ephemeral moments, these fleeting moments. And and again Ricky steeped in a household of violence, of conformity and he wants out of that, he needs, he needs to leave and so superficially you could say he's, he's a stoner. But there's more depth to ricky, you know, he has his handy cam and he sees all these beautiful moments in life and he needs to anchor in those beautiful moments. So he's capturing these all the time, right, he wants to see them and and he even admits most of it's just whatever. It's garbage, garbage, you know, but in those tapes are these magnificent moments. You know, a grocery bag floating around is not beautiful to a lot of people, but it it sums up the kind of consumerism, the trash, the materialism that is American beauty. And for Ricky Fitz, capturing these moments is his release, it's his way to see outside of this conformity.

Chris: 27:33

Yeah, I've had one friend in my lifetime that was similar to Ricky Fitz, that they saw a life and electricity in everything that they saw.

Josh: 27:46

It's a better way. Yeah, it's a better way to see things Chris you don't see the cloud.

Chris: 27:51

I'm like it's a cloud, you don't see what's in the cloud. I'm like I'm thinking they're crazy, but they're actually seeing something going on up there. So as I get older I'm more conscious, like maybe they did see something I just couldn't see. Maybe they have that third eye like I don't know man, but we can't be too hard on ourselves.

Josh: 28:10

We have bills to pay, we have kids to wake up. I'm not a teenager with a video camera, you know, looking around all the time, and that's another way for Ricky to relate and explain the beauty in life to other people around him.

Chris: 28:27

That was so dope about Ricky. He could explain the beauty that you couldn't see in life Exactly. He could explain it very eloquently.

Josh: 28:35

Translate it, share it, and so capturing these moments for him was his way of communicating. Yeah.

Chris: 28:42

So now we get to the real estate event where Carolyn drags Lester. He's once again Lester does not want to go, because he doesn't want to go to anything, but she drags him to the event. And this is where Carolyn is chummy with Buddy Kane, the real estate king. Buddy is there with his supermodel wife who she's hot as shit and hates him and hates him. But once again, she's hot as shit, hates him and hates him, but once again she's hot as shit, yeah yeah.

Chris: 29:08

Yeah, she's definitely out of his league, but he has money and resources so that kind of puts him league level as a man. We understand the resource thing like we can be visually, our women can outshine us, but money wise he can kind of put us in the same category.

Josh: 29:25

But deep down he's got to be unsettled with that too, because of course he has an affair with annette benning's character of course, which means he probably wasn't having sex either.

Chris: 29:35

Something's wrong something's wrong, something's wrong yeah, and also his, his, his wife looked a lot younger than him. Yeah, so now we do image. Yeah, yeah, it looks. It was kind of weird. So. So Lester has a drink, violently kisses his wife in the mouth in front of Buddy. Yeah, I don't know what point he was trying to prove.

Josh: 29:57

he didn't give a shit he just did. This was dumb. I mean he's looking at his wife flirting with the real estate king. He doesn't give a shit about that. He doesn't care about. He's almost. I mean he's looking at his wife flirting with the real estate king. He doesn't give a shit about that either.

Chris: 30:08

He doesn't care about that, he's almost.

Josh: 30:10

I mean, he's so checked out and he's in the process of breaking and redefining himself. He's like, oh my God, this is a pathetic place. Yeah, and I'm pathetic here. Everyone here is pathetic. This is all a facade, this is all materialistic, I want out.

Chris: 30:28

And then Ricky Fitz pathetic this is all a facade, this is all materialistic. I want out. And then ricky fits, gets him out and look, let me. Let me tell you, this is being as being a married man, married twice, as married men, we get, we get dragged to a lot of shit we don't want to go to, of course, and I feel just like lester sometimes, like I don't want to fucking be here and no, I don't want to meet your girlfriend's husband. I have my own male friends. I don't need any new male friends. So I understand that that part of you know, as, as married men, sometimes we we get put in positions to keep the peace. We'll just go along with it. So I I understand that point of view.

Chris: 31:02

But this is also when Lester meets up with Rick, you know, and, and they, they smoke outside, and Rick's boss comes outside and says something to him Like you need to come back inside and finish, I don't pay you to stand out here and smoke weed. Rick says basically, fuck you, you know, you don't have to pay me, I quit. And that amazes Lester, cause he, he doesn't have that type of control in his life to just quit anything. He has to deal with the consequences of coming home and telling his wife shit like that, yeah. But rick being a free thinking or free spirit rick is like, and also he sells weed, yeah this is not forget about this cover.

Chris: 31:42

Yeah, I forget about the 40 g's.

Josh: 31:43

He's kind of has at home.

Chris: 31:45

I feel like this even if rick didn't have 40 000 at home and it wasn't a huge weed dealer, he still would have the personality to say fuck you and this job, I'm out.

Josh: 31:53

Yeah, his mentality was I'm gonna do what I want to do with my life isn't it amazing that lester burnham sees that as a superpower, like he could have flown, he could have had x-ray vision, but just to tell someone to go fuck themselves was a superpower that lester burnham didn't have at all and he was amazed by.

Chris: 32:15

He said you're my new hero, my new personal hero. A kid, an 18 year old boy, is your new hero because you saw him stand up for himself. Yeah, and in your life, as a 42 year old man, you don't have the balls to stand up for you, not even against people in your own house. Yeah, you don't even stand up for you.

Josh: 32:34

I mean, he's been conditioned by 20 years of being beaten down, right, yeah, it's so sad to see that man is.

Chris: 32:42

It's so sad, but I'm so glad that rick kind of gave him that, that second spark. I mean he had a spark from angela, seeing angela, yeah, but rick gave him that real spark. Yeah, like that's the type of mentality I need to have, like rick, like my homie rick.

Josh: 32:55

Yeah, tell people to go fuck themselves if you're reinventing yourself, you're picking and choosing the best parts you see from your heroes yes, yes yes so, um, carolyn comes out, she's kind of drunk.

Chris: 33:09

Um, she's set up some type of date with a buddy, a business date, business lunch, uh. So they go home and angela's there with their daughter, and angela, once again, is overly flirting with this grown-ass man. So let me ask you this, angela what type of home life do you think? Angela came Because we never saw her home. So what do you think in your mind if you open up her house, open up the door and walk in, what are you seeing in her house to make her behave the way she's behaving?

Josh: 33:41

Yeah, that's funny. I always thought of Angela as kind of like a latchkey kid, you know, someone who didn't have a lot of love and support in the home. Because, let's face it, she's this 16, 17-year-old girl who really wants to be more advanced than she really is, and she does that by telling everyone how great she is, and that's not what someone who gets a lot of support and actually has developed confidence does. So it's a weakness that she needs to seek this validation through her sexuality and the power that she has.

Chris: 34:22

That's a danger. The most dangerous thing to me has. That's a danger. The most dangerous thing to me is a young woman who understands her sexual value early because she plays men like violins.

Josh: 34:34

But it's dangerous for herself, and Angela understood that though.

Chris: 34:37

Yeah, yeah, she saw it. She saw it in Lester. Like I can make this man bend to my will just by coming around him. Yeah, yeah, and she loves that uncomfortable, loved it yeah it's scary when a young woman knows her sexual value that early, because a lot of them use it in in a negative way, like angela was using a negative way yeah, I was gonna say it's.

Josh: 35:00

It's more like she's aware of the power that she has but not her actual value, and that's the dangerous part. That's a good point, because she could abuse this and she could take advantage of men. But let's face it, she's just a kid. She's just a kid man, she's a monkey with a machine gun and it's dangerous for her and those around her.

Chris: 35:25

That's a good way to put it. She was very dangerous, but she told a story to Jane where she had noticed that men had started looking at her at 12 years old. Just imagine seeing yourself as a sexual object since you were 12 years old.

Josh: 35:40

That shit must happen. Of course. Anyone fairly sophisticated you know these girls, they got to notice that change. You know these girls, they gotta notice that change. You know another sick part of society, another that this movie's trying to point out man.

Chris: 35:54

It's so weird to just hear a young woman talk like that about her sexuality, like men have been trying to fuck me since I was 12 years old, like just hearing her say that shit is like kind of creepy, like damn, you've actually seen lust for men eyes as a 12 year old girl to where now you're 16, 17 and you're using that against them and it's funny because janie says oh, that's disgusting.

Josh: 36:20

And angela goes no, I fucking no, I fucking loved it. She loved it. She said no, I fucking loved it. That is crazy, yeah, yeah.

Chris: 36:30

It fed her ego. Yeah, she had a huge ego. Yeah, she talked a lot of shit at school.

Josh: 36:36

She had a huge ego and, again, I think that was a defense mechanism, because she is an insecure person.

Chris: 36:41

Very insecure yeah.

Josh: 36:42

Very insecure, I mean we eventually find out. So very insecure, I mean we eventually find out.

Chris: 36:48

so we're going linear, so I won't say anything.

Chris: 36:50

Yeah, but she was very insecure so lester the same night lester is, you know, ear hustling puts his head to the door and here's angela basically telling jane that she would fuck her dad if he like worked out and got more in shape, and stuff like that. So this idiot goes to the garage, find some dumbbells. He just gets to it, yeah, he just gets to it like, and he looks weird doing it like. He strips out his clothes and just starts doing this, which looked weird. So now, at this point, rick is filming a naked 42 year old man working out. Disturbing, very disturbing that he's filming this, yeah. But even more disturbing, the man is only doing this to fuck a teenage girl. He has no other desire to work out other than to get with his girl, who he overheard say she would, she would ride his dick if he, if he looked a little better in shape.

Josh: 37:49

He has no sense of self.

Chris: 37:51

He he's susceptible to that kind of attention yeah, you know, he wanted that attention, so his wife didn't give him any, nothing, jesus nothing another day I felt bad for him was like when they were. She was going to work, they're going to taking the daughter to school and he uh, the stuff fell out his suitcase and the daughter and the wife looked at him like he was the biggest idiot that ever had existed on the planet.

Josh: 38:15

He agreed, he said, and they're right he knew it.

Chris: 38:21

That's that's horrible. To make a man feel like that right is that's that's a horrible way to make somebody they're not a man feel like that man.

Josh: 38:26

That's a horrible way to make somebody feel they're not making him feel like that. I mean, they're definitely not helping. They're not helping but he knows he's a loser and he knows he's complicit in being a loser.

Chris: 38:38

Yeah.

Josh: 38:39

And that's why he's not mad, right? He's not angry, right, he's just waking up.

Chris: 38:45

Yeah.

Josh: 38:45

Yeah, let's go back to the real estate king and his wife having an affair. He's not mad about that At all. The regular response would to be upset, I've been cheated, I've been wronged. He's not. He's not upset like that. I mean, if anything, he just wants to be honest about it. Yeah.

Chris: 39:09

If that makes you happy, whatever. Yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, I've been there. You get to that point to where I don't even care anymore.

Josh: 39:15

It's like I've already checked out his relationship.

Chris: 39:17

She's sleeping with 20 men. I don't care. So I actually understood that point of view.

Chris: 39:22

Like you check out, you check that she can do whatever the hell she wants to do with her life. I'm already moved on closed chapter, opening a whole nother chapter. Uh, to another point in my life. Yeah, so now lester has another dream of angela naked in the in the tub. Oh, yeah, rose petals.

Chris: 39:39

Um puts his hand in the water, yeah, getting ready to do whatever he's gonna do with her. But, but in reality he's in bed laying with his wife jerking off, yeah, yeah, and it to do whatever he's gonna do with her. But, but in reality he's in bed laying with his wife jerking off, yeah, yeah. And it wakes up. He's doing it so aggressively, the bed is literally shaking, yeah, and she wakes up and really just yells at him for jerking off, yeah. And it becomes this big argument to where all he's trying to tell her is if you do certain things for me sexually, I wouldn't even be this type of person, but clearly you don't want this type of action either sexually is what's communicated here, but it's more than sexual, it's deeper, it's definitely so much it's like if there were any type of communication going on because their communication really is only her telling him what to do it's yes, there's a whole line, there's just a wall.

Chris: 40:31

You do what I tell you to do and shut up. That's it, that's all. Yeah, so they don't really have any. You know, it's sad to see couples that sleep in bed together, but they're in two different universes.

Josh: 40:41

They're in bed together, but they don't even but and also it's such an embarrassing, pathetic thing to be doing. Yeah, but Lester uses it as a like hey, I'm hurting here. He's trying to open that communication and he's frazzled and you know he reacts a little angry with her reaction, but really it's more like I'm here and can you be here too? Yeah, which I thought was kind of a tender moment and you could see she's on the verge of being like, are you okay? But she's too. She has perfect roses in her garden and the rose petals that are falling apart in the dreams the red rose petals are roses in decay. Okay, you know, these are roses that are falling apart. Her roses are perfect. She can't go there with Lester because if her life is not one of conformity, then she has nothing, because that's what she's completely built her character on. That's deep. Okay, that's what I see. That's what she's completely built her character on. That's that's deep.

Chris: 41:47

Okay, that's what I see, that's what I see, you see roses falling apart. She has perfect roses yeah, she's all about everything on the facade, like how everything looks as opposed to what it really is. They look like a happy couple, like a happy couple. They should be the happiest couple on the planet from the outside as long as she can keep up that image yeah, it's the image she mentions that in the movie like that image is what really matters in in her, her business.

Josh: 42:15

That that image, that structure, perfect, perfect life, what they literally had a white picket fence man like jesus, and because we're going linear and I think one of the most important also shout out, annette Bening, like, why didn't you win all the awards for this? Like, oh my God, shout out, one of the most important scenes and character building is that I will sell this house today. Yeah, she is building herself up and if she can do this and she can empower herself, she could do it, but she's not selling that house today. And she completely empower herself. She could do it, but she's not selling that house today and she completely breaks down. But she has to go into a dark hole to do this on her own. So she's screaming on the inside too, but she has her, her image to uphold, right, right. And Lester doesn't have any image to uphold. He could be jerking off in bed for all he cares, you know at all.

Chris: 43:07

Yeah, you do see her lose it for a second over that not being able to sell a house, um, but then again she was lying about a lot of shit, about the house too oh yeah yeah, lagoon in the back and the women were like this is not a fucking lagoon scrubbing it.

Josh: 43:20

You know, oh, this is, this is a great house, it's just a fucking regular ass just a regular house.

Chris: 43:25

She was trying to oversell it. Basically you could polish a turd yeah, it was. She had a breakdown but you did try to see her build herself up with the I'm gonna sell this house, I'm gonna sell this house. And maybe a lot of real estate agents go through that, where it's like you have that law where you can't really sell a house and you start feeling like it's you, but it might not be you. It might just be like a bad house caught the algorithm. Yeah, you just might not be you. You know what I'm saying. So I kind of get where she. She might have thought it was her. So that also brings up why at the real estate event, she wanted to hook up with buddy because she wanted to pick his brain. Yeah, you know, I think. I think her intentions were actually good from the beginning with buddy.

Chris: 44:04

She did not want to sleep with him yeah, initially yeah, she really just wanted to figure out why he was so good at selling homes like you're the fucking real estate king, give me some game. I think that's all it really was in the beginning. But he kind of enamored her and kind of immersed her in his I don't his aura, yeah, and she kind of started drinking the kool-aid. And that's when it changed from oh, not just a business relationship, but this is a dude that I can really, you know, fuck with for real in a relationship type of thing she's also very lonely too.

Josh: 44:37

She's extremely she's suffered 20 years of a wall, but she has sexual frustration.

Chris: 44:42

Yeah, yeah sexual sexual. Now, the one thing I would have showed if I was a director, I definitely would have had a scene where she was probably masturbating too. To show only to show that she is going through this, the sexual, uh, unsatisfied, unsatisfying life that he was going through, because initially it just looks like he's not sexually satisfied. Yeah, but you find out later, oh no, when she wants to get it in. She got it in with a buddy cane.

Josh: 45:10

That is the corollary masturbation. They can't show her masturbating because masturbating is a pathetic, lonely experience and lester burnham's pathetic and lonely. She's keeping up her image right. So her masturbation is fucking the real estate king, this cheeseball guy, and that's as far as she could go. She thinks it's building up her image to be associated, but really she's getting railed in the cheesy motel by the real estate king, super cheesy.

Chris: 45:37

This dude's supposed to be extra rich and all this other shit. He took you to a motel. I want to say it was the Top Hat Motel, yeah.

Josh: 45:47

Like he doesn't think much of you to take to take you to the ritz. She's being used, you're being used, you're being used, like he even.

Chris: 45:53

You know he even said during their sexual thing like how does it feel to be railed by the, by the king? Like so he's just using her and and she's getting her sexual frustration off, because even after they're done she's like oh, feel so, I feel so much better. So she kind of needed that too. But it's a shame because when Lester was masturbating in bed and they had the argument he was trying to tell her, like if you want to help me out, just jump on. Yeah, like you can help me with this, well, jump on, but also like talk to me yeah.

Chris: 46:30

Like be a part of this and we could do this. Talk to me, yeah. Yeah, she was just like. Like even during that argument in, when they were in bed, was like she still wasn't understanding exactly what he was trying to tell her. Yeah, let's communicate, let's get on the same page.

Josh: 46:41

So there is another scene where they get closer.

Chris: 46:45

That's true there's another scene where they get closer.

Josh: 46:47

That's true. There's another scene. Okay, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it.

Chris: 46:49

There's another scene. So Carolyn catches Lester working out in the garage, right. So he's trying to bust his chest out and get his arms ripped and stuff like that. And what's weird is he's working out but he's smoking weed at the same time, which doesn't really make sense. Teenager when he's working out but he's smoking weed at the same time, which doesn't really make teenager. It's teenage when he's acting like a teenager and she's literally yelling at him for that and it was almost like she chastises him like a mother would a child. She's talking to him like a child. I still feel sorry for him. Like man, please stand up for yourself. And I'm glad because in that moment he did stand up for himself.

Chris: 47:24

He said fuck off I'm gonna do what the hell I want to do. You're just a money hungry, grubbing bitch, basically, and I'm going to live how I want to live. So that was the moment I was like, yeah, fight back, let her know you're going to do what you're going to do. Man, stop letting her step on you, man. It was really none of her business why he was working out. Let the man work out like Jesus Christ, like you know, like even nowadays we have, you know, men have man caves and stuff like that. There's a reason why men now have man cave. Leave me alone and let me just watch these sports, drink a beer with my buddies and let me have this moment to myself.

Chris: 48:01

And Carolyn just would never let him have those moments. She would interrupt those moments. Even the have those moments, she would interrupt those moments. Even the masturbation. She would interrupt every moment he had to himself. She had to be in control. She had to be in full control. Why are you working out? Why are you doing? Why are you smoking weed? Why are you listening to this music? Why are you in the garage? It's like why she was really a bitch. She was a horrible, horrible wife to have. Yeah, but I do feel like at some point in time in a relationship she probably was a very sweet woman to be with a very nice you know. In her younger days, probably before the kid, he said as much he said as much.

Josh: 48:45

She was probably the sweetest person on the planet. He used to have fun. They were both victims of conformity, yes, and doing what they were told to do, and you know she has this pretty strict gender role that she's been fulfilling, and control was part of that, you know I would have liked her character, her background, to be explained a little bit more so you can find out why she'd like.

Chris: 49:14

Was her mother like that to her dad? Like they never really go with her and Angela, I feel like those two characters if they could have just stretched out time a little bit more in the movie and gave us like three hours instead of two hours and just showed us Angela's home life and Carolyn's home life, because, other than life getting boring and people changing, I feel like Carolyn probably grew up in a house like this where she saw her mother be this way with her father. Totally, you know what I'm saying and it would have been nice to see it. Even if it had been a phone conversation with her talking to her mom and her mother saying like you keeping that man in line over there? Yeah, like, so you can kind of see. Like, oh, that's where she gets it from. Yeah, her mother's on the phone telling her are you keeping Lester in line over there?

Josh: 50:01

You. But the movie does enough by having Lester say you used to be fun, you used to have fun. And I think the point there is that anybody can be beat down by 20 years of suburban conformity. That's a lot. That's a lot. Anyone can be beat down by that 20 years man. So regardless of where she came from, she could have come from anywhere. Regardless of where she came from, she could have come from anywhere. You know, having to have that control and that society sickness, you know it's suburbia, it's materialism. Anyone can be beat down by that.

Chris: 50:36

Yeah that's true, that's true. So now we get to the point to where Lester's company is firing. So this is Lester's shit kicking moment. He gonna throw it right back in their face. This is where he tells them. I'm really gonna tell everybody what's going on here, with the boss spending the money on the, on the prostitutes and stuff like that, so he finesses one year salary with benefits and walks out of the office like a champion. This is the time we see lester. Finally. He's not having it, no more nobody's by the horns he's not having none of that shit, no more.

Chris: 51:15

And he literally says like I don't have anything to lose at this point, so I'm gonna do whatever I need to do to get what I need to get out of life. And they gave that man basically sixty thousand dollars free money. Yeah, they just sit at home, get the check, get the benefits well, there's a threat of uh sexual misconduct allegation that he uses.

Josh: 51:36

So it's. It's fairly illegal, but he, he's emulating ricky fitz, correct, correct? He saw ricky fitz tell the guy to fuck off and he wanted no more than to have that superpower.

Chris: 51:47

Yeah fuck off, and he took that superpower and pay me and pay me, and pay me. Yeah, he even told the guy in, I guess the guy in hr, whatever that was telling, that was telling me he was fired. He was even like threatening to say that he's sexually exactly, exactly.

Josh: 52:03

He's like. Dude was like what I'll say, that you offered sexual favors to keep my job.

Chris: 52:08

I was like what, where does that?

Josh: 52:09

even go. No, no, no, no, no, he said. He said you're a sick man, because he knew it.

Chris: 52:16

He knew it was gonna work. He knew it, he knew it, he knew it. That was well played by lester, what he wanted to say was well played, Lester.

Chris: 52:28

So Lester got essentially everything he wanted and he had to go home and tell his wife and over dinner she throws another fit oh, I'm going to have to pay all the bills. And I'm going to assume that Lester was actually helping pay bills. I don't know where she got the thing of she's going to have to pay all the bills because he got fired. I would assume that he told her he's still getting a paycheck.

Josh: 52:55

He didn't care, it's the details, and that wasn't it for him. Also, he had said like I had supported you for all those years.

Chris: 53:01

Yeah, he did so why couldn't?

Josh: 53:03

what would be so wrong with supporting me while I find myself out?

Chris: 53:10

He did. Yeah, he did so. Why couldn't? What? What would be so wrong with supporting me while I find myself out? He did, but he didn't. He didn't give up that he had this, this, this dough. It seemed like she didn't care about that. Neither.

Josh: 53:13

It's like fuck what you did for me back in the day, didn't? I don't want to pay all the bills that didn't matter. It didn't matter at all. It was a fledgling real estate career at best right, right.

Chris: 53:23

So, uh, carolyn goes out to lunch with Buddy and finds out he's getting a divorce, he's going through his thing. He has this speech to her about success and you know, success should be in the forefront of your life, not necessarily a relationship and stuff like that and she feels the same way. She feels the same way Like she's driven for success in the real estate genre and the person she's with is not only not successful, but he doesn't even have a drive to be successful and that bothers her. But at the same time, while she's having lunch with Buddy, she sees the man she wished her husband was. She wishes Lester was him. The image, the image, the image. And Buddy plays on that and that's where they end up in the motel and he pretty much takes her down Predator praying.

Chris: 54:15

Super easy. I mean, a motel in 99 probably costs like 25 bucks. She's just so lonely.

Josh: 54:22

And, let's face it, we get an insight that Buddy's not having the picture perfect life that he wants and he says as much. But he says my image, the car I drive, the suit I wear, and she goes, that's all that matters, because she's a superficial person.

Chris: 54:38

It just further, just drilled home something that she was already feeling Like the image. We have to look this way, look this way Down to cutting the rose petals. And I think in the beginning Lester said something about her shoes matched the shears in her hand and stuff like that Like she was. She had to be so perfect, perfectly looking to everybody and she believes it.

Josh: 54:59

She believes that if you get image down, that the content comes, everything binded, and that was the importance of of I will sell this house today. Yeah, she thought if she got the image right then the substance would follow, and it didn't. That's not the way life works that's never how they're not spiritually sound, but they're. They're not clean on the inside right and just the image is not gonna cut it, right.

Chris: 55:23

I agree, I agree. So Lester now applies for a job at a fast food place and pretty much going back to what you were saying, like reversing back to being a teenager.

Josh: 55:35

Psychologically reverting back to being a teenager the best time in his life.

Chris: 55:38

Yeah, going back to being a teenager and he's highly overqualified. To where people are looking at it, like we don't have a manager's position, sir. He's like I don't want to be a manager, I want as little responsibility as possible. I feel that I want as little responsibility as possible, and I can say that by knowing that in my past, having jobs to where I could have been a lead or a supervisor- and I would literally say I don't want that responsibility.

Chris: 56:06

I don't want it. It's too much. You got me in here with these idiots and you want me to control these idiots. I work with Too much responsibility, not my job. Not my job. Let me do my one thing for eight hours and go home.

Josh: 56:19

So I understand that there's a lot to be said about that, absolutely.

Chris: 56:21

I understand that point of view too. We also get to the point where Jane and Rick they start a full relationship. He starts to explain to her his life, his life story. She starts to get more details about why he is the way he is Because, remember, in the beginning she just thought he was a weirdo straight creep weirdo and come to find out he's not really a weirdo. He can explain why he is the way he is in very good detail.

Josh: 56:48

In contrast, he has none of the image, but all of the substance of character. Yes, yes, and if you give it time to breathe, if you communicate, you get to the substance. Yes, he does nothing to fix the image of success. In fact, it behooves him to keep it down low.

Chris: 57:03

He looks like a.

Josh: 57:03

Mormon. He's got a pressed white shirt but he's selling weed.

Chris: 57:08

Angela said he dressed like a Bible seller.

Josh: 57:10

Exactly. Why doesn't he dress like?

Chris: 57:12

a Bible seller.

Josh: 57:13

It's the opposite of Billy the Real Estate King.

Chris: 57:17

Right, right, total opposite. And it's kind of the opposite of his dad too. He doesn't really have any characteristics that his dad has at all. No, which is weird, because normally you know only child father, a daddy's boy. He would have some type of. He has none. He's totally opposite of his father.

Josh: 57:36

So that if I were to ask for any backstory, it would be how does someone in the crucible of violence, like a household of extreme violence, know that that's wrong, you know? And how does he discover that he wants to be nothing like his dad? He wants to be the opposite of his dad and at the same time, negotiate that he placates his dad. He does everything to make sure his dad thinks he's acting within the defined lines of what he's supposed to be doing. Yeah, and we don't know how he does that. I mean, that's just being super self-referential and a lot of people, you know, a lot of people, would succumb to that.

Chris: 58:15

Right. We don't understand how he got to that point, to where he knew how to navigate through that, how to navigate it Dealing with his dad.

Josh: 58:23

Even know that that's not right. His dad is wrong. Right. His dad is a piece of shit. He's a nazi. He hates homosexuals. He's a. He's a bad guy. His wife has been beaten to living death.

Chris: 58:37

Yeah she's a zombie. She's a zombie, she's a zombie. I felt really sad for his mother. His mother, uh, will probably, you know, live all of her days exactly like that. She's. There's no escape. That's very sad, that's and it was so sad when he you know we'll get to that part, when he left the house and he said, you know, uh, I wish things could have been better for you mom. Like even he understood, yeah, my mom got screwed in all.

Chris: 59:01

Yes yes, and he's abandoning her and he's leaving her with this man and it's like that was such a sad moment to watch somebody you love as much as most people love their mothers and just to know that she got the bad hand dealt in life. She got the bad hand and she's going to die this way. It's not going to get better for her. That's very sad. That's why I say this movie the dark undertones is jesus. They're dark overtones good god uh.

Chris: 59:33

So yeah, rick takes uh the next thing. Rick takes uh jane to his home and he shows her the the hitler, china, yeah from the third reich. Yeah, he also shows her the video of the paper, the bag blowing around and he explains the whole energy of the bag and you got to kind of see how his mind works, how he sees that he doesn't see things like everybody else, so most people just a bag going in the wind, it's trash, it's trash. He doesn't see it that way, it's american beauty?

Chris: 1:00:01

he does not see it that way. Like I said, I've had one friend that was the same way. They would see a tree of clouds and they would just see something. That way, like I said, I've had one friend that was the same way. They would see a tree of clouds and they would just see something that none of us saw. And now that I'm older and I'm getting even more into my spiritual wellbeing, it's like maybe they did see something. There's Buddhism in that.

Josh: 1:00:20

Alan Ball, a practitioner of Buddhism. Oh see, I didn't know that. Okay, okay, and there's Buddhism in that. The ephemeral, the the only here for a blip in time.

Chris: 1:00:29

Yeah, I think that was huge buddhistic energy coming through alan maybe he saw something, that bag going around that just people wouldn't see. Yeah, you know, I mean you never know. So now we get to the point to where rick's father beats the hell out of him. You know, frank beats rick badly, uh, because he somehow he found that rick got into the cabinet and showed to hitler china, to the girlfriend, and, um, he gives him this, he beats him.

Chris: 1:01:01

Rick calms him down by knowing how to negotiate the only way rick knows how to do is how to negotiate him down from the anger. And then his Frank gives him this speech about discipline structure. And so now you get in the mind of Frank like, oh, he's not just a military, he's very disciplined, organized, straightforward, left, right, left. Like he's one of those guys.

Josh: 1:01:25

He wouldn't know how to exist without being told what the next step was.

Chris: 1:01:28

There you go, there you go. We see society resemble that in situations like prison. Some guys are in prison so long they can't function outside of prison. Somebody has to tell them when to eat, when to shower, when to go exercise. So a lot of times prisoners and this is a real statistic a lot of times people that have been in jail for 30, 40 years, they will commit a crime when they get out to go back, because jail is their home. Society is too fast. The cell phone bullshit they don't understand that Technology. They don't want to deal with that shit. Life is very simple for a lot of people. They don't want to deal with that shit. Life is very simple for a lot of people and Frank is one of those guys. His life is very simple in that house. Yes, I have my wife, who doesn't say anything unless I tell her to say it.

Chris: 1:02:14

She cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner. She sits down and shuts up. My son stays in his room all the time. He doesn't really cause me too much problems, so I can deal with this life. Yep, this much problems, so I can deal with this life. Yep, this life is structured blah, blah, blah, blah blah. But he's trying to pass on that structure to a son who's a free spirit, a free thinker. That shit ain't gonna work with rick. He, I feel like and let me ask you this question do you think that over time rick would have just left the house anyway and went to another state and just left his family? Or do you think it would have taken what it took toward the end of the movie to make him go?

Josh: 1:02:53

Oh, inevitability.

Chris: 1:02:55

He was going to do it anyway, yeah.

Josh: 1:02:56

I mean we're seeing him turn 18. So he's now actually an adult. I think that this was a long time coming for Ricky Fitz. Yeah, I mean, that house looked so miserable. It really did, yeah.

Chris: 1:03:11

Even when Jane walked in and the mother said I'm sorry for the mess. Jane looked around like this fucking house is spotless.

Josh: 1:03:18

What the fuck do you?

Chris: 1:03:19

mean a mess. Yeah, Like that's so weird.

Josh: 1:03:21

Because that's what people say. It's just what people say, because that's what people say. It's just what people say. People say it's just. That is the role and that's the role that they've been given.

Chris: 1:03:27

Yeah, and we, we see it all the time when, when you, when you meet up with somebody and they say hey, you look nice today, you say you look nice too, and they can look like shit.

Josh: 1:03:35

You've just been told what you said.

Chris: 1:03:37

It's what you say you've been told to say you look nice too. They can be wearing pajamas. You look nice too, you know. Yeah, you're right about that.

Chris: 1:03:46

So we see Carolyn going through a phase two. She's clearly having an affair. She's shooting guns, which that wasn't her identity at first, so you can kind of tell like she's something's happening with her too. So I'm glad they showed that like other than just the affair, that excitement that she's been looking for.

Chris: 1:04:08

She's getting it through gunplay, you know, going to the range and stuff like that, and even the guy that works at the gun place like you, getting really good at this, yeah, like yeah, which means she's been there a lot. He knew her by name, which means she goes there a lot. And it's, I guess it's to release, to release some frustration which Buddy Kane told her it would yeah, you should go to the gun range. There's nothing more powerful than shooting a gun. And she took him up on that and she got some freedom in doing that, to the point to where she had her own gun Yep, sat it right there on the seat in the car when she drove. She became a gun-carrying mom, yep, which wasn't her original identity, she was not like that Correct.

Josh: 1:04:51

And I think, you see, because she's not dumb, she's just the victim of this kind of societal abuse, just like Lester Burnham. And you even see her crack a little bit, remember, when he's at home and he's playing with the RC car and they have this tender moment. You know she's, she's broken the rules, she's having an affair. She sees Lester, you know, not reacting the way he's supposed to react. Something's, something's changing in her, correct. And they even go so far as to have an intimate moment in which they're on the couch. She gets gripped right back into that conformity when he almost spills the beer on the couch.

Chris: 1:05:31

Their relationship could have changed for the better, had she just went with the flow.

Josh: 1:05:35

Exactly, it's all she had to do. It's just a fucking couch. That's all she had to do, and it would have been a different movie, yeah.

Chris: 1:05:42

It would have been a totally different movie At that point right there.

Josh: 1:05:47

But she couldn't let go. No, she was too tight, she, she needed the control. Yeah, and if she had just let go and lester gave up at that point, yeah, oh, you're fucked. Yeah, there's no, there's no chance of survival you were lost cause.

Chris: 1:06:00

We have the house to ourselves. It's just a fucking couch we have the house to ourselves. We're already in an intimate position. Let's just go with the flow. She could not do it, she almost did Almost, but she got pulled right back in.

Josh: 1:06:13

She started moaning.

Chris: 1:06:14

Her eyes started to close. She tried to get into it and her sickness, and her sickness. Yeah, so it was. And that was another moment where I was like damn, if Carolyn would have just went with the flow, man Lester could have been a happy dude.

Josh: 1:06:28

They could have both been happy. They both could have been happy. They could have both been happy.

Chris: 1:06:31

But you're right, it would have been a different movie then. It would have been a different movie. It would have been a totally different movie had she went with the flow. We get to a point where Rick tells Jane about how he got put in the hospital after his. Also, this brought up the Columbine thing to me, because Rick reminds me of those type of kids. Those kids from the Columbine shootings were suburban kids who came from these type of homes. And Rick says, when he's explaining to her, he got in trouble because he beat a kid almost to death over being angry with his dad. And that's what we're seeing. We've been seeing it for the last 20, 30 years.

Chris: 1:07:15

A lot of school shooters. They have issues with their parents. It's not really the kids. I mean, they blame all the kids getting teased. Kids been getting teased forever. So let's not make that the reason. It's really what's going on inside of the home. Yeah, that's the issue with school shootings and I feel like and I'm glad it didn't turn into that in this instance but I feel like in some other universe Rick would have been a Columbine shooter. Yeah, easily. Yeah, his dad has a fucking weaponry of guns.

Josh: 1:07:42

Yeah.

Chris: 1:07:47

He hates guns? Yeah, he hates his fucking dad yeah, he hates pretty much what's going on in his life. He would have been the typical columbine shooter. Yeah, so I'm. And here's another thing when the columbine happened, was it 1999? Was it 99, if I'm not mistaken it was the exact same year, too real too too real.

Chris: 1:08:04

Too real, that's the first thing that came to my mind. I'm like, oh, his dad's military got guns all over the house. He fights, his dad Repressed, anger, anger. He almost killed a classmate, but really the anger was toward his dad. I'm like that's Columbine all over again. So it just made me go to that point to be like, oh, this is how those kids end up like that.

Josh: 1:08:27

That's got to be on purpose too. And if he didn't learn how to negotiate, you know, like when he goes into super submissive, placating his dad during these moments of extreme violence if he didn't learn how to negotiate like that, because he's a fairly sophisticated and intelligent individual, he would have been the next school shooter. True, Because that's that's what happens.

Chris: 1:08:45

Yeah.

Josh: 1:08:46

And it also leads to the inevitability that he was on his way out. You know he was going to be 18. He had to get out of there.

Chris: 1:08:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was on his way out. He had his little money saved up, he had his connections, like you said, he had connections even to New York. So he had his little network set up. And frank is outside I think he's working on his car, waxing his car. He sees, uh, the interaction between his son and lester and he can't really understand what he's seeing. Yeah, but lester does something that he probably shouldn't have done in front of.

Josh: 1:09:21

frank would go, yeah, like yes you don't know how it looks to a, to a man yes, to see another man say that to his son.

Chris: 1:09:29

So frank obviously took it the wrong way, like what the hell is going on? He's like call me, like weirdly saying it, he's a homophobe yeah he's a homophobe so he immediately goes there.

Chris: 1:09:38

It goes right there. He didn't say anything at the moment about it, but you can tell the wheels start turning like okay, what the hell is going on here? The fuck is going on between my son and this man. And it gets worse because he goes into the room and he sees the tape the tape that his son Rick took of Lester working out naked and he fucking lost it.

Josh: 1:10:04

It's a weird tape to find. It's a weird tape to find. It's a weird tape to find Without any context. A weird tape to find.

Chris: 1:10:12

Why is this man working out naked? Why is my son filming him? It's a very weird tape to find and I think most parents, most fathers, would be like what the fuck is this? You'd have to have a conversation. We're going to have a conversation. I'm not going to beat you like he beat him, but we're definitely going to have a conversation. We're going to have to talk about this. This is not normal behavior.

Josh: 1:10:30

Yeah.

Chris: 1:10:31

Under no circumstances, but it's wrong?

Josh: 1:10:35

Yeah, of course, he just doesn't have the context. He only has his own hatred in which to see this.

Chris: 1:10:40

Yes, yeah, yeah, you're right about that. You're definitely right about that. So Lester, working at the fast food joint, catches Carol, his wife and Buddy making out in the drive-thru. Yeah, yeah, like y'all motherfuckers couldn't do this at a hotel. Like literally, he's kissing on her neck and kissing all over in the drive-thru and gets caught red-handed. Yeah, and Carolyn still didn't want to fess up in the moment. Yeah, she still started lying saying we just came from a business meeting and just try to lie his way through it, not understanding that frank doesn't I mean not frank, but lester really doesn't give a fuck.

Chris: 1:11:17

He doesn't give a shit lester doesn't care at this point he just wants him to know.

Josh: 1:11:22

He knows and he doesn't care. He had a straight face like would you like fries he? Doesn't care, he's so broken.

Chris: 1:11:28

Lester does not care. Yeah, but but it shocked her how much Lester didn't care that was the worst part it's better to be yelled at than to have someone be disappointed in you yes, it shocked her that he was just like straight face, like do you want sauce with that lester? Stop. Yeah, yes, like she almost wanted to say yell at me, please, at least yell at me, but don't talk in a normal work voice.

Chris: 1:11:55

And you saw me with this man, terrifying and even to do. Even he even told to do. He was like you will probably remember my name from here on out. That was a dope line. Like you will not forget me now. You forgot me all them other times we met, but I guarantee you this time you will never forget my face. That was kind of dope, uh. But even buddy. Even buddy was like oh shit, like this might be, this might be the time to call it quits. We're getting caught in the drive-thru of a burger.

Josh: 1:12:24

He's still trying to keep up his image, and it's a bad image.

Chris: 1:12:28

Yeah, even Buddy was like, okay, we gotta Buddy put the brakes on. Buddy had to put the brakes on. We need to slow down. We're getting caught in drive-thrus of burger places. This is getting ridiculous and he was going through his divorce, so he's dealing with whatever he's dealing with and I think he seemed like a smarter man, understanding, like carolyn just going through something she ain't really in love with me.

Chris: 1:12:49

Yeah, she just going through whatever she's going through with her husband and she might see me as a comfort blanket for her feelings right now, but she's not really in love with no you know what I'm saying, so I think that's why it was so easy for him to say maybe we need to, you know, kind of pump our brakes and, uh, she started crying and bawling in the car because I think, um, honestly, she never wanted to take it that far.

Chris: 1:13:13

I don't think she really wanted to ruin her marriage. I think that carolyn is as miserable as her life scene with lester. She didn't want to ruin it that way. I think she would have much rather them just break separate on good terms if they were going to break up, but not like getting caught in the drive-thru of a burger spot. That's the corniest Bad for image.

Josh: 1:13:39

It's just bad man. It's bad for image, it's just bad.

Chris: 1:13:42

I don't feel like internally she was really a horrible person. I feel like their relationship just went astray at a certain point in time she just stopped caring. I don't really think she ever hated lester or hated even her life. I felt like she was the exact same. She felt the exact same way. Lester, yeah, yeah. And they just couldn't once again get back to communication. They never had that communication to say this is how we are both feeling. Let's fix it. Which is most marriages when it ends, you get down to. Why the fuck we sitting with these lawyers, we getting ready to get divorced, why didn't we have a conversation?

Josh: 1:14:22

And you don't even have to be mad. Yeah, it just didn't work out.

Chris: 1:14:30

You a conversation and you don't even have to be mad. Yeah, it just didn't work out. You don't have to be mad, like, why didn't we just have a conversation? Instead of now we got six, seven lawyers and splitting up assets and who gets to keep the dog and dumb shit like that. So I feel like I feel like in another, in another time, another universe.

Chris: 1:14:41

Lester and Carolyn would have been a really good couple had they talked yeah, when it first, when they first started feeling a certain way. 15, 20 years later, it's too late. It's too late at this point. She's checked out, he's checked out. You know he's literally masturbating in the shower as entertainment. That marriage was over, yeah, that marriage was doomed at that point.

Chris: 1:15:04

So we get to the point where Frank basically is assuming that Rick, his son, and Lester they're having a full blown affair. Yeah, and he confronts his son about it and he says something that's that's really. You know, it's kind of fucked up. He said you know, you'd rather have a dead son, basically, than a gay one. Yeah, you'd rather him be dead and not exist and it that hurts rick's feelings. You can see it in his face like I can't believe you. Just, you know, you're my father, you're such a small minded person, yeah, just like. He looked at him like he was less than nothing when he said that, yeah, it was. It was a weird moment, like you're nothing, yeah, you know. Just for you to say something like that, yeah so, and his father literally told him don't come back. Like you leave, don't come back.

Josh: 1:15:49

Ricky feels bad for his father for being so small minded. Yes, yes, but then we find out.

Chris: 1:15:57

Yes, yes, and we will definitely get to that. Rick goes, goes next door to Jane's home and tells her that he asked her would she leave to New York with him and he has forty thousand dollars she saved up three thousand dollars over some years babysitting and stuff like that and she says yes. So that sparks a big argument with her, angela and Rick, because clearly Angela, she's never like Rick. She's always thought he was a weirdo or creep, blah, blah, blah. So they're arguing and at this point in time rick strips angela down and tells her like you're not pretty at all, you think this about yourself, you're actually.

Chris: 1:16:39

Basically, you tell her you're really an ugly person on the inside. You know, outside you might be blind and beautiful, but you're actually a really horrible person. And she feels it so much where it breaks her down. She starts crying and you start to see the vulnerability of Angela, because the whole movie she was just this strong blonde woman who understood her sexual power and stuff. But when Rick checked her she turned into a little girl again. We've seen her true identity, which she's into a little girl again. Yeah, we seen.

Chris: 1:17:06

we seen her true identity, which she's just a teenage girl yeah, yeah, insecure, insecure yeah, all that stuff, but it took for rick to tell her that, for her to actually see it, and he said it so calmly, you know, as rick, as only rick can do. Yeah, said it very calmly, you're not. You're not pretty, you're ugly, like. There's nothing pretty about you. So they have an argument. Frank confronts Lester in the garage Soaking wet, it's a rainy night. Lester lets him in the garage. Lester's thinking he's comforting a man going through whatever he's going through with his son or whatever and stuff and Frank tries to kiss.

Josh: 1:17:48

L lester. He's been a closet homosexual. The whole time he's been closet, he has not been able to be his true self and it has driven him to insanity I'm gonna tell you when I saw that part.

Chris: 1:18:00

I said I didn't fucking see this twist coming at all what I thought was gonna happen? He's gonna beat the shit out of lester. Yeah, that's what I thought he was gonna be like are you sleeping with my son? Blah, blah, blah, boom, boom. And just I thought he was gonna beat him to a pulp no, if not shooting, but I definitely thought it's gonna be a lot of violence. When I saw him try to kiss him and even lester was like yo because he got the whole context wrong.

Josh: 1:18:23

I I'm not that way. What's wrong with?

Chris: 1:18:25

you. Yeah. Yeah, it was weird seeing that, but you know you've heard gay men and women say this all the time, usually people who go super hard homophobic. Those are the ones Because your average person doesn't care.

Josh: 1:18:44

I mean, this is just years and years of having this secret inside of you, and that's what makes this kind of crazy person yeah. And also he's getting rejected for being himself for the first time. Yeah, and so it reinforces that he was wrong, that he is not. You know, he's not healthy, he's not healthy. And that's the breaking point.

Chris: 1:19:03

Yeah, he definitely. It definitely was a breaking point and that's the breaking point?

Josh: 1:19:05

Yeah, he definitely, it definitely was a breaking point and that's the breaking point, literally a breaking point.

Chris: 1:19:09

So Lester catches Angela crying. She hasn't, she hasn't left their house, so he catches her crying. He does another thing stupid he offers a teenager a beer. Yeah, he tries to comfort her and he sees her as just this beautiful, angel, angelic thing.

Josh: 1:19:29

So he sees her, he's built up who she is. Yes, he's bought into the confident young woman who is in control of her sexuality, who knows who she is. Yes, and that's why he's giving her a beer. That's what you would do with a woman, with a woman who knows themselves, right, but this is a child.

Chris: 1:19:49

Right. It's a child who craves this type of attention, needs it. She needs this attention To validate herself. She loves that he's giving her this, that Lester's giving her this attention. So they get into undressing. He's undressing her, her breasts are out and stuff, and she says basically she's a virgin. She's undressing her, her breasts are out and stuff and she says basically she's a virgin, she's a virgin, she's a virgin.

Josh: 1:20:12

She has none of the sexual experience that she's claimed to have had, which was the worst thing that he could want to hear Shatters the image, it just shatters the image. Now he's an old, creepy man taking advantage of a child. He knew it at that moment. He hits him taking advantage of a child.

Chris: 1:20:27

He knew it at that moment and it hits him like a ton of bricks. He knew it at that moment I'm the old creepy dude.

Josh: 1:20:31

It's brilliant, it's great writing, great writing, because the narrative that he has crafted that goes along with what she's putting forth is completely shattered. Yeah, we do it all the time. Yeah, we make up the backstory, we put what we want there and when the stark reality that's not the way it is, it's the same as the military dad who's a repressed homosexual. The narrative is wrong. The narrative is wrong.

Chris: 1:21:00

The image is shattered and she spent the whole entire movie telling people about her sexual adventures, building it up, the whole movie. She's more advanced. Even when she was around Lester she would touch on him and talk softly and sweet and sexually Played those mind games with him. To hear her say she had never done this before was like. Even me watching I'm like. The first time I watched I was like holy shit, this girl duped everybody. It was a great white hype.

Josh: 1:21:28

You fake it till you make it. You fake it till you make it. If that's who she wants to be, she fakes it. She makes up all the stories. We do this on little, small scales throughout our life, but especially as you are a kid. Deciding who you are, who you want to be, what success is, you do it more and you ham it up and and you pretend to be someone who's confident we do see it amongst teenagers more than anything.

Chris: 1:21:51

You see, uh, men and women. You know young boys and girls lying about their sexual adventures oh yeah I just had a three. Their conquest. Yeah, it's like they're dude. You're 14. You have not had a three. Stop fucking lying like we. I've heard those stories when I was a teenager.

Josh: 1:22:10

You hear these wild stories about 14 year old boys having these sexual conquests and any, any adult in their right mind would know this, but an adult who's going through a midlife crisis, who has reverted back to being their teenager, not only is blinded from the fact that this is just a teenager who's trying to uh build themselves up, but wants it to be that way. Yeah, and so it's reinforced. Yeah, it's sickness feeding on sickness. Yeah, only he's in the wrong and she's just being a kid. He's way in the wrong. There's no fucking getting around that. Thank god he sees it thank god he sees it.

Chris: 1:22:47

He went from um. He'd still be in a lot of trouble for undressing a 16 year old yeah, but he wouldn't have raped someone.

Josh: 1:22:54

That's true. He goes from being an uber creep to a rapist pretty quickly.

Chris: 1:23:01

That's true. That is true. They stop. He comforts her, puts a cover over now he treats her like a daughter. He has a moment of clarity. Yeah, she becomes like a daughter to him, treats her like he would his own daughter yeah he sits down at a table and looks at a picture and I love this scene. He's seeing how beautiful his life once was yeah, when it was a young version of him, a young carolyn, and their daughter was a little girl. They were still happy young.

Josh: 1:23:26

Carolyn, and their daughter was a little girl.

Chris: 1:23:27

They were still happy, and he was just like life was beautiful at this time and he gets shot in the back of the head and the worst thing I ain't gonna say the worst thing about it, the thing that made me the saddest about it, was like he was finally figuring it all out, like I think he would have been okay the rest of his life to me would have been a-okay had he survived that gunshot, because it all got clear to him at that moment.

Josh: 1:23:56

Yeah, I think, fuck it. I think he died happy. He was lemmy looking up at the rabbits on the hill and George comes behind him and takes him out, and it didn't Frank, frank, frank, no, I mean in the allegory of Mice and Men, you know, lemmy is looking up at the hill and he's blissfully unaware that George is going to shoot and kill him, and so is Frank. He doesn't know and he's happy he doesn't know and maybe he could build a life, but at least the last year of his life he's lived.

Chris: 1:24:32

He had an actual life. He had an actual life and he died happy and he died happy. But that was a very tender moment, him looking at that picture and seeing how beautiful life once was. And we all have those moments, like I said me, even as a divorcee. Of course life once was, and we all have those moments, like I said me, even as a divorcee. It's like you have those moments where you see those pictures of you and your kids and your young family. You're like that's when life was great and all you crave for is to get back to that.

Josh: 1:24:57

And it was hopeful too, he could have. He could have Maybe he could have. He could have fixed his relationship with his daughter and things could have got better, or things could have been just as completely fucked, and you know what?

Chris: 1:25:11

and he wouldn't have died blissfully unaware that he's being shot in the back of the head. That's true. That's true. Now rick and jane walk into the to the kitchen and see his dead body and a weird thing happens. Rick looks at him a dead body in gleeful, happy amazement and it goes back to what he was telling jane before. It's like he feels like sometimes in death, god smiles at you, yeah, and says hello, yeah. And that's so weird to think about it like that. And I want to say he said hello, yeah to the dead body, yeah, so you can kind of see where his mind was going. Like, there's a lot of of this in society. Certain religions don't see death is a bad thing. It's more or less like you just progress into a different death. It's just a door, it's just, yeah, it's the next room, yeah, it's just. Unfortunately, you know, most of us, especially in america, you know we're sad about it. We just see this horrible thing.

Chris: 1:26:09

But a lot of religions is like yo, it's just a part of life and you have graduated to the next realm of whatever the next realm is. And I think Rick understood that death. In his eyes, death was a beautiful thing, it was not a horrible thing. And when you saw him look at lester it was like, oh, he sees something, yeah, that we don't see. Going back to, he sees what other people doesn't see.

Chris: 1:26:34

In lester's death he starts to narrate his life. You know from beginning to end and how he feels and the love and stuff. And the one thing I gotta got of this was like he loved his wife. He didn't hate her, he loved her. He loved who she was. He didn't love who she became. He felt bad for her, he felt bad for her, but he really loved being a family man. He loved his daughter, he loved his wife and he probably, if he had to do it all over again, he would do things differently, of course, but he's talking about how, just how life played out for him. Yeah, yeah, and it you know it was. It was rough, good times, bad times, but you know how his life just played out in totality. It was great narration at the end.

Chris: 1:27:16

I love how he just narrated us through the end of life. Yeah, yeah, you know. I'm saying he said you know life. Some people talk about having flashes. It isn't flat. He's like no, no, no, everything played out. I saw it all, all the way to the lights went out. Most people don't never think of it like that. Your last seconds or moments playing out like that the one dope thing about this movie might as well get to it it won five Oscars Five.

Josh: 1:27:43

What are the oscars? Best picture, best director. In the year that fight club came out, this was best picture best picture.

Chris: 1:27:51

Slice of okay, sorry, sorry. 72nd academy awards. It won best picture, best director, best actor, best screenplay sam mendez's directorial debut and best cinematography and which it was beautifully shot.

Josh: 1:28:08

It is stunning, it's like an art piece. Stunning, it's like an art piece. The color and the contrast yeah is the best actor. Spacey. Yes, of course should have been. Should have been.

Chris: 1:28:20

Annette benning could have been oh my god, could have been but of course it was spacey, of course, yeah, uh, but yeah, five oscars and it went. It went on to win dozens of awards and other and other academies, uh dozens and we're talking about it.

Josh: 1:28:34

25 years later, we're talking about it 25 years later.

Chris: 1:28:36

so wrapping this all up, scale from one to ten, seven being good, eight being great being excellent, and 10 being a classic, perfect movie, no flaws. What do you give it?

Josh: 1:28:50

I've watched this movie. Well, there's a couple of movies I've watched more. This is a perfect film. This is essential cinema. This is required viewing. It does so much with so little. It is a slice of life movie that asks the viewer to analyze their life and how they want to be happy. It's a philosophical piece and the art is top-notch. It's a classic. You give it a 10? I give it a 10. Okay.

Chris: 1:29:19

I'm going to give it a 9.5. Because I'm going to give it a 9.5 only because and I, and I mentioned it earlier I wish they would have just explained angela's life a little bit more, and even carolyn's uh background minus half a point for lack of character building you know wow but that's that's it, that's all pretty good, just those two characters.

Chris: 1:29:43

I wish I would have known a little bit more about their backgrounds, because I felt like Angela. It would have been interesting to see her home life. Yeah, how was her mother? Is her mother a blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful woman? Yeah, you know what I'm saying. Or does she even have a mother? Is she only raised by a single dad?

Josh: 1:30:04

Yeah, so I would like. The only thing that's weird about this movie is that if you suggest it to someone, it says a lot about you yourself, like hey, you should go and watch American Beauty. And if people starting out who haven't seen it my wife included like what the fuck are we watching? What is this weird shit? And I'm like hold on, hold on, just like buckle up and stay the whole thing because it's not what you think.

Josh: 1:30:32

Yeah, yeah, and I think it's Definitely not what you think you become very vulnerable by saying watch American Beauty, yeah, because it says something about you, yeah, look.

Chris: 1:30:41

I'm a film director, I'm a screenwriter. I don't really give a fuck what nobody thinks. It's a great movie, yeah, very well written, very well shot and directed. I want people to see it because to me, I see it as a piece of art. It's great art. Don't judge it by the. You know the content.

Josh: 1:30:59

It's just art shout out to thomas newman uh, cousin of randy newman did the score. Without the score of this dystopian kind of syncopated marimba thing, I mean this movie doesn't do as well. That music ties together the art in a way that you could just watch it without the talking. You could watch the scenes, you could watch the flowers bloom, you could watch the colors of the red being used throughout the film dealing with cinematography.

Chris: 1:31:29

I even love that shot with uh rick and jane walking down that street in the middle of the street. Brilliant, I'm like that's a great shot, that's a cinematographer's shot right there, yeah, yeah, I'm like you if you don't understand beautiful shots. That's a beautiful shot.

Josh: 1:31:43

Yeah, yeah, it says so much, says a lot, it says so much, the name of the show being the main ingredient.

Chris: 1:31:50

I ask all my guests in your opinion, what was the main ingredient of this movie, the one thing that made you give it a 10,?

Josh: 1:31:58

because you rated it a 10. Opening scene is an unreliable narrator in which we don't know what we're getting ourselves into and that the actual express narrator is talking from beyond. Lester Burnham's dead and he's telling you about it and he invites you on a journey. And I think that sets you up for how does someone tell me, and what do they need to tell me, from the beyond? Yeah, and what's important to this character, to this person who's lived a life? I was pulled in from that and it didn't need to be a murder mystery, it didn't need to be action packed, it was about people. Great story and the story made it and the story came from the beyond. In less than a year I will be dead.

Chris: 1:32:55

Yeah, that was so, dope. It started off like that. That was so because it caught you from the very beginning.

Josh: 1:33:01

Punches you right in the face.

Chris: 1:33:02

I need to watch what happens to make him die in less than a year.

Josh: 1:33:06

And then you're watching him jerk off in the next scene.

Chris: 1:33:10

My main ingredient for it would be the screenplay. I just love it. Very well written. I just think that the writing was perfect. I didn't see any flaws in the writing. Yeah, you could have added certain things. Like I said, you know, show a little bit more, but as far as what was written was perfect, it was nice.

Josh: 1:33:27

So genuine.

Chris: 1:33:28

It was just genuine, that was real people. It was real people.

Josh: 1:33:32

You never thought about acting. Yeah, people weren't acting in front of you, people were living a life.

Chris: 1:33:36

Yeah, a very nuanced real life. Yeah, it was definitely very well written, very well thought out. You see so many movies, uh, especially from the 90s. We had a lot of good movies in the 90s but there were a lot of bad movies that just had. They were hitchy the stories yeah, yeah jump cuts and just not real.

Chris: 1:33:54

But this one, like you said, it felt like a real. We were watching somebody's life play out in front of us, you know. So I really love the screenplay. That was. To me, that's the main ingredient. I can't see this movie being acted by anybody else than the people that were in it, like I can't see anybody playing. Who else is going to play Lester Burnham? Who?

Josh: 1:34:13

else is going to do that. I guess, now that we know he's a certified pedophile, he was the man for the job 25 years later and it's a different story.

Chris: 1:34:29

See the shit I got to deal with when me and josh hooks up. You see this shit. Good talking to you, my brother I always love our talks.

Josh: 1:34:36

I love, uh, talking about film and art with you thank you for the show, man.

Chris: 1:34:40

I definitely appreciate it. Man, we got to do this again 100. Got to pick another movie and do it again. Something we can sink our teeth into, like we did with this one.

Josh: 1:34:47

The movie you and I have talked about the most that I don't know if it's on your list is Falling Down, and I wanted to, in this, say that Falling Down was a movie about society crushing a man from the outside and that man exploded. And American beauty is about society crushing a man in and how that man imploded.

Chris: 1:35:18

That's why I like talking to you. You'll be right here, man, anytime. Be here on the movies.

Chris: 1:35:22

We're here Anytime. Appreciate you once again, my brother. We're going to do it again. We're going to the movies. We're here. Appreciate you once again, my brother. We're going to do it again. We're going to do it again. I want to thank everybody that's been watching. You know we just got it in with American Beauty, my boy, josh England. He came through. We're going to get him back in because I know you guys are going to love this episode. So, once again, my name is Chris Ellis, josh England. This is the Main Ingredient with Chris Ellis, and we'll see you next time, peace.