Someday These Bones Will Be Worth Saving

American Beauty Revisited

Natasha Vargas-Cooper offers a timely reminder that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about: 

It’s not a tremendous shock, of course, that the Academy would pick a mediocre movie as the Best Picture of the year—this happens all the time. What is downright bewildering is how often American Beauty was identified as instant canon, an unflinching satire of American dysfunction in Clintonian times, and the piercing cultural coda for an angst-filled decade.