Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Commentary (films not included). Pages: 104. Chapters: The Graduate, American Beauty, Heathers, Blue Velvet, American Graffiti, Apt Pupil, Ordinary People, Donnie Darko, The Truman Show, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Clerks, Revolutionary Road, Edward Scissorhands, A Serious Man, The 'Burbs, The Chumscrubber, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Stepford Wives, Over the Hedge, Grosse Pointe Blank, The Ice Storm, Pleasantville, Far from Heaven, Little Children, The Virgin Suicides, The Brady Bunch Movie, Happiness, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Arlington Road, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Neighbors, Goodbye, Columbus, Coneheads, The Swimmer, The Money Pit, Radiant City, SubUrbia, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Over the Edge, A Hole in One, Avalon, Deficit, Three Men on a Horse, Love Me Not, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, The End of Suburbia, The Adjuster, Judy Berlin, Collaborator, Van Nuys Blvd.. Excerpt: American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). Annette Bening co-stars as Lester's materialistic wife, Carolyn, and Thora Birch plays their insecure daughter, Jane; Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper and Allison Janney also feature. The film has been described by academics as a satire of American middle class notions of beauty and personal satisfaction; analysis has focused on the film's explorations of romantic and paternal love, sexuality, beauty, materialism, self-liberation and redemption. Ball began writing American Beauty as a play in the early 1990s, partly inspired by the media circus around the Amy Fisher trial in 1992. He shelved the play after realizing the story would not work on the stage. After several years as...