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Lester: Here I am, jerking off in the shower. This will be the highlight of my day.

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The role of Angela Hayes was offered to Kirsten Dunst, who turned it down. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

American Beauty (1999) - 32 mistakes

Directed by Sam Mendes, starring Annette Bening, Chris Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Mena Suvari, Thora Birch (add more)

Genres: Drama

Mistakes

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Visible crew/equipment: After he gets beaten up by his father, Ricky looks in the mirror. On the left edge you can see a bit of the camera, then it moves away.

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Revealing: In the scene when Ricky's father rushes to his room and punches him, Ricky is bleeding before he is hit.

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Continuity: After Lester throws the pillow, it bounces off the couch and lands in the chair. In the next shot it's gone, but reappears in the following shot.

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Continuity: The interior layout of the Burnham's house does not match the exterior of the house. This is illustrated in the scene in which Jane comes inside after Ricky is taping her for the first time. She walks in the front door and goes directly into the dining room to peer out of one of the two side windows. If the interior of the house matched the exterior, she would not have been able to peer through those windows because they would not have existed. Instead, the garage would be there. (While there may be a window on that side of the dining room that does face out near the garage - extended external views of the house from that side are not plentiful in the film - there are still not two windows which face out in that direction. The garage would block one.)

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Continuity: In the scene where Ricky's dad is driving him to school, if you look closely in the background, they drive by the same houses twice.

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Continuity: When Lester is drinking from the blender in the kitchen, the amount changes the wrong way. First it's half full, then a third full, then half full again.

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Continuity: When Ricky comes home and starts to watch TV with his parents, on close up shots of the TV there are pictures and a vase on top of it, but when they show shots of Ricky and his parents, they mysteriously vanish.

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Continuity: When Lester is talking about the car he's just bought, the beer on the table has its label facing the camera. On the reverse shots, it's still facing the camera. The label doesn't wrap round - later on we see that there's one front label and nothing on the back.

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Continuity: When Caroline is cleaning the house she is trying to sell, she's in the kitchen cleaning the counter tops. The layout is her cleaning the breakfast bar counter and the sink is behind her to the left of her. When she takes a buyer through, the kitchen layout is exactly the opposite. If you look at the breakfast bar counter top, the sink is now on the right side. Also, you'll notice the "wall" to the left of the counter top now is pushed back a little - almost like they didn't align it correctly when they put it in for shooting.

Edit Submitted by Ben's Mom

Correction Edit text Change type Duplicate Add time Add picture Minor X

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Continuity: When Lester is drinking from the blender in the kitchen, the bottles in front of the kitchen window are rearranged in between the shots.

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Continuity: During the night out at the estate agent's party, and back at the house that same night when drinking root beer in the kitchen, Kevin Spacey is wearing a t-shirt under his shirt. After hearing his daughter and friend talking about him working out he goes to the garage, finds his weights and takes his shirt off, but there is now nothing underneath.

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Continuity: When Lester is jogging towards Ricky and his father, you can see the hose on the ground. It first shows the hose stretched out across the lawn, then it shows the hose sort of coiled.

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Continuity: In the kitchen near the end of the film when Angela asks Lester if he's been working out, there is no sweat on his arm in four successive medium shots. When she touches the arm in the close-up, it is glistening wet.

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Visible crew/equipment: In the very beginning of the movie when Lester is in the shower masturbating, you can see the reflection of the camera crew in the shower door as they pan across the shower.

Edit Submitted by Ben's Mom

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Continuity: When Lester returns from a jog after embarking on a fitness spree, it can be seen that the sweat pattern changes on his shirt in the scenes following the jog. They go from long and thick to long and thin to short and thick etc.

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Continuity: At the end, when Carolyn pulls over to the side of the road in the rain, the first shot shows her windshield wipers going, then in the close-up from outside, they are not, then from the inside of the van, they are going again.

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Continuity: In the scene where Lester is telling Carolyn and Janie that he quit his job if you watch Carolyn's drink you see that it changes drastically from shot to shot, between having lots of ice, not that much ice, being quite full, not as full, etc. And she never even takes a sip.

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Continuity: When Carolyn is outside waiting for her family to hop on the car, the position of her hand differs between the front and back shots.

Edit Submitted by Sacha

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Continuity: During the cheerleader routine, the passers-by behind them disappear/are not continuous between shots.

Edit Submitted by Sacha

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Continuity: When Carolyn calls Lester and Jane out whilst honking the horn, the shot changes from her to the house several times. Each time the shot is facing the house the side mirror is flapped in and while facing her it isn't. Additionally, in the same scene when Lester comes out, his briefcase opens and his cellphone falls out toward the car out of reach, when he picks it up again it's right next to him.

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