Three Kings (1999)

The fall of 1999 was a big turning point in my life. It was the start of my sophomore year of high school and I had just joined an after school arts program that would eventually take over the rest of my high school experience. It was a transitional phase between one group of friends and another. During this brief window of time I read two very formative books (Breakfast of Champions and The Catcher In the Rye), discovered albums like Weezer’s Pinkerton and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy and saw lots of really good movies. I particularly remember watching Fight Club the night before I took the PSAT and American Beauty immediately afterwards.

In addition to all the other ways my life was changing at the time, 1999 was also the beachhead of my political awareness. I took to progressive politics with the fury of a Catholic convert. I wrote editorial for the school paper questioning the official story of The Kennedy Assassination and a term paper on how Malcolm X was a personal hero! Within a year I would be attending Nader rallies at the Long Beach Arena. As such, Three Kings was a great film to see at this time. David O. Russell crafted the perfect film for my burgeoning political awakening and my already deeply entrenched love of cinema. This movie was funny, the filmmaking was admirably showy, the action was intense and the humanist message was overwhelming. When I received my first DVD player as a birthday present the following fall, this and American Beauty were the first two discs I got. Perhaps it's time to upgrade it to Blu-ray...