You're paying way too much for your pot, Lester

American Beauty's reputation has diminished greatly over the years, even if it does have a moment of sublime beauty with the trash bag. Most people bounce off the obviously problematic stuff with a middle aged loser lusting over a teenaged girl, but the thing that always annoyed me the most about this movie is how much Kevin Spacey was paying for his weed.

The late nineties were my peak stoner age, so I was having a good fuckin' time when I saw American Beauty for the first time, after the usual morning sesh with Shane over the back fence. It was totally a vibe movie, and I was into it. 

And then Lester happily pays two grand for a tiny amount of weed , and I could not believe what he was doing. Three hundred for the ounce of regular marijuana seemed legit, but in all my dealings, I never met - or smoked - a single strain of weed that was worth that kind of money. You might as well be buying cocaine if you're going to spend that much.

(It also cracked me up how it was "genetically engineered by the US government", when the best weed growers are old crusty guys named Funk or something who knew more about pot than anything any damn government scientist ever dreamed of.)

I think about this now and then, because pot is still largely illegal in this part of the world and the local constabulary like to put out statements saying they have busted a big cannabis operation and seized millions of dollars in weed, but then you only have to do some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations to realize the cops are full of shit because it turns out they're valuing it at $4000 an ounce, and nobody is ever going to pay that much for an ounce, even if it's personally sourced by the freaky kid next door.

So when I need my American beauty fix in the future, I might just watch the trash bag scene again, and forget about the rest of it. The cost of pot is enough, let alone the yuck of Spacey.