Touching on the tip of an iceberg, AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL takes you to the precipice with its thought provoking commentary on our society and then keeps you hanging on long after you leave the theater...

| Nov 6, 2019

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 18, 2011

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

Probing docu about society's obsession with looks.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 2, 2011

America's obsession with beauty is the subject of filmmaker Darryl Roberts wide-ranging investigative documentary that shows how beauty product manufacturers manipulate the public.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 27, 2009

The film's examination of our beauty-obsessed culture--however familiar--remains unfortunately necessary.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 4, 2009

[Director] Roberts has a point of view, yes, but he also has a curiosity that drives him and the movie. Lucky are those who go along for the ride.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 20, 2008

Perhaps in future exposes Roberts will uncover that ice is cold and furnaces hot.

| Original Score: D | Oct 18, 2008

Despite the occasional flash of insight, and a few semi-shocking factoids, most women are going to find this movie roughly as illuminating as a remedial math class might be for a Nobel-prize winning physicist.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 18, 2008

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2008

trenchant but not mean-spirited and often hilarious. Roberts approaches the subject with an attitude that is genuinely inquisitive, often bemused, and sometimes shocked, but never judgmental, at least not in his interviewing style

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 30, 2008

In the documentary America the Beautiful, Roberts explores the cult of beauty in the United States and mostly succeeds in unmasking the flaws of fetishizing skin-deep beauty.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 29, 2008

Intercutting the costs of American women's chase-after-beauty story (suggesting much waste and futility) with Gerren's personal one never quite blends into an organic whole.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 26, 2008

With so many pointless detours ripping you away, the film feels as lamely digressive as the proverbial one-track guy whose head won't stop turning as each new temptation walks by.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 22, 2008

Unexpectedly witty and affecting.

| Aug 22, 2008

Roberts raises interesting questions, but most of the info is familiar and there's no systematic or comparative perspective to illuminate our culture's obssession with beauty vis-a-vis other wealthy media-saturated countries, which made Sicko a good docu

| Original Score: B- | Aug 16, 2008

America the Beautiful provides plenty of food for thought, and Roberts' passion for the subject shines through.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 8, 2008

Unlike other documentarians who put themselves in front of the camera, Roberts is an affable screen presence.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 8, 2008

We've become safely ensconced in our vacuous timidity, and the only wake up call that's probably going to do any of us any good is one that strikes tragically closer to home.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 8, 2008

Well intentioned but futilely diffuse.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 8, 2008