Dear readers, I saw this movie recently and it intrigued me. It interested me. It's one of those movies that stay in your head for a while after you watch it. So I decided to sit down and write a bit about it. I hope you enjoy this. Love, Alex

I: American Outcast

He was dead. My father was dead. I stare at his body, unable to tear my eyes away from the gruesome sight. But in a way, I guess you could find it almost beautiful. You can only find such an image beautiful if you don't think of it as death. But I saw death. A bullet hole in the back of his head. No weapon. My father had been murdered.

I can't breathe and I turn my head away. I try to think of the good times we had. But I can't. I find that so hard to do, when I spent most of my existence hating him and wishing he was dead. But now that's he's dead, I want nothing more then to hold his hand, and cry.

What would we cry about? We'd cry about all those years we've wasted being angry at each other. My father may have been a boring man, but it didn't mean he had boring things to talk about. I'm sure there was good in his words. I'm sure he never meant me any harm.

I find it hard to cry. The tears won't come out. It hasn't settled in my mind that he's dead yet. I still feel like he's really here. Still breathing, ready to jump out of the closet and yell, 'Boo!'. To me, it always seemed like life was work. Living life was work to him. Having a family was work to him.

Was I work to him? Was he work to me? Why couldn't we be like a regular family? Why couldn't I call him 'dad' and he call me 'daughter'? Our lives were never that simple. An unnecessary rebellion went on behind the scenes. I rebelled against having a lame family and he rebelled against being…boring.

Life is boring, unless you change it. You have to change life's routines or else you'll be forced to be in a regular category, like 'Father' or 'Worker'. He completely changed the rules. He ALTERED the rules. And although I feel like I'll hate him forever, I know that he's the only person who has ever changed my life. For good.

Ricky stares at my father, he stares into the eyes of my father. What does he see? He once claimed he could see God through the eyes of death, but that was when he saw a dead bird. This is a human being, someone we both knew. Angela enters the room and she screams when she sees his body. She's not mesmerized, but horrified. She starts to cry and runs up to me.

We both hug. I feel bad for having insulted her, but I know that's in the past. That moment seems so far away now. I find myself unable to tear my eyes away from the body. Dad…I can see you, Dad. Can you see me?