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Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Kubrick's great final masterpiece
Review: In the year of American Beauty this film was blown off by the moviegoing public. A tragedy. Awe-inspiring direction from the maker of all time greats like 2001 and Dr. Strangelove works in syncronization with the team-up performances of Cruise and Kidman. One of the three best films of 99' and Kubrick's best since Barry Lyndon.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Tedious and uninspiring
Review: This was a BAD movie. Not only was it boring, it also gave you no emotional connection to its characters. The main revelation seems to be that, (NEWS FLASH!) women think about sex, too. I was especially saddened that the conclusions the couple reached after their mutual mistakes were that 1) the word "forever" made the wife nervous and 2) they needed to go home right away and ...s. And this in the midst of a crowded department store while taking their young daughter Christmas shopping. Wow! That's romantic! Talk about the love of a lifetime! I'm sorry that Tom and Nicole wasted so much time and effort for so little reward.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A RHAPSODY IN BLUE ( AND IN ORANGE... )
Review: In my opinion, Stanley Kubrick's EYES WIDE SHUT is one of the best movies of the american director if not the best. I simply had to see the DVD two nights in a row because his last effort is so dense that one can not fully appreciate EYES WIDE SHUT's structure after the first viewing.

To present a movie that can be read at several different levels is the mark of a genuine author-director. Just take the time to read a dozen reviews about EYES WIDE SHUT and you will be astonished by the diversity of the reviewers's interpretations. And I think that all these interpretations are equally correct and must be respected. EYES WIDE SHUT is a spark that sets on fire people's imaginations.

Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise and Sydney Pollack are excellent. The production design, as always in Kubrick's movies, is gorgeous and the mask reunion a moment of pure cinema during which Kubrick is meeting Federico Fellini, another poet of the Strangeness.

Please note that I've seen EYES WIDE SHUT on the DVD zone 2 available at Amazon.fr. This version is slightly different from the one found on the DVD zone 1, the orgy scenes being more explicit in the european version. Above average sound and images. Interviews of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Steven Spielberg.

A DVD for your library.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Atmospheric And Effective.
Review: "Eyes Wide Shut" was the last visually rich and complex vision given to us by Stanley Kubrick before his death. I have always much preferred Kubrick's films for the look and composition more than the ideas, from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Full Metal Jacket," it's more the style than story. But here he was actually saying something. "Eyes Wide Shut" explores the dark corners of a relationship, principally of marriage. It exposes the worries lovers have when they deal with trust and faithfulness. Kubrick brilliantly paints an effective and disturbing picture here. The character in the beginning who tries to seduce the Nicole Kidman character at a party reeks with evil poison and Kubrick just shows us the idea, he knows we're smart enough to figure it out. The performances are also superb. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are excellent, which is an achievement because as a married couple, this must have been a difficult movie at times because of the feelings and emotions it raises. "Eyes Wide Shut" is a fitting finale for Kubrick. The orgy sequence is brilliant because it is not meant to turn you on, it's creepy, darkly atmospheric and Dantenean. I only wish a better ending had been filmed. It just resolves too quickly and simply with a little naughty word. Still, this is a good movie, dark, but sharp and intelligent and very complex. I was surprised because Kubrick, as I said, is more about style. He usually doesn't present philosophical genius mingled with brilliant visuales like Oliver Stone. But here there is something that speaks into the hearts of relationships. It shows why Kubrick is one of the lasting giants of filmmaking.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A "dreamy" movie that puts you to sleep
Review: The film struck me as though I were watching it after having had as much champagne as Nicole Kidman had at the party at the outset. A slow, miserably trying movie which wants to be something more than it actually is. It did not intrigue me at all, and I felt it that it was something Stanley Kubrick had shot if he were smoking hashish in astonishing quantities. The New York locations were artificially unconvincing, Tom Cruise's performance was adequately lukewarm-like most of his prioir performances, in this viewer's opinion. The story was at best, uninteresting, and, as you can surmise, I felt that this was an instantly forgettable film unworthy of even a second viewing because I found it to be inordinately boring. The only highlight for me was seeing Nicole Kidman's tantalizingly luscious nipples.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nothing less than I would expect from Kubrick..rest his soul
Review: Funny. Some people are obsessed with the sexuality in the film. I thought the most sexual item was when the charmer was trying to seduce Alice (Nicole Kidman) toward the beginning.

Then I have a relative who found it unadulterated smut, nothing socially redeeming (Wasn't that the expression used to rationalize porn years ago?) and I know a Catholic canon lawyer who thought it was "unrealistic, but a good film."

I wasn't impressed with Tom Cruise's acting until "A Few Good Men," wherein, I understand, Nicholson gave him some (valuable!) tips. In this film, he not only acted well, but his interactions with Kidman, his real-life wife, were stellar! They were a caricature of any marital relationship, assumptions, anxieties--"lack of communication"--especially while under the influence of the evil weed.

The others too acted phenomenally. Syndey Pollack should have gotten an Oscar. Even the cassanova after Alice was great at being an obnoxious Don Juan. He made me uncomfortable, and that takes a good actor. (For the other actors and actresses who were as good, forgive me for forgetting your names. You were good too!)

For those who haven't read of Kubrick's intent, the character in the novella on which the film is based was "very Jewish." Stanley apparently avoided that meticulously, instead choosing a consummate WASP--Cruise--to play that part. At that he succeeded.

Oh, and I think some of Stanley's fantasies came out in the film too. Call it "director's prerogative." That's what art is all about.

I picked up the soundtrack before seeing the film. I hear the Ligeti minimalism, themes that even I could play, and they echo; I cannot help but remember them (...as the soundtrack plays next to me here...).

Like "2001: A Space Odyssey," one asks at the end, "What really happened? Was the 'orgy' real? Was the death of the hooker a murder, or was the whole scene at the orgy staged? What was going on with the tailor and his young daughter? How much of that was the lead's fantasy, or perversion, and how much was real?" I've seen the film several times now and still ask those questions and more. Thank you, Stanley. We'll miss you.

As for the interviews with Cruise, Kidman, and Spielberg at the end, they're a little sentimental, but reminisce Stanley who obviously had a profound effect on at least those who acted in the film.

Those who haven't seen it, watch the film and enjoy it. Don't get hung up on the sex. That's not the point...I don't think.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Interesting idea - disappointing execution
Review: I was interested enough to rent this on DVD. The one good thing I'd say about the movie is DVD is the medium for this. There are some good scenes, well shot, well lit, that come across more powerfully on DVD. That and you can zip right to the parts where Nicole Kidman is nude (if you like).

Story

This has a semblance of a story about a doctor who is drawn into a web of betrayal through his wife. Okay, it's not that interesting. The motivations for the characters are odd, some of the premises while credible are uninteresting (big orgy in mansion, whoo!). But it's VERY uninspired. It's as if Kubrick has slept through what's been going on in cinema for the past 30 years and thinks this is a "cutting edge" script. It's not. It's tamer than "American Beauty" and far less original.

Acting

I'm sure Tom Cruise is a nice guy and he does have some fine accomplishments in his career, but this movie is not one of them. He always seems - "earnest". And that's about it. This may be the director's choice (a bad one), but so be it. Ms. Kidman is a little more interesting, yes even clothed. That may also be because we see less of her character on screen. But the performances are extremely unremarkable. Not bad, but flat and lukewarm like a glass of cola that's been sitting out for a day or so.

Pacing

With a story that is neglibly coherent and uniteresting characters, the movie plods along - attempting to dazzle (damn, everything sure is lit up in that sensual orange glow, what you couldn't afford more than one color gel?) and attempting to shock (ooh, sinister disappearances, and that mean man pimping his daughter). Towards the end of the movie, I just skipped ahead, hoping something would happen, some justifying moment. It didn't. And yes, I do watch slower-paced, serious movies from time to time. This one simply didn't earn the commitment required to watch it.

The Rating

This is not the Worst Movie you'll ever see. A reasonable rating would be a 2. However, given how hyped it has been, it needs the deflating. Kubrick brought a lot to the cinema and movie goers owe him their gratitude for his skills and creativity. Just not for this movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Pretty boring and ridiculous!
Review: I hated this movie and am only giving it 2 stars because Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman acted well.

The problem is it is poorly written and too far out there even for me (and I like unusual, artistic flicks)

I don't want to give away the plot - oh wait, there isn't one!

I guess the main reason I hated it was it was too long, too hard to follow, and just sickening.

A man tries to prostitute his pre-teen daughter, and that is just one of the disturbing things in the movie.

I'm pretty open-minded, but they went just a little too far.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: HOW FANTASIES AND REALITY WORK IN OUR MIND
Review: I think this film is very good, because in relationships between man and women exists many times insecurity, jelousy, and sometimes our marriage, or any kind of relationship is destroy by fantasies. The message from my point of view of this film is to learn that there are realities that look as fantasies because they are incredible, and they are fantasies (THAT THEY DONT EVEN EXIST) that we look at them as REALITIES. But they are realities only in our MIND. Sometimes when we are disturb we start to confuse reality with fantasy with our OWN IMAGINATION.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Dreadful !
Review: This is, by far, one of the most boring movies I have ever seen. Halfway through the movie, my friend had to exclaim "What is happening with this movie?" I said maybe we can wait for another 15 minutes to see if Kubrick had enough heart to entertain. Well, we were wrong. Maybe orgies are his fantasies so he made it as a complex movie to fool anyone who is stupid enough to believe this is a form of art.

Tom Cruise is good. Nicole is gorgeous but her acting .....! To summarize my review, everything.... in this movie !


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