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Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Blue velvet with a convoluted morality tale
Review: This movie tried to be Blue Velvet in the big city, and it tried to be a morality tale, but it accomplished neither. Kidman's character begins by getting drunk and flirty one night, then high and inexplicably malicious toward her husband the next night. After 9 years of apparently happy marriage, she flirts, then lays out an incoherent, mean-spirited confession of fantasy & lust. This drives her seemingly intelligent and loving husband (a doctor) to explore the seemy sexual underbelly of New York and become involved in things he doesn't understand and which threaten his life. The main characters make one inexplicable move after another, and the answers to many questions are left to the viewer's imagination. I guess that's the "thought provoking" part that reviewers talked about. Problem is... you just spent almost 3 hours and get no payoff - no plotlines tied up and no idea what caused these two to crack. In the end, Cruise's semmingly intelligent doctor is confused and blubbering, and Kidman's character says something that implies depth of character and intelligence. Quite a change from the incoherent pothead lush she began the movie as 48 hours earlier. She must have gotten hold of some St. John's Wort and gingko biloba. I'm all for subtlety and symbolism and stimulation of the imagination, but there has to be a point to it all. maybe if he had found a severed ear on the way to the orgy, and Dennis Hopper was the cab driver......

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Expectations can cause problems
Review: This is a typical Kubrick film, as such it is very complex. You can't comprehend the entire film after seeing it once. Only after seeing it a couple times do the many subtleties click. Essentially, this chronicles the relationship between a married couple and its volatility. The movie is paced slow and builds tension quietly, this is not a Friday night date movie. The atmosphere is incredible, from the dreamy glow to the creepy soundtrack, it all complements the story beautifully. Bottom line: complex, excellent film, marketed poorly, for patient adults only.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very thought provoking...
Review: Stanley Kubrick was a master of cinema as true art. Eyes Wide Shut continues his tradition of careful attention to craft and subtext. While a bit slow at moments, the film is entirely engrossing and impossible to turn off or walk away from. The sequence at the mansion is one of the most visually powerful and haunting I've ever seen. Eyes Wide Shut is a film rife with symbolism dealing with the truth and deception of marriage. The performances by Cruise and Kidman are powerful and effortless. This is a film that requires you to view it from start to finish before drawing any conclusions as to the quality of the script or story. Do yourself a favor and see it. It will really get you thinking.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Eyes Wide Shut
Review: Eyes Wide Shut is a wonderful movie for people who enjoy a good relaxing movie that requires a lot of thought. It provides a lot of questions, but very few--if any--answers. It is best to sit, relax, and let the story develop. If you don't take every scene in, you will miss a lot of what makes it entertaining, thereby rendering it banal. It is a three hour tour. Never-the-less, it is a very good film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: True masterpiece
Review: I can't believe what people are saying about the last movie from gratest moviemaker ever. I also can't believe how it wasn't nominated for any Oscars, like cinematography, music, actor, actress and, most of all, director! Kubrick has aways been ignored by the Academy. Anyway, I saw this movie in the theatre and thought to myself: that's what movies are for! It's entertaining, intelligent, captivating and, above all, artistic. Isn't that what cinema is about? I really recommended...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Lifeless and adolescent
Review: Kubrick treats this film as though he were making it 30 years ago when it might have been innovative, even provocative, but today's EWS is pretentious and almost adolescent in its simplistic approach to sexuality, reality and perception. Never one for subtle revelation, Kubrick employs his usual technique of bludgeoning the viewer over the head with his unenlightening message that insipid people who live unexamined lives don't always know themselves or their lovers as well as they thought. You can tell that Kubrick put a tremendous amount of thought and planning into every moment of this film- he orchestrated the life out of every scene- there is no spontaneity, which is ironic, because it is a cruel and spontaneous moment of personal exposure that starts our dull couple plodding on their tedious journeys of self-discovery. This film probably could have been improved with a credible cast. Cruise and Kidman just don't have the scope and intensity to be convincing as two adults struggling through an emotional ambush. They say the words and go through the motions with all the depth of two children playing house. You do not feel that their characters have learned anything or changed themselves- there is no psychological movement going on that supports the story. Kubrick has done outstanding work in the past and indisputably left his mark on the art of film, but despite some pretty cinematography and interesting music, this bland offering is Kubrick at his pretentious worst

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A patient, quiet film.
Review: A sexy film? No. An exciting film? No. A good film? Definitely. I think that all people can agree that Eyes Wide Shut is not what they were expecting. The biggest mistake is wanting this film to be titillating or erotic. The pace is slow and deliberate, and the majority of the action is Tom Cruise walking. He passes through other peoples lives as an observer,or more aptly, a sleepwalker. He is a man who's foundation has been uprooted, when he learns that his wife has an inner fantasy life he has never been privy to. Shaken by this, he drifts in and out of other's eroticism while never participating. A dreamlike sense of nostalgia pervades the story, and it strongly recalls the bar-sequence in The Shining. A sense of "Is this happening?"

One note: The digital people are obvious and distracting, and it is too bad that American audiences are at the mercy of censors. I realize that the additions were OK'd by Kubrick, but it definitely lessons the impact of the film. I can not help but remember the fig leaves painted over the genitalia of pre-renaissance paintings, and the painstaking efforts it has taken to remove them centuries later.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An incontrovertible masterpiece -- "Caviare to the General"
Review: Kubrick's enigmatic final film stands beyond criticism and far, far above the perceptions and misperceptions of his audience. I remember the controversies caused by "Clockwork Orange" and "Barry Lyndon". Does Kubrick really owe us the linear-narrative, tidily resolved plots we chew up like popcorn from other filmmakers? The answer is emphatically "NO!". Shakespeare's Hamlet said it best: "for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: but it was--as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine--an excellent play". Apologies (or not) to those who find Kubrick "slow" and "boring" -- you must take another look. But hey! If all I filled my head with was MTV pop-candy, a Mozart opera might prove a bit daunting, even slow and boring. EYES WIDE SHUT takes a rare journey into REAL terror -- a soul-shaking nightmare of modern life with all the attendant paranoias, delusions and temptations. Bravos to Cruise-Kidman who easily surpass their earlier work. To Kubrick: I am on my knees in awe and admiration. You've delivered a masterpiece. Thank you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Waste of time
Review: This movie was truly horrible. What a waste of almost three hours

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The Cool Movie That Couldn't
Review: This movie had an thought provoking premise. Imagine you find out your loving wife and mother of your daughter admits her lust for another man. Not only that she also tells you she would have left you for a chance at that man. This film takes into one mans quest at finding absolution for his mind. Sounds like an interesting story right? Wrong! The movie spends unimaginable amounts of time with conversations that should have took seconds. There was a noble attempt to give you those meaningful pauses for dramatic effect. Unfortunately there were to many. As far as skin, there is plenty but most(excluding the orgy) takes place in the first half hour to try to get the average horndog hooked. The MPAA made them alter the only scenes that could have saved this film. The only way I would buy this DVD is if the International version was released. Rent it don't buy.


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