Eyes Wide Shut

Rating:
Summary: Not a mainstream movie
Review: I have appreciated every film made by Kubrick. Some I loved on first viewing, others took longer to appreciate. Eyes Wide Shut caught me on first viewing. I couldn't stop thinking about this movie for days after seeing it. I felt like my life had become a dream.

Eyes Wide Shut is not for everyone. This film is art, and some will be captivated and others will not. If you aren't looking for a challenging film, this probably will not be to your tastes.

Rating:
Summary: A classic
Review: As with any Kubrick film, the critics are quick to pass judgement on something they don't fully understand. This is probably Kubrick's most intellectual film and an amazing bookend to his career. It will, without a doubt, be regarded as a classic.

To the poster who complained about the use of full-screen on this DVD: That is how Kubrick wanted it. If you own the Kubrick collection, all his films are shown in full-screen rather and widescreen. While I prefer letterbox, I have to respect Kubrick's wishes and enjoy this masterpiece in his format.

Rating:
Summary: Kubrick's Last Bow
Review: Stanely Kubrick was a brillant film director of ideas who composed some of the most philosophically and intellectually challanging movies of the last 45 years. Kubrick helped augment the way movies expressed themselves by showing that motion pictures had the ability to convincingly convey complex moral and philosophical issues by the forum of the moving image. Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut, deals with the interdependant relationship between romantic fullfillment and individual emotional identity. Both function within the minds of the adults that inhabit Eyes Wide Shut's world. Yet every major character in the film from Cruise and Kidman's characters to Pollack's millionare to the female prositutes connect their lack of sexual satisifaction to their failed conceptions of their own lives. Everyone in this film attempt activities that might act like a catalyst and break them free of their devalued state of mind, yet the initial act just proliferates into a pattern and a downward spiral of misunderstanding. The hidden society that is at the heart of this film, deals primarily with the depths those will go to find self-worth and satisfaction in their lives. Others dream of elusive possibilities that might have ruined their lives but plague their fantasies. Sexual dreams, acts, and fanatsies are the irrational kinetic tangent that lures these characters into the bowels of insanity and beyond. Eyes Wide Shut is very mature voyage into humanity's base instincts. It has one of the few sexually mature and insightful naratives in the motion picture history. Though flawed by some aspects, Kubrick last film still shows he knew humanity till the end.I will definitely buy the EWS DVD edtion when it comes out.

Rating:
Summary: SHAME ON WARNER BROTHERS
Review: It is really insulting to American intelligence that the last film by possibly the greatest film director ever could be censored for the sake of what, saving us(?) from about 2 minutes worth of sex? Gee, thanks. Youve made my life more wholesome already. :( Listen Warner Brothers, if anyone wants to watch sex there are plenty of stores that sell that kind of thing. Kubrck didnt make sex films, he made ART films. I am absolutely furious that I, along with other long time Kubrick fans, should be have our intelligence insulted and freedom of choice denied through needless censorship of the full vision of Kubrick's final masterpiece, especially since the rest of the world got to see it! Anyway, soapbox preaching aside, I will say that this film, while excellent, is not for everyone. Many people walked out of the theaters I saw it in, probably because they expected a pornographic film and a story showed up. This film deals with issues of love, lust, and inner-psychosis that we ALL deal with. Its alot to digest, and of you're not a Kubrick fan it may seem just flat out boring as compared to the seemingly endless "cookie-cutter" major studio releases that offer nothing but eye candy. But, after you view this film, THINK about the issues presented to you. Only then will you realize that there's more to this film then meets the eye. And if you walk away from this film having picked up nothing at all, then it is your eyes and your mind that are shut.

Rating:
Summary: masterful
Review: It always amused me when people who saw this film called it 'pointless' or 'stupid,' as though Stanley Kubrick was not more intelligent than the average moviegoer.

Like many other great classics, Eyes Wide Shut, with its many layers of themes and visual symbolism, was completely shunned by people who didn't give it the viewing attention it deserved. This is a film to be studied, not simply watched. Is that a pretentious remark? Potentially, but as I watched this film, which was deliciously slow-paced, my mind was still racing, trying to keep up with what Kubrick was presenting on the screen.

I cannot wait to receive this DVD so that I can provide myself with more attempts to truly understand and appreciate Kubrick's final cinematic vision.

Rating:
Summary: Not all it's cracked up to be...
Review: Now, im usually a very open person. I like to try and enjoy every movie I see. This isn't the case. What we have here is a masterpiece gone terribly wrong. The movies 159 minutes is the first thing to yell about. I was so bored with most of the conversations that I fast foward through the whole movie just about. Themovie has no moral, nothing exciting and, excuse me, there was almost no sex. There was more nude girls than there was sex. Now I can see why this movie was so terribly screwed up, Old Stan must have been messed up. Now I loved 2001 and The Shining, but this is one that I will not be adding to my video collection.

Rating:
Summary: One of last summer's most boring movies !
Review: This movie was one of last summer's most boring movies! It was so slow I actually walked out after the chris issak song! I 'm saying this because all the movie we every get in the area were I live are mainstream only! It sucks not seeing what the indie are showing! Heck we're even lucky if we can find any of those movies to rent/buy on DVD! Watch this movie if like Tom cruise,nicole kidman or the director! otherwise avoid this boring ,dull movie!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, but still Kubrick
Review: I have been a big fan of Stanley Kubrick ever since having been bowled over by "Paths of Glory" in its year of initial theatrical release (it simply clobbered its highly-oscared contemporary war flick "The Bridge on the River Kwai"). Nevertheless, I found "Eyes Wide Shut" to be rather disappointing, probably because I lived for five years as a young bachelor in Manhattan and none of that good stuff ever happened to me. Also, two other observations: --I kept thinking that the scene early in the movie where the lecherous Hungarian count is trying to pick up Nicole Kidman could have been much better played by Arte Johnson & Ruth Buzzi of "Laugh In". --The censorship by interpolated digital figures is more ludicrous than effective; you know what's going on anyway. The effect is like a hot dog vendor getting in the way when Mark McGwire is up. Does anybody think that this annoying interpolation should change the rating of this archetyple NC-17 film? I was eager to buy the DVD until I found that it also is the censored version. Now, no thanks!

Rating:
Summary: Great movie --- who let the digitzers ruin it?
Review: First, this is not a review of _Eyes Wide Shut_, the movie. That shift has had enough ink spilled on it. This is a review of _Eyes Wide Shut_, the DVD. And this review hangs on one question: why is the only aspect ratio available on this disc 1.33:1, also known as Full Screen, aka Standard, aka "Formatted to fit your screen"? This is a travesty! I got into the DVD scene so that I could see the entire frame, the entirety of the director's artistic intent! Now not only is this an example of DVD reneging on the promises it made a few years ago about widescreen availability, this is an insult to one of the greatest directors of the 20th century, so sadly late. To think that Stanley Kubrick's last film is being distributed as an amputated abridgement is to spit on the great man's grave. Because really, _Eyes Wide Shut_ was long on cinematography and short on plot (in my opinion). There is no point in distributing this film with its flanks shaved off! Send your copy back and demand it be reprocessed!

I will stay silent in the face of formatting no longer! We are intelligent film viewers, and we desire the entire frame! How dare you decide what should be seen and not seen?

Rating:
Summary: They never understood him before, so why start now?
Review: It took them twenty years to finally appreciate 2001 or A Clockwork Orange or even Paths of Glory, so no one should be surprised that the critics hated Eyes Wide Shut. It takes about twenty years to fully understand a Kubrick film, possibly because it's filled with so much or possibly because it's so ahead of its time. In twenty years, Eyes Wide Shut will be hailed as a masterpiece. You don't believe me? You think Eyes Wide Shut was just a bad film, his past films were well acknowledged when they came out? Then explain why Kubrick never won the Best Director Oscar, yet he is continually called one of the great filmmakers of the 20th century, along with such greats as Billy Wilder and Steven Spielberg.