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Vanilla Sky

Vanilla Sky

List Price: $9.99
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An interesting fillm, to say the least!
Review: I watched this movie several days ago, and initially I wasn't sure what I wanted to say about this film. Upon some reflection, I wouldn't say it's a bad film. It's a "Sixth Sense" or "The Others" type film, where there are clues as to what's happening; you just don't see it until the ending. Cruise plays a wealthy a charismatic business owner. His "friend" played by Cameron Diaz, doesn't quite realize that he's not in love with her. He meets Penelope Cruz's character and actually starts to fall in love with her. Once Cameron Diaz's character figures this out, she flips and commits vehicular suicide with him in the car.

I don't wish to spoil the film for those who've not seen it yet. What follows after the auto accident is a fascinating yet frightening film. Without realizing it, this film starts off as a drama film and steadily turns into a science fiction movie. It has some very interesting turns to it. Tom Cruise, while not giving his best performance, he does do a very good job with the role. I do agree with some of the other reviewers in that this one will take a couple viewings to fully grasp.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Why must Hollywood bother?
Review: Bizarre and completely unappealing remake of the French film (that also stars Penelope Cruz) about handsome publishing executive Cruise who becomes disfigured in a car crash caused by jealous lover Diaz after he starts seeing a new girl down the street (Cruz). One may find the first twenty minutes of this tasteless black comedy intriguing, but Cruise's decent into hell is just so hollow and bitter that the audience will feel that they have been personally assaulted just as much as him. Visually unexciting with nothing to recommend it what so ever.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Complete torture
Review: This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I paid to see this in the theater and I want my eight dollars back. The story is so confusing that after the first hour, I didn't care what happened anymore and what I don't understand is where are all these good reviews on this website coming from? "Rotten Tomatoes" has dozens of reviews for for the film online and cumilatively, the film scored a 39 out of a possible 100. Thats disasterous for a film made by a major director.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Tech Support!!!!
Review: This film began really well, with a sinister atmosphere, eye-popping panoramic cityscapes and compelling story. What a shame then that what could have been a powerful study of psychosis in the tradition of David Lynch' films, became a pretentious and silly variation of 'Tron'.

Really, by then end of this bad sci-fi/melodrama I didn't care less about Cruise's vein popping, narcissistic character (who is bizarrely prone to sudden fits of bad breakdancing). Kurt Russell's character makes no sense whatsoever, the final scenes are ridiculous, and the 'twist' ending a total copout.

Scores points, however, for a murder scene that features "what if god was one of us".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A true masterpiece, and extremely rare treat... wow!
Review: This is one of the best movies ever made. What impresses me most is how upon each viewing it takes on newer and deeper meaning, and reveals more of its story. I wouldn't have thought that possible... especially having seen some of the films surprises again and again. One of the things that really starts to come out is the shear beauty of the film... its sets, cinematography, and the incredible soundtrack... WOW. I have to say the scene at LE is unbelievable... the glass room, David screaming "tech support" and the Beach Boys Good Vibrations taking on a whole new meaning. Oh my.

Whether or not the end as stated by "tech support" is the real story is debatable as well... there are clues throughout the movie that he is really just asleep, starting from the first line of the film (open your eyes)... but then, just who is he? Is it even a he? Total mind blower, with a gripping lesson.

The real lesson here is about love. Tsk tsk tsk. David (played by Tom Cruise), Julie is right... you are responsible for everything you do... and Sofia is right, it's the little things... you definitely should not have gotten in the car, especially having found love; having finally felt it, even you were blameless for what you had previously done - but not any longer. Was it a dream, or a "lucid Experience"..did any of this happen at all? Watch the film, decide for yourself.

In either case, the films message was real.

This film scores as one of the best I have ever seen, right up there with Brazil and The Matrix. Excellent. Watch it with a friend... you will NEED to talk about this film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome
Review: This in my opinion has got to be one of the best movies ever made. Besides Tom Cruise being one of the best actors in the business, the rest of the cast was great. It suprised me that a lot of people didn't like it. I believe it's because they didn't give it a chance. This movie is the biggest mind screw you could ever see. That is what made it so great. Plot twist after plot twist, fhinally a movie that makes you think. All the people that bring it down should go and watch something more suitable for there intelligence level, like Pocahontis.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A proof - money cann't buy the talant !
Review: At the beginning I thought ... it will get better . In the middle I wanted to turn it off . At the end I thought ... I should've turned it off .
Here is a rich guy , struggling , fighting the board of very bad directors . They are trying to take a few bucks away from him . I was already crying ... What a conflict ! You had a few billions ... now you are going to have a few less??? No food on the table for the kids which you never had ! What a tragedy !?
It fills like to me - a bunch of rich people desided to produse a movie . They paied good money ... they hire other guys to... didn't work ! I gess , money cann't buy everything in this world ... espesially talant ... or LOVE .
Story is too fake , no matrix-II for this guys . Not smart at all . Fake and rich idiot sended us a massage : I have no massage at all !...

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Flashy Imitation of the Real Thing
Review: "Vanilla Sky" is an unremarkable American remake of the excellent Spanish film, "Abre los Ojos" (Open Your Eyes). In each film, the plots are virtually identical. A wealthy, privileged, and handsome young man, David Ames (Tom Cruise) has a girlfriend, Julie (Cameron Diaz) whom he scarcely values and a best friend, Brian (Jason Lee) whom he treats shabbily. During his birthday party, David meets and falls in love with Brian's date, Sophia (Penelope Cruz), and ignoring the potential consequences to his friendship with Brian, he spends an idyllic, platonic, evening with her. Subsequently, however, a series of bizarre events radically disrupt David's life and his sense of confidence, which leads both him and the film's viewers to question what is real and what has actually happened to him.

In the introductory remarks to the DVD, producer and star Tom Cruise describes how impressed he was with "Abre los Ojos", and how after viewing the film he felt as though he had overheard a conversation in which he himself would like to participate. Had Cruise and director Cameron Crowe made any unique contributions to the story then perhaps he could have gotten his wish. Unfortunately with "Vanilla Sky", Cruise hasn't joined the conversation but has reproduced it with more money, more visuals, and hyperbola.

"Vanilla Sky" is in fact a visual movie and it's tempting to argue that perhaps it is a visual interpretation of "Abre los Ojos". (It isn't.) In "Vanilla Sky" many of the clues about David's life are rendered visually and at the end of the film they are explained in purely pictorial terms. This is a sharp departure from "Abre los Ojos" which develops its psychology and dramatic tension through dialog and through very accessible characters. It is easier for us to identify with Cesar (the protagonist in "Abre los Ojos") than with David because we feel that while his lifestyle may differ from most of ours, he is still human in the same way that we are. "Vanilla Sky", by contrast, places its' characters in a realm of privilege beyond our reach by effectively glamorizing them. The protagonist is no longer just a wealthy, privileged youth, he is now the CEO of a company in New York city. His girlfriend is no longer just some woman he picked up, she is now a famous celebrity. It's as though Crowe is shouting, "look, this story is too good to have 'normal' characters, so I'm going to invest them with superstar status. "Abre los Ojos" give us universally recognizable people and "Vanilla Sky" gives us caricatures from Entertainment Tonight, People Magazine, and Vanity Fair. Don't get me wrong, Tom Cruise is hardly a bad actor, but in this film he pretty much plays himself: a handsome, wealthy guy. Despite the film's excessive glamorization of Julie, Cameron Diaz manages to infuse her with genuine human feeling. In an extremely believable moment of rage and vulnerability, the love struck Julie confronts David with the declaration "your body makes promises even when you don't!" This memorable sentence is perhaps this film version's only significant contribution to the story.

While Cruise and Crowe inflate the appearance of their characters, they also manages to suck the wind out of the story's powerful conclusion. Without giving away the conclusion it is safe to say that by the end of the film symbolism and reality collide sharply. The conclusion of "Abre los Ojos" makes a courageous distinction between the two, while "Vanilla Sky" just can't bring itself to do so. Having inflated the appearance of its characters and setting, Cruise can't seem to face the stark implications of the conversation he desperately wanted to be part of. At the end of the film, Cruise and Crowe make a small but very important change to both the plot and to Sophia's character that render their version of the film, a flashy, and sentimental distortion of the real thing.

The philosophical and psychological concepts of this film are fascinating but it is more appropriate to discuss them in my review of "Abre los Ojos".

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Mind-twisting fun
Review: Having not seen the original Spanish film 'Open your Eyes', I cannot be a totally fair judge. That aside, I seem to be with a minority of people who thought that this movie, from the director of "Say Anything", "Almost Famous" and "Jerry Maguire", starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Kurt Russell, was just amazing. I haven't really seen a film like it, and I loved every minute of it. It's very hard to review without giving anything away, but I can't think of a single flaw in the movie. Director Cameron Crowe advises at the beginning of the DVD, "You have to pay close attention, but at the same time let it wash over you." This is a lovely and perplexing and thoroughly enjoyable film.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A great movie, that plays with your mind.
Review: I thought this movie was fantastic! This has got to be one of Tom Cruise's best performances. My only complaint is at some points you can get lost in the story, but it all comes together at the end. It you don't enjoy movies where you have to think in depth about what is going on, this movie may be hard to follow. Other than that, it is very entertaining and is full of surprises.


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