Rating: 
Summary: The worst movie I've ever seen...
Review: This is it. Since my wife is such a Tom Cruise Fan, we decided to give this flick a try. We were greatly disappointed. Tom Cruise wasn't even up to his usual high standards. Cameron Diaz was superb as always, but Penelope Cruz has to be one of the worst actresses to ever walk on the face of the planet. Combine her lack of skill with a lousy story idea about a horribly disfigured man trying to come to terms with his own mortality, and you get this...the worst movie I've ever seen.
Rating: 
Summary: reality vs. made-up perfection
Review: Tom Cruise stars as David, a selfish playboy who has inherited a New York media empire. He even steals his best friend's date Spohia (Penelop Cruz -- she cannot act, just bat her eyes and lisp her lines) at his lavish birthday party because hey, he wants to. He does this in front of Julie (Cameron Diaz, who can act), the blonde model with whom he has sex but is too crass to invite her to the party -- she crashes it instead. He goes home with Sophia for chaste smoochy lovey conversation (yuck.) Julie has followed him and offers him a ride home in her car -- which she purposefully drives over a bridge.From here, the movie takes on a surreal quality, like the vanilla sky in David's favorite Monet painting. Julie has died and David must wear a mask to hide his disfigurement (which isn't that bad, because he is Tom Cruise and they would never really make him look monstrous.) But as time goes on, it turns out that the outcome of the crash is not as straightforward as it seems. WHO died and how? Who is alive and what is real? With the aid of a fatherly psychiatrist, David seeks the answers to these plaguing questions.
Rating:
Summary: great content...but lack of performance and display.
Review: this is a movie you'll either love or hate. if you're for mindless entertainment or blatant sentimentality, this isn't for you. it challenges the mind and it has enough twists and turns to confuse the audience several times. it's a psychotriller, i suppose. there isn't a lot of "events" but just different variations of the same thing in different sets of mind. this isn't like the typical movies that come out every year in hope of winning some oscar, with the same cliches and same materials and content recycled in different package. it reminds me of muholland drive, with the switching in and out of time effect. this isn't a great movie, but i applaud cameron crowe for at least attempting this project. i haven't seen open your eyes, so i can't draw comparisons. if you want something refreshing, this is it. if you like things laid out for you, plain and clear, this might be a bit frustrating.
four stars because well..it could have been done better. i didn't like penelope cruz's acting [or unintelligable accent] nor did i like some of the arrangements cameron crowe made.
Rating: 
Summary: Similiar to The Matrix... without the flashy effects.
Review: The title of this review may be deceiving, but for those who saw something more in The Matrix than just tons of fighting and special effects, you'll really enjoy this movie. The same underlying theme of "what you see is NOT what you get". I generally don't like movies that are more art than entertainment, but this one was a nice surprise. Because of the same "super-twist" ending style of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Others, I don't want to reveal too much for those who haven't seen it and enjoy the shock. A quick warning to those who don't like deep themes, do not attempt to watch this. It is hard to follow at times. If you DID enjoy this movie, I'd also recommend the three listed above as well as Memento.
Rating: 
Summary: could have been.......?
Review: i think this film is a landmark for what hollywood can do to what should in all terms be a landmark film. leave it to hollywood to take a fantastic story, throw an enormous budget at it and still manage to screw things up. visually stunning, yes; a good film, i'd say in spite of everything still pretty good; but the heart of it seems ripped out by dubious choices. first and most aggregious in my mind is bound to cameron crowe's obsession with popular music. in almost famous it all worked, but that was a movie ABOUT music. here the music is beyond intrusive: it rings in at ridiculous moments, drowns out everything that is on screen, seems as though it is only there to force us to feel a certain way and at that something we shouldn't be feeling in concert with where the film is at that point. then there's the end. i don't know why filmmakers these days feel like they have to spell everything out in a series of flashback cuts with voice-overs. take a hint from american psycho and mulholland drive, for instance: films about unsteady grips on reality are more powerful when they create unsteadiness and leave you to determine just what personal and social factors are creating such problems in the film. i almost feel as though "tech support" is an inside joke in hollywood, something producers think is necessary in order to appease what they view as an impatient and insentient fan-base. if not, it certainly works as a nice allegory. other things bother me, too. i hate, for instance, the dichotomies of dream and nightmare, sane and insane, conscious and unconscious-- allow me some grey area to swim in. and the discomfort continues. still, though, i do feel it's worth watching-- gorgeous visually, even a good film. it's just lamentable that it should be great but isn't, and you have to watch it do that to itself.......
(abre los ojos, the spanish original, does better with the filmmaking but lacks the budget to make it as visually engaging as vanilla sky (it takes a lot of dough to clear out times square))
Rating: 
Summary: Originals Are Always Better.
Review: Two weeks before I watched 'Vanilla Sky', I happened to watch the original 'Open your Eyes'. Had I not watched this, I may have liked 'Vanilla Sky' a lot more. I really disliked the way little things had been changed to suit a more mainstream audience, for instance changing Sofia's (Penelope Cruz) job from mime artist to ballet dancer. I felt the remake lost all mysteriousness because of these changes.
I really didn't think the film needed all these 'celebrities' (Tom cruise, Cameron Diaz, Kurt Russell), to help sell the film, cos it's a good story without them.
I also felt that Cameron Diaz was miscast. I usually really like her, however I could not believe that Tom Cruise's shallow character would turn someone so beautiful down. I actually liked her character of Julie (though I don't think I was meant to), cos she seemed so normal compared to the oringinal version, where that character was completely crazy (and no way near as beautiful).
I found 'Vanilla Sky' so much more confusing than 'Open Your Eyes', (which is strange cos the original is foreign!).
Despite all this, I do like the story and the film is not the worst thing I've ever seen. Like I said, had I not seen the original I would probably be singing 'Vanilla Sky's praises. (By the way, it does have a great soundtrack!)
Rating:
Summary: Takes More Than One Viewing to Appreciate....
Review: I have watched this flick about five times, and have to say that with each viewing, I appreciate it more. Like Fincher's 'Fight Club', Hitchcock's 'Vertigo', Singh's 'The Cell' or any of David Lynch's films, it's hard to see it once and pass judgement.
If you like any of the above flicks, this one is worth the time.
This film is trippy, multi-dimensional, and sincerely requires at least three viewings to fully integrate all the little 'hints' that it brings.
I knew, the first time I viewed it, that by opening with the haunting music of Radiohead's 'Everything In It's Right Place', after windy New York overhead cam shots, including the hauntingly dark Dakota building, where John Lennon lived for so long and where he died, that this movie was something to be reckoned with.
Cameron Crowe's use of music in this film is superb, each little bit corresponds with the movement of the plot...for this I truly commend him. As far as plot, it takes, as I say again, a few viewings to really integrate all the characters, their motives and their actions, to really understand what this movie is trying to say. From Julie Gianni's cell phone ring ('life is but a dream') to Tom Cruise's character saying 'living the dream, baby, living the dream', to Jason Lee's character saying 'I'm drunk, and I'm from Ohio!', to Kurt Russell's character mentioning that he's from Ohio...there are so many subtle qualities to the writing that are missed on the first or second viewing...Tom Cruise, who I believe may be a very fine actor, but takes the 'easy way out' with more ordinary, general public pleasing roles, is really incredible in this, much as he was in 'Eyes Wide Shut'...when he takes the chance, he is truly riveting as the character he takes on...really believable in his pain, anger and anguish...
all in all, a very mind-trippy experience and a true visionary filmmaking idea...
kudos to you, all those who made this film, and all those who choose to watch it with an open mind...what will you say about your life to this day? is it life, or is it a dream?
'living the dream, baby, living the dream'
Rating:
Summary: Waste of time Waste of money
Review: this movie was a complete waste of time and money and Tom Cruise was discraced who is usually in good movies that's why I watched it but it was horrible and unfollowable
Rating:
Summary: The Chef prepares a special menu for your delight...
Review: What this movie boils down to is: how much tolerance does the viewer have to open his mind and absorb...how much can you challenge your mind to really understand the essence and the deep meaning of Vanilla Sky. All you have to do is ask Cameron Crowe and he'll tell you to let your mind understand the movie the way you want to. There is no fixed resolution here in Vanilla Sky. But that's what's so extraordinary about it. I don't want to spoil the ending much...but i recommend that you hear the director's commentary after seeing the movie. You'll end up analyzing the movie yourself and talk about it for days and days afterwards! Maybe that's what movie magic is after all...trust me, this is a very good movie experience... what i loved most about this DVD was the sound quality, the soundtrack is outrageous...music by peter gabriel, paul mccartney, REM...etc. what more can you ask for?
Rating:
Summary: I love Tom Cruise but hate this movie!
Review: This movie was one of the worst films I have EVER seen and I never thought I'd see the day that I would say that about a movie with Tom Cruise!!! I watched this film with a friend of mine who also is a HUGE Tom Cruise fan so you can imagine our disappointment when we realized what a bomb this movie was. From the beginning, we realized that even with our eyes glued to the screen we were constantly lost in the ambiguity of the plot. Every few minutes you would just start to think you were catching on to what was REALLY happening and what was fake and then you would be second-guessing yourself a few seconds later by what was happening in the next scene. Oh, and Penelope Cruz did not help the confusion because of her thick accent. I was so busy reading the captions during her scenes that I probably missed something that might have helped me figure out the movie better, though I doubt it. My friend and I got so frustrated with this film that we found ourselves throwing our hands up in frustration and yelling at the movie like it was a football game with referees constantly making bad calls!!! I like movies that make me think but I don't like movies that make me think so much that I can't even make sense of the storyline! Not only do I want my money back for this one, I want the three hours of my life back that I wasted on this movie!!! Save your time and your money on this one! If anyone wants to see a GOOD Tom Cruise movie.........go with the classics like Jerry Maguire, Top Gun, Rain Man, or A Few Good Men. If you want to see a twisted movie with Tom Cruise that makes you think but you can understand it without the frustration as long as you stick with it, go see Magnolia (a GOOD thinking movie!!!).
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