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Eyes Wide Shut

Eyes Wide Shut

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Did you actually fall for this?
Review: Eyes closed. This is a wierd movie. The sexuality in it is not sexy, it is wierd. The ending is utterly unsatisfactory. I'm not a Stanley Kubrick fan. I think he is pretty bad. The actors talk too slow. It's all part of the pseudo wierdness that is going on in this inferior movie. They built us a complicated structure, and I'm standing on the sidelines pointing out that the emperor has no clothes on, and his underwear is funny looking. And what is that stupid ending anyway? And does the Tom Cruise character have a mind? Or is he a suit of clothes with a balloon inside, being led around by the nose by every other character in the movie? Would it be too much to ask to have Nicole Kidman's character have her head screwed on straight instead of being whatever the hell she is here? This flick was made in Jonathan Swift's Laputa, land in the sky. Hey - let's get down to earth a little. A little reality please, in the characters, their reactions, something?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy this DVD
Review: this is a great film. view it more than once. like spielberg said, kubrick's films grow on you. the special features/interviews are worth the purchase of the DVD.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for everybody
Review: Well, I'll throw my 2 cents on this as well. If you are looking for a movie with a plot, erotic sex scenes, or something that requires an attention span, you will be one of the 1 star reviewers of this after viewing it. It is a movie for the patient and the analytic. The storyline and dialogue seem rather tossed in, as they serve the purpose of the scene more than the only-reason-you-go-to-a-movie plot. Which is why this loses so many people. The plot is not what is interesting about this film (except the Black Mass/hitherto referred to as the orgy scene, which interested me greatly from being a Robert Anton Wilson fan, but that is another story). Kubrick liked to play with what a movie is, and never has it been more obvious than in this film, and certainly why so many hate it. Because it is not as accessable as films like the Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Dr. Strangelove (to name a few), this movie is often viewed as such a disappointment. Personally, a movie that sticks with me as long as this one becomes one of my favorite films. Sure...I thought Tom and Nicole were not doing as good of an acting job as they normally do, which is a pity. It seemed like they were a good decision from a casting point of view, because of their public images. Sadly, I don't think they were very good. So, if you like to think and analyze, watch the movie, but if you just want to see some celebs in the buff, do a lot of fast-forwarding.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exciting, exciting, exciting
Review: What a movie!!!! What can I say!!! Thrills, chills and spills. Tom Cruise, when he rides that motorbike...it makes my legs weak! Rent this, buy it, steal it....whatever...just see it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: All About Secrecy
Review: I am glad I waited. There was a time in my life when I would have worried most about who would be willing to see a movie like this in a theater with me, particularly when I had a wife who wouldn't unless it was my birthday or something. But now I have had the opportunity to obtain my own copy of the video and view this movie in the privacy of my own room. To a certain extent, my reviews tend to rage at the world outside my own four walls, and I am willing to admit it. Seeing movies in a theater, I am too likely to take revenge on the rest of the audience by inserting my own crass laugh (the stoned laughter near the beginning might have set me off) when a song like "Kick in the Head" would provide a soundtrack which was more to my liking. Speaking of soundtracks, toward the end of the movie, the theme is just two notes, alternating back and forth in a way that I might be able to play on the piano if I knew what the notes were. Having the videotape and a keyboard, I may be able to figure out how someday. (When that happens, it should be obvious to everyone that I was the glutton for whom this particular punishment was prepared.) At this point, I am more interested in seeing the movie. Allow me to say nothing about Cruise, Kidman, Kubrick, or dreams. If this movie doesn't make sense as entertainment, try looking for something a bit more weird, like some significance, as a philosopher might explore themes in Voltaire's "Candide." The story told by Eyes Wide Shut starts with a social party scene, in which the limits of social norms are questioned. After the party, Dr. Bill and his wife share a joint, a sure sign for me that the theme is shifting to feelings which society would like to outlaw, has probably already outlawed, but which will be treated in a way that usually sets up outlaws to have the kind of popularity that has been achieved in modern entertainment. The sexual elements in this movie were mostly imaginary, in an obsessive and negative way. Although the fantasies were suggested by the comments of Dr. Bill's wife after her inhibitions had been released by whatever she put in the joint, her curiousity about what a doctor and patient could possibly be thinking when a doctor examines a beautiful woman cut to the heart of the meaning of sanity, propriety, and whether Dr. Bill might ever be in danger of getting into any trouble for a lack of professionalism. In my own youth, I tried to develop more of an interest in what Richard Nixon might consider his kind of greatness than in sex. If Dr. Bill shows any signs of having some problems, as so many viewers did, it might be helpful for others to think of this show as an attempt to explain Tricky Dick and me to the rest of the world. Does that help?

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Very nice picture
Review: I was amazed by the beutiful colors and lightning in this dvd. It is ashame it is only in 4:3 full screen format. Good thriller with a lot of beautiful girls in it. I found the ending a little sudden and strange.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: So boring.....
Review: There just 3 words: TOO MUCH BORING. Perhaps, I was waiting other film. I did not like it. The dialogues were extremely long.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Miserable... Boring... Overated.
Review: I want you to know that I admire Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidmans work together. Films such as 'Days of thunder' and 'Far and away', were top notch performances by the two actors. 'Eyes wide shut', was just utter trash. Dont be deceived by the rumours floating around that this is a number 1 hit. The whole movie was a mess and its hard to keep your EYES WIDE OPEN during this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not about sex. Not about dreams. About lies.
Review: Bill is a weak personality who tells lies. His first lie, an innocuous little lie of omission, is when he doesn't tell his wife the whole truth of what happened at the party. The lie seems perfectually reasonable to him - he's protecting his rich, powerful friend (which he promised to do) and anyway, why does Alice need to know? And how easily, how naturally, he tells it. Nevertheless, that little lie constitutes an act of aggression against Alice, soon to be followed by other more flagrant and serious deceptions. Ironically, he accuses her of aggression, albeit brought on by the pot. But Bill knows that he himself just lied. And then, outrageously, he says he would never lie to her! Which is more aggressive - her confrontation or his lying? But beyond that--why lie to her to protect Victor? Which relationship is more important to Bill? He chooses protect Victor at that early moment because it reinforces his identity as a professional confidante, a man-in-the-know, an authority, a doctor.

He just loves being a doctor, doesn't he? The trappings of power, the sense of belonging to an elite, the mystique, the privilege, the ritualistic incantations of secret knowledge, the mask of professional indifference as he examines but is not examined--he loves it all. Strolling arm in arm with the young women at the party, he remarks "They are very knowledgeable about all sorts of things". Doctors that is. Ah. A clue. He loves to know. And he's certainly not shy about flashing his identity badge whenever he can. It validates him. He needs it.

The mask. What does a mask do? It hides, yes, but it can also reveal. Bill's mask of professional indifference is a subtle, ongoing type of lie, one that Alice senses and wants to expose, because there's something behind it that she needs to know. What is Alice's post-party confrontation of Bill really about? (To the reader who remarked about color - note the bed) Before the party she asks Bill how she looks. Bill says "You look good. You always look good." Look at her eyes as she follows him -- does that remark satisfy her? No way. It's a dismissal, a shrug, yet also a first step in an escalation.

She wants to know why Bill doesn't get jealous, or show the least sign that he cares that a decadent European was hitting on her, hard. Bill replies that he knows her, she's predictable. She wouldn't do that. Besides, he loves her.

Does he really?

Alice responds to Bill's defensive posturing with a stunning display of sexual power and emotional insight. She teases him about his patients. She wants him to drop the persona. He won't. Her monologue is devastating. Of course we know and have known for a long time that women think about sex too, and cheat. That's beside the point--which is, what's going on at the heart of this relationship? What's the "bad bad thing?"

Alice's confessional fantasy is actually a challenge to Bill. There's a fantastic amount of ambivalence here between both parties, which needs resolution. In fact, Bill's ambivalence towards all women, especially Alice, is great. He dismisses them, he needs them. A dead patient's daughter confesses love - he's cold, retreating. Like most of us, when faced with someone else's need and desire, Bill is impervious. His own need is what counts to him. Like Ivan Ilyich, he plays his role. Marion is shocked by his formulaic answers to her announcements. If, on the other hand, Marion had mirrored his inner state, been a bit cooler, more sexual, crueler, with a knowing smile and a glint of perversity and secrecy, perhaps she could have had him. As it is, Bill won't jeopardize his doctor role with such an obvious, needy woman, but he will jeopardize his marriage with a hooker! Incredible.

And yet, interestingly, he calls that apartment back, although he hangs up on the husband. What did Bill want from Marion?

Like Josef K., as the civil war rages in his psyche, Bill makes mistakes at almost every turn. How easily he is swayed by temptation. How weak, how vain he seems. Why not just tell the hooker "no thanks" and move on, like most do? Because it's not just her beauty that brings him to her apartment -- she's average. Rather it's the situation itself that tantalizes: it's the game, the possiblity of intrigue, the pressure of maintaining a double life, the challenge, or even the joy, of the lie.

But he won't cross the line and go all the way. He pays the hooker out of guilt; he wants it both ways! He wants to tests his own limits, yet remain faithful. As in every area of his life, he want to know, but not be known.

The orgy scene with its solemnity, hyper-civilized decadent artifice, masculine control, feminine collusion, ritualistic incantations -- sound familiar? Bill's need to know takes him (and us) to the dark heart of the medical establishment, and maybe not just medicine's. It's an allegory.

Our good doctor is mesmerized, and exposed as a fraud, an impostor (the worst fear of those who perpetually wear masks). He was given a chance to escape, but he asked the wrong questions. It should have been "how do you know?" not "who are you?".

Another has remarked about the setup by Victor, who exacts his revenge for Bill's knowing. Look at how he mounts Bill from behind in the last seconds. Victor[y]?

So much much more. In the last scene, having received an answer from Bill, Alice chooses sexual nihilism, rampant among us. Her declaration of love is suspect. Behind the mask was seething envy, narcissism, paranoia, guilt, lust, lies. One night may not be the whole story, but it can be a moment of truth. With his last words "like a dog", Josef K. embraced the darkness. And now, with eyes opened, what could two dogs in this story still do?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Nice Christmas Tale for Adults
Review: If you're expecting a typical Hollywood picture, this isn't the one for you. It's a Kubrick film. Almost all of Kubrick's movies are masterpieces and this is no exception. This is an excellent film, if you understand what Stanley Kubrik was trying to do. Look at the title! This is a dream, but taking place in reality. Sometimes it seems the film doesn't move fast enough. The slow scene where she (Nicole Kidman) and he (Tom Cruise) are in the bedroom smoking hashish is one of the most incredible jobs of acting I've ever seen. And listen to the soundtrack--it's great! I believe that this is by far the best movie Stanley Kubrick ever did and possibly (why not?) the greatest movie ever made.


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